Water – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

A transformative experience at the University Scholars Leadership Symposium 2024

Posted on February 17, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The University Scholars Leadership Symposium is an annual event organised by Humanitarian Affairs Asia, dedicated to empowering and inspiring young leaders to develop innovative solutions for pressing global challenges. In 2024, the 12th edition of the event took place at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok, Thailand, from August 6th to 9th. The symposium brought together 500 delegates from 47 countries, and I was honoured to be among them. As a Master’s student in Global Environmental Challenges at the Cabot Institute, I am deeply grateful to the institute for introducing me to this opportunity and enabling me to participate in such an enriching experience.

Attending this prestigious event was both immersive and inspiring. It was a week filled with discussions on global issues and how we, as emerging leaders, can contribute to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each day offered opportunities to attend talks on a wide range of topics, including water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), digital inclusion, female genital mutilation (FGM), elephant conservation, and refugee crises.

What made many of the talks particularly compelling were the speakers themselves—individuals actively working to make positive changes in communities around the world. Their stories, often rooted in personal experiences, were powerful and motivating.

One talk that stood out to me was by Shomy Hasan, a young woman from Bangladesh. After losing her mother to diarrhoea, she became a passionate advocate for WASH issues. “I find it unacceptable that people die from a preventable disease,” she said. Shomy went on to co-found Awareness 360, a non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering young individuals to lead community service projects aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Another inspiring story was shared by Sangduen Lek, who overcame significant obstacles in her remote Thai village to protect maltreated elephants by founding the Save Elephant Foundation. Her perseverance highlights the impact one determined individual can have on wildlife conservation. Similarly, Jack Growden’s story stood out—after donating his laptop to a school, he now leads a digital equity charity that has transformed the lives of over 200,000 students across Asia-Pacific and Australia by providing repurposed computers to schools.

The symposium also included an informative session on the global refugee crisis, delivered by Dunya Khan from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. This talk deepened my understanding of the complex reasons that force people to flee their countries, highlighting the importance of combating prejudice against migrants and refugees.

Inspiring and authentic, Ifrah Ahmed is a survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somalia, and her story even inspired a movie. In her fight against FGM, she emphasised the importance of understanding the cultural context when engaging with communities. Her message was clear: effective communication and partnerships must be built on respect, humility, and honesty.

The breaks between talks offered valuable opportunities to exchange ideas and network with other delegates. It was very interesting to meet students from every continent, each bringing diverse academic backgrounds and perspectives. While some expressed concerns about lacking direct experience in certain areas, I believe every field of study has a role in driving positive change. The diverse skills and knowledge we contribute can help create a more just and sustainable world.

A highlight of the symposium for me was our visit to a refugee camp and school in a community near the border with Myanmar. The refugees we met were Karen people from Myanmar, a country currently embroiled in civil conflict. Interacting with the children, learning about their culture, and playing with them was heartwarming and eye-opening. As an environmental engineer, I was particularly struck by the severe water and sanitation challenges faced by the community—no access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor waste management, all exacerbated by precarious housing conditions. Despite the language barrier, we found ways to communicate and connect, and I was reminded of the striking similarities between this refugee camp and rural communities in Brazil. The struggles may be similar, but so too are the generosity and hospitality of the people.

These are the very issues I study, and seeing them firsthand in the refugee camp reinforced the importance of my work. In settings like these, both children and adults are at heightened risk of diseases due to the lack of basic services. This experience has deepened my commitment to improving the living conditions in deprived communities and inspired me to continue my research on environmental engineering controls to prevent leptospirosis in Brazilian slums. Witnessing how inadequate WASH services directly impact health underscores the urgency of my work, and motivates me to find solutions that can make a tangible difference in similar communities around the world.

This incredible experience reinforced several lessons for me. Even if it sounds cliché, there is hope, and together, we can create a better world. It will never be a cliché until we achieve a society characterised by justice, environmental sustainability, and social and gender equality.

————————–

This blog was written by Ana Maria Silva, an MScR student on the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges. Ana Maria’s research is on leptospirosis transmission in slums in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, developing and evaluating a tool to understand the impact of environmental engineering infrastructure. Ana Maria is supervised by Professor Guy Howard and Dr Rodolfo Bezerra Nobrega.

If you would like to learn more about the MScR in Global Environmental Challenges, please contact the Cabot Institute PGR team on cabot-pgr@bristol.ac.uk.

Peatlands urgently need to be restored for UK to meet emissions targets

Posted on December 3, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The headline goal of the UK’s peatland strategy – a framework published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that sets out how to improve UK peatlands – is simple, yet ambitious. The aim is for 20,000km² (2 million hectares) of UK peatland to be kept in good condition, restored or sustainably managed by 2040.

Yet, with approximately 30,000km² (3 million hectares) of these soggy ecosystems forming a complex mosaic across the UK’s four nations, 80% of it in poor condition, this is a monumental task. Five years after its launch in 2018, the experts behind the IUCN’s UK peatland programme have been reflecting on the progress.

Peat forms where wet and oxygen-limited soil conditions slow the decay of dead vegetation. This builds up over thousands of years leading to thick accumulations of organic matter, or peat. Given the continuing climate emergency, it is imperative that the carbon this contains is kept in the ground and out of the atmosphere where it will contribute to climate change.

However, land use practices over the last century have deeply drained the UK’s peatlands, destroying the waterlogged and oxygen-free conditions that preserve them and releasing the equivalent of 20 million tonnes of CO₂ each year.

Peat restoration is an important nature-based solution that can mitigate climate change and will be an essential part of reaching the UK’s legally binding emissions targets.

By restoring the UK’s peatlands, we avoid further emissions and, in time, convert them back into carbon sinks. Not only that, peatland restoration restores important functions of the ecosystem that help to reduce flood risk, clean water and improve biodiversity.

There are some reasons for optimism. Peat restoration began in the 1990s but has been rapidly accelerating in the last decade, largely focusing on raising water tables to restore low-oxygen conditions.

Around 2,550km² (255,000 hectares) of restoration have been completed. Despite problems in collating reliable data, a preliminary milestone of “1 million hectares in good condition by 2020” has probably been achieved. However, this number includes the best peatlands, which had never been extremely degraded and required little intervention.

