Cabot Institute – Page 3 – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Degrowth isn’t the same as a recession – it’s an alternative to growing the economy forever

Posted on May 24, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The UK economy unexpectedly shrank by 0.3% in March, according to the Office of National Statistics. And though the country is likely to narrowly avoid an official recession in 2023, just as it did the previous year, the economy is projected to hit the worst growth rates since the Great Depression, and the worst in the G7.

For many people, this certainly feels like a recession, with food prices soaring and pay falling dramatically below inflation meaning many people are having to reduce their standard of living.

Against this backdrop, the main political parties are focused on delivering economic growth for a better future. One of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s five priorities for 2023 is simply “growing the economy”, while opposition leader Keir Starmer has pledged to turn the UK into the fastest growing G7 economy.

Sunak and Starmer’s priorities reflect conventional economic wisdom that “growth, growth, growth” increases incomes and standards of living, employment and business investment. When the economy doesn’t grow, we see unemployment, hardship and inequality.

Growth cannot solve everything

However, economic growth on its own is not going to solve these multiple and intersecting crises, as it only counts the total value of goods and services produced without measuring qualitative change – whether this stuff makes you feel happy or secure.

TVs in a shop — GDP measures things not feelings.
Luckies / shutterstock

In contrast, an increasing number of policymakers, thinkers and activists argue for abandoning our obsession with growth at all costs. Instead of pursuing GDP growth, they suggest orienting the economy towards social equality and wellbeing, environmental sustainability and democratic decision making. The most far reaching of those proposals are made under the umbrella term of degrowth.

Degrowth is a set of ideas and a social movement that presents a comprehensive solution to these issues. The pandemic demonstrated that a new normal can be achieved at pace, as we saw sweeping changes to how many of us lived, worked, and travelled.

At the time, headlines equated the pandemic-related GDP squeeze with the perceived “misery of degrowth”. With persistently high inflation rates and the cost of living still spiralling, these debates are going to resurface.

Degrowth is not the same as shrinking GDP

To begin with, degrowth is not the same as negative GDP growth. Instead, degrowth envisions a society in which wellbeing does not depend on economic growth and the environmental and social consequences of its pursuit. Degrowth proposes an equitable, voluntary reduction of overconsumption in affluent economies.

Equally important is to shift the economy away from the ecologically and socially harmful idea that producing more stuff is always good. Instead, economic activity could focus on promoting care, cooperation and autonomy, which would also increase wellbeing and give people a bigger say in how their lives are run.

Yet, for many people the word smacks of misery and the type of frugality they are trying to escape from during the cost of living crisis.

But degrowth, if successfully achieved, would arguably feel better than a recession or a cost-of-living crisis. Here are three reasons why:

1. Degrowth is democratic

The first is the undemocratic and unplanned nature of a recession or cost-of-living crisis. Most citizens would agree, for example, that they had little to no control over the deregulation of the finance industry, and subsequent boom in sub-prime mortgage lending and derivatives trading that caused the 2008/09 financial crash.

Cranes in skyline — Things would still be built – but not just to satisfy a need for growth.
Oleg Totskyi / shutterstock

Degrowth, on the other hand, is a profoundly democratic project. It emphasises direct democracy and deliberation, which means citizens can shape which economic sectors are decreased and by how much, and which ones will grow and by how much.

One example of such a democratic endeavour is the Climate Assembly UK, whose 108 members were selected through a civic lottery process and were broadly representative of the population. After listening to expert testimony, the assembly issued a number of recommendations to support the UK’s net zero climate target. Over a third of all members prioritised support for sustainable growth. Economic growth itself was not among the top 25 priorities.

2. Degrowth would be egalitarian

Recessions, especially when coupled with fiscal austerity, tend to amplify existing inequalities by hitting the poorest members of society first, including women, working-class communities and ethnic minorities.

Degrowth drastically differs from a recession because it is a redistributive project. For instance, a universal basic income), an unconditional monthly state payment to all citizens, is a popular policy with degrowthers.

The degrowth vision is that basic income should guarantee a dignified living standard, remunerate unpaid care, and provide access