Peatlands are finally being recognised in policy. Scotland, England and Wales all now have national peatland strategies that drive restoration of each unique landscape. And progress has been made in legislating against the effect of peat burning, with all burning on deep peat banned in England since 2021 and unlicensed burning on Scottish peatlands set to be implemented from 2025.

The peatlands of Scotland’s Flow Country, the world’s largest and most intact expanse of blanket bog, was recently designated a Unesco world heritage site.

peat cut on peatland, left out to dry — Peat turf cut and left to dry on a wetland in the Scottish Highlands.
DrimaFilm/Shutterstock

The way that peatland landscapes are being managed is advancing too. Paludiculture, a way of farming that allows groundwater to remain near the surface, has been a success in Europe and recent trials have shown promise in the UK.

This wetter farming could produce sustainable construction materials and biofuels with crops like bulrushes or reeds and wetland food crops like cranberry, celery and watercress. It could help convert intensive grasslands to wet meadows that can be grazed by carefully chosen breeds of cows or even water buffalo.

Although not ready to be widely implemented, recent trials suggest that this could be key to UK land management in the future.

Despite all this attention, there has been limited progress towards most key areas of the peatland strategy, with both conservation of the best peatlands and restoration of the others falling well below target levels. Indeed, the UK government’s climate change committee consider progress to be “significantly off-track”.

In this latest report, the IUCN UK peatland team says: “The progress we talk about in our report has been made across the whole of the UK since the 1990s.” Scotland, for example, needs to complete as much restoration in only ten years as they have in the last 30. They have scaled up – just nowhere near enough.

Shortfalls and long-term goals

So why, with all this effort and goodwill, are we still falling short? Funding is a problem.

It is widely accepted that public funding will not deliver the estimated £8-22 billion needed to restore all peatlands, but private financing schemes like carbon credits are in their infancy.

There are still no universally agreed definitions of either “peatland” or “restoration”, so eligibility for the various environmental schemes that allow landowners to fund restoration is confusing and off-putting.

Even where restoration can overcome these limitations, there is no centralised way to record the progress in transforming peatlands and very little capacity for the long-term monitoring needed to show whether particular projects are being successful. So tracking progress is near impossible.

Most frustratingly, despite collectively investing £318 million in peat restoration projects, no government has banned the extraction of peat and the long-promised ban on peat sales for horticulture has not materialised anywhere in the UK.

Although progress has been slow, the capacity and knowledge built over these last five years is huge. There has never been such awareness of a need to protect and restore our peatlands, so many people available with the right skills to do it and so much political will and public or private funding to carry it out.

There are many reasons progress has been slow but, with the right funding and legislation, the progress made in the last five years can be accelerated and two million hectares of healthy UK peat may still be possible by 2040.

Now that the UN’s climate summit, Cop29 in Azerbaijan, is over, it is clearer than ever that almost every peat-containing nation in the world is grappling with the same trade-offs. Just as we are debating how to raise water tables in Somerset without ending hundreds of years of dairy farming, south-east Asian countries struggle to reduce emissions from their vast regions of degraded agricultural peatland while still sustaining populations with enormous requirements for rice.

Keeping peat in wet ground, from Scottish peat bogs to the rice paddies of China, is one of the most cost-effective ways of keeping greenhouse gas emissions down, and we need to preserve and restore as much of it as possible.

—————————–

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Dr Casey Bryce, Senior Lecturer, School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Casey Bryce

How fly fishing strengthens our connection with wildlife and fosters conservation efforts

Posted on August 21, 2024 by adele.hulin

Whether it’s to reset our mental health or simply to take time out from the hurly-burly of work and urban life, many of us head for oceans and rivers to enjoy their restorative capacities.

Encountering wild animals in these blue spaces contributes to the beneficial effects of being in nature and forms the basis of tourist economies the world over.

Yet, how does our presence affect the creatures that call blue spaces home, and how do encounters with wild species change our relationships with natural environments?

River and stones with green trees and shade — The River Lyd, Devon. Avi Shankar

For nearly a decade, we have been researching human interactions with wild trout and salmon in the context of fly fishing. We spent months immersed in river environments both in the UK (the Lyd and Tamar in Devon, and the Usk and Wye in Wales) and North America (the rivers of the Gaspe region, Quebec and Lewisburg, Pennsylvania). We went fishing, observed and interviewed fly fishers, and learned as much as we could about fish behaviour.

In our recent paper, we explain how human interactions with fish can result in three kinds of interspecies encounters that strengthen people’s connections with wildlife and natural environments.

Separated encounters

Most often, wild animals remain indifferent to humans, driven as they are by natural motivations to feed and breed, within environmental habitats that humans do not fully understand.

For instance, Duane, a novice fly fisher we interviewed in Pennsylvania, didn’t know that trout eat aquatic insects: “I didn’t know squat … flies actually come out of the water?”

This lack of understanding of other species often ensures that wild animals remain undisturbed by human presence. Yet the elusiveness of creatures such as trout and salmon can also motivate people to find out more about them.

Slippery encounters

To improve their chances of catching fish, fly fishers learn about fish behaviour, river environments and the life cycles of the insects that fish feed on.

Equipped with this knowledge, fly fishers become better able to locate trout and salmon, and to select and cast a near weightless imitation “fly” designed to mimic a fish’s insect food.

Learning and honing these skills is a lifelong project during which fly fishers become savvy hunters with heightened abilities to sense what is going on in the water. Equally, fish learn too, becoming shy and ready to slip away from human contact.

Sticky encounters

On the rare occasions that fish are hooked, humans and fish enter what we call a “sticky encounter”. The mixed emotions of catching a wild salmon are captured in Annetta’s field notes:

I look down at this beautiful, majestic being. The fish is a fresh, healthy, silver, bright female … I look at her, she looks back at me … She wrangles free. She’s on a mission to spawn in her home river. I stand up but I’m weak in the knees. Full of pride, humility, and guilt.

Over time, these intense experiences of eye-to-eye contact can inspire fly fishers to consider the welfare of fish.

A wild Usk brown trout in a net — Netted: a wild Usk brown trout – most fly fishers now carefully return their catch back into the river. Avi Shankar

Fly fishers now release the majority of the fish they catch. Moreover, one fly fisher we interviewed explained that he has entirely removed the hooks from his flies, declaring: “I don’t want to catch that fish. I caught so many in my life. I know what the feeling is like.”

Stewarding blue spaces

It may seem ironic that fly fishers become passionate about conserving fish and river environments by practising what many people consider to be a cruel sport. Yet, fly fishers have first-hand experience of declining fish numbers.

Some of our interviewees spoke of trout and salmon as “canaries in the coal mine” – a warning sign of how river ecosystems are threatened by pollution, overdevelopment and climate change. In response, organisations such as the Wild Trout Trust and the Atlantic Salmon Trust highlight the necessity for conservation.

With wild populations of animals declining globally, the presence of humans in blue spaces deserves scrutiny. Nevertheless, interspecies encounters can change the relationship between people, fish and rivers from one of human gratification to one of reciprocity, stewardship and care.

—————————————-

This blog is written by Professor Avi Shankar, Professor of Consumer Research at the University of Bristol. It is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Avi Shankar standin in the street — Professor Avi Shankar

To address the growing issue of microplastics in the Great Lakes, we need to curb our consumption

Posted on July 26, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Microplastics in the environment is a growing global problem.
(Shutterstock)

You would be hard-pressed to find a corner of the world free from microplastics, plastic particles measuring less than five millimetres. They contaminate our drinking water, accumulate in the food we eat and have been found in the human body, including in blood, organs, placenta, semen and breast milk.

In April, delegates from across the world came together in Ottawa for the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop a legally binding international treaty on plastic pollution. The meeting offered a unique opportunity to identify strategies for addressing the human and environmental health impacts of plastics, including microplastics.

But do we really know what it would take to mitigate the rising amounts of microplastics in the environment?

In the Great Lakes, plastic pollution along the shorelines poses a major challenge: 86 per cent of litter collected on Great Lakes beaches is either partially or completely composed of plastic. This is worrisome, given the lakes supply 40 million people with drinking water and represent a combined GDP of US$6 trillion. Yet, recent studies show levels of microplastics reaching up to thousands of particles per cubic metre in some areas of the lakes.

CBC News takes a look at the amount of microplastics in the Great Lakes.

Mismanaged plastic waste

Improving waste management alone is unlikely to address microplastic pollution in the Great Lakes. Consider one of the most common pieces of litter on a beach: a 500 ml plastic bottle. If that bottle is not picked up and placed in a landfill or recycled, over the years it will break down into microplastics; the complete disintegration of the bottle into 100 micrometre size particles would produce 25 million microplastics.

Based on reported concentrations of microplastics and water flow rates of the Great Lakes, we can estimate the yearly amounts of plastic that need to be entering the lakes to match the concentrations of microplastics currently observed.

For Lake Superior, this adds up to the same mass of plastic contained in 1,000 bottles. But Lake Superior is the cleanest of the Great Lakes. For Lakes Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario, the corresponding estimates are 3,000, two million, 18,000, and nine million bottles, respectively.

According to the Canadian government’s own estimation, Canadians living in the Great Lakes Basin throw away more than 1.5 million tons of plastic waste each year, equivalent to 64 billion 500 ml bottles. If we include the United States, the total amount of plastic waste in the Great Lakes Basin rises to 21 million tons per year (or 821 billion 500 ml bottles).

For Canada and the U.S., the fraction of mismanaged plastic waste that leaks into the environment because it is not recycled, incinerated or landfilled is estimated to be between four and seven per cent.

According to our calculations, this means that it would take less than 0.001 per cent of the total mass of plastics consumed annually within the Great Lakes Basin to generate the number of microplastics present in the lakes. In other words, just 0.02 per cent of the mismanaged plastic waste already explains the microplastic concentrations in the Great Lakes — the other 99.8 per cent ending up as macro- to micro-sized litter in soils, waterways, ponds, beaches and biota.

plastic rubbish on the ground with driftwood — Plastic garbage on the shore of Lake Erie.
(Shutterstock)

What these calculations imply is that the shedding of even very minor, and arguably unavoidable, microplastic particles over the lifetime of a product can lead to significant accumulations of environmental microplastics, including in areas far removed from their source.

While better plastic waste management can help alleviate microplastics pollution, we should not count on it to bring down the microplastics concentrations in all five Great Lakes.

Curbing pollution

Microplastic pollution comes not only from plastic litter in the environment, but also from plastic that is thrown in the trash bin. Even long-lived plastics, such as those that are used in the construction industry, shed microplastics through natural wear and tear.

Once they enter an ecosystem, microplastics become extremely difficult and expensive to clean up. Recycling is the best option currently available, but even this process has been shown to produce microplastics.

At present, less than 10 per cent of plastic is recycled worldwide. With plastic production predicted to triple by 2060, achieving a fully circular plastic economy — where all plastic produced is recycled without shedding microplastic particles — faces huge economic, social, environmental and technological challenges.

And it would take many years to establish such a system, all while microplastic pollution continues to worsen. If we are serious about reducing microplastics concentrations in the environment, the reasonable course of action would be to start reducing plastic production and consumption now.————————————

This blog is co-written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Lewis Alcott, Lecturer in Geochemistry, University of Bristol; Fereidoun Rezanezhad, Research Associate Professor, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo; Nancy Goucher, Knowledge Mobilization Specialist, University of Waterloo; Philippe Van Cappellen, Professor of Biogeochemistry and Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate in Ecohydrology, University of Waterloo, and Stephanie Slowinski, Research Biogeochemist, University of Waterloo

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

How glacier algae are challenging the way we think about evolution

Posted on June 19, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

People often underestimate tiny beings. But microscopic algal cells not only evolved to thrive in one of the most extreme habitats on Earth – glaciers – but are also shaping them.

With a team of scientists from the UK and Canada, we traced the evolution of purple algae back hundreds of millions of years and our findings challenge a key idea about how evolution works. Though small, these algae are having a dramatic effect on the glaciers they live on.

Glaciers are among the planet’s fastest changing ecosystems. During the summer melt season as liquid water forms on glaciers, blooms of purple algae darken the surface of the ice, accelerating the rate of melt. This fascinating adaptation to glaciers requires microscopic algae to control their growth and photosynthesis. This must be balanced with tolerance of extreme ice melt, temperature and light exposure.

Our study, published in New Phytologist, reveals how and when their adaptations to live in these extreme environments first evolved. We sequenced and analysed genome data of the glacier algae Ancylonema nordenskiöldii. Our results show that the purple colour of glacier algae, which acts like a sunscreen, was generated by new genes involved in pigment production.

This pigment, purpurogallin, protects algal cells from damage of ultraviolet (UV) and visible light. It is also linked with tolerance of low temperatures and desiccation, characteristic features of glacial environments. Our genetic analysis suggests that the evolution of this purple pigment was probably vital for several adaptations in glacier algae.

We also identified new genes that helped increase the algae’s tolerance to UV and visible light, important adaptations for living in a bright, exposed environment. Interestingly these were linked to increased light perception as well as improved mechanisms of repair to sun damage. This work reveals how algae are adapted to live on glaciers in the present day.

Next, we wanted to understand when this adaptation evolved in Earth’s deep history.

The evolution of glacier algae

Earth has experienced many fluctuations of colder and warmer climates. Across thousands and sometimes millions of years, global climates have changed slowly between glacial (cold) to interglacial (warm) periods.

One of the most dramatic cold periods was the Cryogenian, dating back to 720-635 million years ago, when Earth was almost entirely covered in snow and ice. So widespread were these glaciations, they are sometimes referred to by scientists as “Snowball Earth”.

Scientists think that these conditions would have been similar to the glaciers and ice sheets we see on Earth today. So we wondered could this period be the force driving the evolution of glacier algae?

After analysing genetic data and fossilised algae, we estimated that glacier algae evolved around 520-455 million years ago. This suggests that the evolution of glacier algae was not linked to the Snowball Earth environments of the Cryogenian.

As the origin of glacier algae is later than the Cryogenian, a more recent glacial period must have been the driver of glacial adaptations in algae. Scientists think there has continuously been glacial environments on Earth up to 60 million years ago.

We did, however, identify that the common ancestor of glacier algae and land plants evolved around the Cryogenian.

In February 2024, our previous analysis demonstrated that this ancient algae was multicellular. The group containing glacier algae lost the ability to create complex multicellular forms, possibly in response to the extreme environmental pressures of the Cryogenian.

Rather than becoming more complex, we have demonstrated that these algae became simple and persevered to the present day. This is an example of evolution by reducing complexity. It also contradicts the well-established “march of progress” hypothesis, the idea that organisms evolve into increasingly complex versions of their ancestors.

Our work showed that this loss of multicellularity was accompanied by a huge loss of genetic diversity. These lost genes were mainly linked to multicellular development. This is a signature of the evolution of their simple morphology from a more complex ancestor.

Over the last 700 million years, these algae have survived by being tiny, insulated from cold and protected from the Sun. These adaptations prepared them for life on glaciers in the present day.

So specialised is this adaptation, that only a handful of algae have evolved to live on glaciers. This is in contrast to the hundreds of algal species living on snow. Despite this, glacier algae have dramatic effects across vast ice fields when liquid water forms on glacier surfaces. In 2016, on the Greenland ice sheet, algal growth led to an additional 4,400–6,000 million tonnes of runoff.

Understanding these algae helps us appreciate their role in shaping fragile ecosystems.

Our study gives insight into the evolutionary journey of glacier algae from the deep past to the present. As we face a changing climate, understanding these microscopic organisms is key to predicting the future of Earth’s icy environments.

————————–

This blog is written by Dr Alexander Bowles, Postdoctoral research associate, University of Bristol

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

East Africa must prepare for more extreme rainfall during the short rainy season – new study

Posted on March 11, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Rainy season in Kenya

East Africa has recently had an unprecedented series of failed rains. But some rainy seasons are bringing the opposite: huge amounts of rainfall.

In the last few months of 2023, the rainy season known as the “short rains” was much wetter than normal. It brought severe flooding to Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania. In Somalia, more than 2 million people were affected, with over 100 killed and 750,000 displaced from their homes. Tens of thousands of people in northern Kenya lost livestock, farmland and homes.

The very wet short rainy seasons are linked to a climate event known as a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (known as the “IOD”). And climate model projections show an increasing trend of extreme Indian Ocean dipoles.

In a new research paper, we set out to investigate what effect more frequent extreme Indian Ocean Dipole events would have on rainfall in east Africa. We did this using a large number of climate simulations and models.

Our results show that they increase the likelihood of very wet days – therefore making very wet seasons.

This could lead to extreme weather events, even more extreme than the floods of 1997, which led to 10 million people requiring emergency assistance, or those of 2019, when hundreds of thousands were displaced.

We recommend that decision-makers plan for this kind of extreme rainfall, and the resulting devastating floods.

How the Indian Ocean Dipole works

Indian Ocean Dipole events tend to occur in the second half of the year, and can last for months. They have two phases: positive and negative.

Positive events occur when the temperature of the sea surface in the western Indian Ocean is warmer than normal and the temperature in the eastern Indian Ocean is cooler than normal. Put simply, this temperature difference happens when winds move warmer water away from the ocean surface in the eastern region, allowing cooler water to rise.

In the warmer western Indian Ocean, more heated air will rise, along with water vapour. This forms clouds, bringing rain. Meanwhile, the eastern part of the Indian Ocean will be cooler and drier. This is why flooding in east Africa can happen at the same time as bushfires in Australia.

The opposite is true for negative dipole events: drier in the western Indian Ocean and wetter in the east.

Under climate change we’re expecting to see more frequent and more extreme positive dipole events – bigger differences between east and west. This is shown by climate model projections. They are believed to be driven by different paces of warming across the tropical Indian Ocean – with western and northern regions projected to warm faster than eastern parts.

Often heavy rain seasons in east Africa are attributed to El Niño, but recent research has shown that the direct impact of El Niño on east African rainfall is actually relatively modest. El Niño’s principal influence lies in its capacity to bring about positive dipole events. This occurs since El Niño events tend to cool the water in the western Pacific Ocean – around Indonesia – which also helps to cool down the water in the eastern Indian Ocean. These cooler temperatures then help kick-start a positive Indian Ocean Dipole.

Examining unprecedented events

Extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole events are rare in the recent climate record. So to examine their potential impacts on rainfall extremes, we used a large set of climate simulations. The data allowed us to diagnose the sensitivity of rainfall to larger Indian Ocean Dipole events in a statistically robust way.

Our results show that as positive dipole events become more extreme, more wet days during the short rains season can be expected. This effect was found to be largest for the frequency of extremely wet days. Additionally, we found that as the dipole strength increases, the influence on the most extreme days becomes even larger. This means that dipole events which are even slightly “record-breaking” could lead to unprecedented levels of seasonal rainfall.

Ultimately, if positive Indian Ocean Dipole seasons increase in frequency, as predicted, regular seasons of flooding impacts will become a new normal.

One aspect not included in our analysis is the influence of a warmer atmosphere on rainfall extremes. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, allowing for the development of more intense rain storms. This effect could combine with the influence of extreme positive dipoles to bring unprecedented levels of rainfall to the Horn of Africa.

2023 was a year of record-breaking temperatures driven both by El Niño and global warming. We might expect that this warmer air could have intensified rain storms during the season. Indeed, evidence from a recent assessment suggests that climate change-driven warming is highly likely responsible for increased rainfall totals.

Responding to an unprecedented future

Policymakers need to plan for this.

In the long term it is crucial to ensure that any new infrastructure is robust to withstand more frequent and heavier rains, and that government, development and humanitarian actors have the capacity to respond to the challenges.

Better use of technology, such as innovations in disseminating satellite rainfall monitoring via mobile phones, can communicate immediate risk. New frontiers in AI-based weather prediction could improve the ability to anticipate localised rain storms, including initiatives focusing on eastern Africa specifically.

Linking rainfall information with hydrological models designed for dryland environments is also essential. These will help to translate weather forecasts into impact forecasts, such as identifying risks of flash flooding down normally dry channels or bank overflow of key rivers in drylands.

These technological improvements are crucial. But better use of the forecast information we already have can also make a big difference. For instance, initiatives like “forecast-based financing”, pioneered by the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, link forecast triggers to pre-approved financing and predefined action plans, helping communities protect themselves before hazards have even started.

For these endeavours to succeed, there must be dialogue between the science and practitioner communities. The scientific community can work with practitioners to integrate key insights into decisions, while practitioners can help to ensure research efforts target critical needs. With this, we can effectively build resilience to natural hazards and resist the increasing risks of our changing climate.

———————————

This blog is written by David MacLeod, Lecturer in Climate Risk, Cardiff University; Erik W. Kolstad, Research professor, Uni Research; Cabot Institute for the Environment member Katerina Michaelides, Professor of Dryland Hydrology, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, and Michael Singer, Professor of Hydrology and Geomorphology, Cardiff University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

UK peatlands are being destroyed to grow mushrooms, lettuce and houseplants – here’s how to stop it

Posted on February 8, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Peat is a natural carbon sink but is often found in house plants and other retail products, particularly within the food and farming industry.
New Africa/Shutterstock

During the long, solitary days of lockdown, I found solace in raising houseplants. Suddenly stuck at home, I had more time to perfect the watering routine of a fussy Swiss cheese plant, and lovingly train our devil’s ivy to delicately frame the bookcases.

But I started noticing that these plants, sourced online, often arrived in the post with a passport. Most had travelled from all over Europe, with one common tagline: contains peat.

As a peatland scientist, these labels instantly filled me with horror. Hidden Peat, a new campaign launched by The Wildlife Trusts, is now highlighting the presence of peat in all sorts of consumer products, including house plants.

Peatlands, such as bogs and fens, store more carbon than all of the world’s forests combined. They trap this carbon in the ground for centuries, preventing it from being released into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases that would further warm the climate.

Peatlands have multiple environmental benefits. They are havens for wildlife, providing habitat for wetland birds, insects and reptiles. They supply more than 70% of our drinking water and help protect our homes from flooding.

So why on earth is peat being ripped from these vital ecosystems and stuffed inside plant pots?

From sink to source

Despite their importance, peatlands have been systematically drained, farmed, dug up and sold over the last century. In the UK, only 1% of lowland peat remains in its natural state.

Instead of acting as a carbon sink, it has become one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK’s land use sector. When waterlogged peat soils are drained, microbes decompose the plant material within it and that results in the release of greenhouse gases such as methane into the air.

Most of the peat excavated, bagged up and sold in the UK is used as a growing medium for plants. Gardeners have become increasingly aware of this problem. Peat-free alternatives have been gaining popularity and major retailers have been phasing out peat-based bagged compost in recent years.

Indeed, the UK government announced they would ban sales of all peat-based compost by 2024. But this legislation has not yet been written and it seems unlikely it will be enacted before the end of the current parliament.

Even if brought in to law, this ban would only stop the sales of peat-based bagged compost of the type you might pick up in the garden centre. Legislation for commercial growers is not expected until 2030 at the earliest. So the continued decimation of the UK’s peatlands could remain hidden in supply chains long after we stop spreading peat on our gardens.

Hide and seek peat

For consumers, it’s almost impossible to identify products that contain peat or use peat in their production. All large-scale commercial mushroom farming involves peat and it is used for growing most leafy salads. It gives that characteristic peaty aroma to whisky, and, as I found out, is a popular growing medium for potted plants.

But you’d struggle to find a peat-free lettuce in the supermarket. The Hidden Peat campaign asks consumers to call for clear labelling that would enable shoppers to more easily identify peat-containing products. Shoppers are also encouraged to demand transparency from retailers on their commitment to removing peat from their supply chains.

You can ask your local supermarket about how they plan to phase out peat from their produce. Some supermarkets are actively investing in new technologies for peat-free mushroom farming.

Make informed purchases by checking the labels on garden centre potted plants or source plants from peat-free nurseries. The Royal Horticultural Society lists more than 70 UK nurseries dedicated to peat-free growing.

You can write to your MP to support a ban on peat extraction and, crucially, the sale of peat and peat-containing products in the UK. That ensures that peat wouldn’t just get imported from other European countries.

Pilots and progress

The UK government recently announced £3.1m funding for pilot projects to rewet and preserve lowland peat, with peat restoration seen as a cornerstone of net zero ambitions. This campaign calls for further acceleration of peatland restoration across the UK.

As a research of the science behind peatland restoration, I see firsthand the enormous effort involved in this: the installation of dams to block old agricultural drainage ditches, the delicate management of water levels and painstaking monitoring of the peat wetness.

I spend a lot of time taking samples, monitoring the progress, feeding results back to the land managers. Like many other conservationists, I work hard to find ways to preserve these critical habitats.

But sometimes, there may be a digger in the adjacent field doing more damage in a day than we could undo in a lifetime. That’s the reality, and the insanity, of the UK’s current peatland policies.

We heavily invest in restoring peatlands, yet fail to ban its extraction – the one action that would have the most dramatic impact. By demanding that peat is not only eradicated from garden compost, but weeded out of our supply chains, we can keep peat in the ground, not in pots.

—————————-

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Dr Casey Bryce, Senior Lecturer, School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol.

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

Casey Bryce

How do you manage a dam when there’s a tropical cyclone in Mozambique?

Posted on January 8, 2024January 8, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Mozambique dam

I’d never given a huge amount of thought of what a dam manager did until I visited Pequenos Libombos dam in Mozambique in October 2023. Standing at the dam, in hot conditions, listening to the lived experience of people who work on the ground and explain what they do during a tropical cyclone leaves you with more understanding than any peer reviewed journal article. Context is everything. It’s why visiting the countries I’m researching is something I do given the chance.

That’s what members of Bristol projects REPRESA (co-led by Prof Elizabeth Kendon at University of Bristol & UK Met Office, Dr Luis Artur from Eduardo Mondlane University and Prof Francois Engelbrecht from University of the Witwatersrand) and SALIENT (led by Dr Rachel James, University of Bristol) did in October. The REPRESA project aims to understand compound tropical cyclone risks, impacts of tropical cyclones and improve early warning systems in Mozambique, Malawi and Madagascar. Seeing the research alignment in projects, the SALIENT team also joined. The SALIENT project aims to improve the characterisation and communication of future climate information for national adaptation planning in southern Africa.

On the field trip day, we travelled to Pequenos Libombos dam and heard from a government official from the Vila De Boane Municipality. It was this day where I had my epiphany that if I ever left academia, dam management is not my calling. Providing water to the local population is the dams primary role and it provides 2 million people within Maputo Province with access to water. That is more than 4 times the population of Bristol.

The management of Pequenos Libombos dam is difficult as there are many other people and industries to consider and keep safe and happy when making decisions. From the businesses who want to use the dam’s water for industrial purposes to the farming communities that are reliant on the water for irrigation, and hydroelectricity companies that want to use the dam to create energy to the communities downstream that may be flooded if the dam releases water too quickly. The dam catchment is also shared with 2 of Mozambique’s neighbouring countries; eSwatini and South Africa, adding another element of complexity to the dams management.

Management must carefully balance both periods of water surplus and deficit and Maputo has experienced numerous extreme weather events in recent years. The 2015-2016 southern African drought impacted Central and Southern Mozambique and more recently the remnants of tropical cyclones in 2019, 2011, 2022 and 2023. During February 2023, Tropical Cyclone (TC) Freddy passed over Madagascar and southern Mozambique before returning a couple of weeks later to central Mozambique. It is thought to be the longest lived and have the highest accumulated cyclone energy of any cyclone on record, awaiting formal investigation from the World Meteorological Organization. Although TC Freddy didn’t directly pass over Pequenos Limbombos, its associated rainfall resulted in 250 mm of rainfall at the dam in one day. For context, the Bristol experiences 265mm rainfall, on average, in October, November and December combined. To avoid a breach of the dam, discharge was released at the maximum rate, which is more than 500 time more than normal.

Globally there is evidence that TCs and their impacts are being impacted by climate change. The frequency, intensity and storm tracks of TCs may be changing meanwhile, rising sea levels may lead to higher storm surges. Yet we know a limited amount about how tropical cyclones may act in a future with increased global sea surface and air temperatures. TCs in the Indian Ocean are particularly under researched, but recent and frequent events have highlighted the importance of understanding TCs in a changing climate.

After hearing about the vast amount of rain that fell in February 2023, we walk past the disused hydroelectric generator that was forced to cease operation during the drought as it was no longer economically viable. It really hammered home the complexities faced when trying to manage such a huge piece of infrastructure during extreme events. Similarly, it is clear why research projects like REPRESA and SALIENT are needed to understand how tropical cyclones may behave in the future and explore how early warning systems and climate change adaptation can be strengthened.

Mozambique dam

The human side of extreme weather

After the talk at Pequenos Libombos Dam, we visited the Municipality of Vila de Boane. Vila de Boane is located roughly 15 km downstream from the dam and the River Umbuluzi passes through the municipality. The municipality experienced large scale flooding after the dam was forced to increase to maximum discharge during the February 2023 rainfall.

Despite already hearing about TC’s Freddy’s impacts at the dam, they were not as focused on the human impact. The leader of the municipality compellingly described how 16,000 people were impacted overnight, 6000 people were displaced and 6 people sadly died. The community water pump was destroyed, leaving people without water for 3 months. The municipality leader said he had never seen that amount of water passing through the municipality at such high speed before. Meanwhile, money that had been budgeted for development initiatives, had to be redirected to repair and response. It was not clear if extra money had been sourced for the development initiatives.

It was also highlighted that the increased release of water from the dam occurred over night with little warning. The municipality had been told to expect “above normal” rainfall and to avoid being close to rivers and move farming machinery further inland. But as the municipality leader questioned, what does “above normal” actually mean? People will perceive this message differently, which will influence how they act upon it. As part of the SALIENT research project, I am researching how we best communicate future climate information to decision makers and this anecdote will stay with me. It’s clear that improved communications are needed in both weather and climate services, something REPRESA is also aiming to research further.

Reflections and collaboration

After hearing about the vast amount of impacts the flooding had on Villa de Boane, we waited for our transport back to Maputo under the shade as it was too hot to stand in the sun. It was clear everyone from the REPRESA and SALIENT teams, both physical scientists and social scientists, had taken a lot from the field day. There was discussion about what the research should consider as well as the different angles that could be taken. It also fostered collaboration, SALIENT team member, Alan-Kennedy Asser, is providing the REPRESA team with analysis of precipitation trends from a multiple ensembles of climate models to characterise the range in future projections over the region. Meanwhile I spoke with some REPRESA team members in more depth about future climate information and will be providing risk communication training session in the future.

My personal key take away is that understanding the context and hearing the lived experiences of people working and living with extreme weather events enriches me as a researcher. Similarly, collaborating with researchers and practitioners on different projects enhances your work by providing questions and inputs from different standpoints. And finally, I’m too indecisive a person to ever be a good dam manager.

——————————————

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Dr Ailish Craig, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol with contributions from Dr Alan Kennedy-Asser, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol and Dr Rachel James, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol.

Are you a journalist looking for climate experts for COP28? We’ve got you covered

Posted on October 30, 2023November 28, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

We’ve got lots of media trained climate change experts. If you need an expert for an interview, here is a list of our experts you can approach. All media enquiries should be made via Victoria Tagg, our dedicated Media and PR Manager at the University of Bristol.

Email victoria.tagg@bristol.ac.uk or call +44 (0)117 428 2489.

Climate change / climate emergency / climate science / climate-induced disasters

Dr Eunice Lo – expert in changes in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold spells, and how these changes translate to negative health outcomes including illnesses and deaths. Follow on Twitter/X @EuniceLoClimate.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.

Dr Katerina Michalides – expert in drylands, drought and desertification and helping East African rural communities to adapt to droughts and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_kmichaelides.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateDann.

Professor Dan Lunt – expert on past climate change, with a focus on understanding how and why climate has changed in the past and what we can learn about the future from the past. Dan is also a Lead Author on IPCC AR6. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateSamwell.

Professor Jonathan Bamber – expert on the impact of melting land ice on sea level rise (SLR) and the response of the ocean to changes in freshwater forcing. Follow on Twitter/X @jlbamber

Professor Paul Bates CBE – expert in the science of flooding, risk and reducing threats to life and economic losses worldwide. Follow on Twitter/X @paul_d_bates

Dr Matt Palmer – expert in sea level and ocean heat content at the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @mpclimate.

Professor Guy Howard – expertise in building resilience and supporting adaptation in water systems, sanitation, health care facilities, and housing. Expert in wider infrastructure resilience assessment.

Net Zero / Energy / Renewables

Dr Caitlin Robinson – expert on energy poverty and energy justice and also in mapping ambient vulnerabilities in UK cities. Caitlin will be virtually attending COP28. Follow on Twitter/X @CaitHRobin.

Professor Philip Taylor – Expert in net zero, energy systems, energy storage, utilities, electric power distribution. Also Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @rolyatlihp.

Dr Colin Nolden – expert in sustainable energy policy, regulation and business models and interactions with secondary markets such as carbon markets and other sectors such as mobility. Colin will be in attendance in the Blue Zone at COP28 during week 2.

Professor Charl Faul – expert in novel functional materials for sustainable energy applications e.g. in CO2 capture and conversion and energy storage devices. Follow on Twitter/X @Charl_FJ_Faul.

Climate finance / Loss and damage

Dr Rachel James – Expert in climate finance, damage, loss and decision making. Also has expertise in African climate systems and contemporary and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_RachelJames.

Dr Katharina Richter – expert in decolonial environmental politics and equitable development in times of climate crises. Also an expert on degrowth and Buen Vivir, two alternatives to growth-based development from the Global North and South. Katarina will be virtually attending COP28. @DrKatRichter.

Climate justice

Dr Alix Dietzel – climate justice and climate policy expert. Focusing on the global and local scale and interested in how just the response to climate change is and how we can ensure a just transition. Alix will be in attendance in the Blue Zone at COP28 during week 1. Follow on Twitter/X @alixdietzel.

Dr Ed Atkins – expert on environmental and energy policy, politics and governance and how they must be equitable and inclusive. Also interested in local politics of climate change policies and energy generation and consumption. Follow on Twitter/X @edatkins_.

Dr Karen Tucker – expert on colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them. Karen will be in attending the Blue Zone of COP28 in week 2.

Climate change and health

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in influence of climate change on infectious water-related disease, including waterborne disease and vector-borne disease.

Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill – expert in health research, including long-term health conditions and design of ways to support and improve health. @EBIBristol (this account is only monitored in office hours).

Youth, children, education and skills

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety in children and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Dr Camilla Morelli – expert in how children and young people imagine the future, asking what are the key challenges they face towards the adulthoods they desire and implementing impact strategies to make these desires attainable. Follow on Twitter/X @DrCamiMorelli.

Dr Helen Thomas-Hughes – expert in engaging, empowering, and inspiring diverse student bodies as collaborative environmental change makers. Also Lead of the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges. Follow on Twitter/X @Researchhelen.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports. Also part of the Waves of Change project with Dr Camilla Morelli, looking at the intersection of social, economic and climatic impacts on young people’s lives and futures around the world.

Climate activism / Extinction Rebellion

Dr Oscar Berglund – expert on climate change activism and particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience. Follow on Twitter @berglund_oscar.

Land / Nature / Food

Dr Jo House – expert on land and climate interactions, including emissions of carbon dioxide from land use change (e.g. deforestation), climate mitigation potential from the land (e.g. afforestation, bioenergy), and implications of science for policy. Previously Government Office for Science’s Head of Climate Advice. Follow on Twitter @Drjohouse.

Professor Steve Simpson – expert marine biology and fish ecology, with particular interests in the behaviour of coral reef fishes, bioacoustics, effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, conservation and management. Follow on Twitter/X @DrSteveSimpson.

Dr Taro Takahashi – expert on farming, livestock production systems as well as programme evaluation and general equilibrium modelling of pasture and livestock-based economies.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.

Air pollution / Greenhouse gases

Dr Aoife Grant – expert in greenhouse gases and methane. Set up a monitoring station at Glasgow for COP26 to record emissions.

Professor Matt Rigby – expert on sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances. Follow on Twitter @TheOtherMRigby.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in contribution of waste and wastewater systems to methane emissions in low- and middle-income countries

Plastic and the environment

Dr Charlotte Lloyd – expert on the fate of chemicals in the terrestrial environment, including plastics, bioplastics and agricultural wastes. Follow on Twitter @DrCharlLloyd.

Cabot Institute for the Environment at COP28

We will have three media trained academics in attendance at the Blue Zone at COP28. These are: Dr Alix Dietzel (week 1), Dr Colin Nolden (week 2) and Dr Karen Tucker (week 2). We will also have two academics attending virtually: Dr Caitlin Robinson and Dr Katharina Richter.

Read more about COP on our website at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/what-we-do/projects/cop/
——————————
This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment. Follow on Twitter @Enviro_Mand and @cabotinstitute.

Watch our Cabot Conversations – 10 conversations between 2 experts on a climate change issue, all whilst an artist listens in the background and interprets the conversation into a beautiful piece of art in real time. Find out more at bristol.ac.uk/cabot/conversations.

Limiting global warming to 2℃ is not enough – why the world must keep temperature rise below 1℃

Posted on June 29, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Warming of more than 1℃ risks unsafe and harmful outcomes for humanity.
Ink Drop/Shutterstock

The Paris Climate agreement represented a historic step towards a safer future for humanity on Earth when it was adopted in 2015. The agreement strove to keep global heating below 2℃ above pre-industrial levels with the aim of limiting the increase to 1.5℃ if possible. It was signed by 196 parties around the world, representing the overwhelming majority of humanity.

But in the intervening eight years, the Arctic region has experienced record-breaking temperatures, heatwaves have gripped many parts of Asia and Australia has faced unprecedented floods and wildfires. These events remind us of the dangers associated with climate breakdown. Our newly published research argues instead that humanity is only safe at 1℃ of global warming or below.

While one extreme event cannot be solely attributed to global heating, scientific studies have shown that such events are much more likely in a warmer world. Since the Paris agreement, our understanding of the impacts of global heating have also improved.

A fishing boat surrounded by icebergs that have come off a glacier. — Fishing boat dwarfed by icebergs that came off Greenland’s largest glacier, Jakobshavn Isbrae.
Jonathan Bamber, Author provided

Rising sea levels are an inevitable consequence of global warming. This is due to the combination of increased land ice melting and warmer oceans, which cause the volume of ocean water to increase. Recent research shows that in order to eliminate the human-induced component of sea-level rise, we need to return to temperatures last seen in the pre-industrial era (usually taken to be around 1850).

Perhaps more worrying are tipping points in the climate system that are effectively irreversible on human timescales if passed. Two of these tipping points relate to the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Together, these sheets contain enough ice to raise the global sea level by more than ten metres.

The temperature threshold for these ice sheets is uncertain, but we know that it lies close to 1.5℃ of global heating above pre-industrial era levels. There’s even evidence that suggests the threshold may already have been passed in one part of west Antarctica.

Critical boundaries

A temperature change of 1.5℃ might sound quite small. But it’s worth noting that the rise of modern civilisation and the agricultural revolution some 12,000 years ago took place during a period of exceptionally stable temperatures.

Our food production, global infrastructure and ecosystem services (the goods and services provided by ecosystems to humans) are all intimately tied to that stable climate. For example, historical evidence shows that a period called the little ice age (1400-1850), when glaciers grew extensively in the northern hemisphere and frost fairs were held annually on the River Thames, was caused by a much smaller temperature change of only about 0.3℃.

A sign marking the retreat of a glacier since 1908. — Jasper National Park, Canada. Glaciers used to grow extensively in the Northern Hemisphere.
Matty Symons/Shutterstock

A recent review of the current research in this area introduces a concept called “Earth system boundaries”, which defines various thresholds beyond which life on our planet would suffer substantial harm. To avoid passing multiple critical boundaries, the authors stress the need to limit temperature rise to 1℃ or less.

In our new research, we also argue that warming of more than 1℃ risks unsafe and harmful outcomes. This potentially includes sea level rise of multiple metres, more intense hurricanes and more frequent weather extremes.

More affordable renewable energy

Although we are already at 1.2℃ above pre-industrial temperatures, reducing global temperatures is not an impossible task. Our research presents a roadmap based on current technologies that can help us work towards achieving the 1℃ warming goal. We do not need to pull a technological “rabbit out of the hat”, but instead we need to invest and implement existing approaches, such as renewable energy, at scale.

Renewable energy sources have become increasingly affordable over time. Between 2010 and 2021, the cost of producing electricity from solar energy reduced by 88%, while wind power saw a reduction of 67% over the same period. The cost of power storage in batteries (for when the availability of wind and sunlight is low) has also decreased, by 70% between 2014 and 2020.

An aerial photograph of a photovoltaic power plant on a lush hillside. — A photovoltaic power plant in Yunnan, China.
Captain Wang/Shutterstock

The cost disparity between renewable energy and alternative sources like nuclear and fossil fuels is now huge – there is a three to four-fold difference.

In addition to being affordable, renewable energy sources are abundantly available and could swiftly meet society’s energy demands. Massive capacity expansions are also currently underway across the globe, which will only further bolster the renewable energy sector. Global solar energy manufacturing capacity, for example, is expected to double in 2023 and 2024.

Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

Low-cost renewable energy will enable our energy systems to transition away from fossil fuels. But it also provides the means of directly removing CO₂ from the atmosphere at a large scale.

CO₂ removal is crucial for keeping warming to 1℃ or less, even though it requires a significant amount of energy. According to research, achieving a safe climate would require dedicating between 5% and 10% of total power generation demand to effective CO₂ removal. This represents a realistic and attainable policy option.

Various measures are used to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. These include nature-based solutions like reforestation, as well as direct air carbon capture and storage. Trees absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and then lock it up for centuries.

A group of people planting a mangrove forest next to the sea. — A mangrove forest being planted in Klong Khone Samut Songkhram Province, Thailand.
vinai chunkhajorn/Shutterstock

Direct air capture technology was originally developed in the 1960s for air purification on submarines and spacecrafts. But it has since been further adapted for use on land. When combined with underground storage methods, such as the process of converting CO₂ into stone, this technology provides a safe and permanent method of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Our paper demonstrates that the tools and technology exist to achieve a safer, healthier and more prosperous future – and that it’s economically viable to do so. What appears to be lacking is the societal will and, as a consequence, the political conviction and commitment to achieve it.

————————-

This blog is written Cabot Institute for the Environment member Jonathan Bamber, Professor of Glaciology and Earth Observation, University of Bristol and Christian Breyer, Professor of Solar Economy, Lappeenranta University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.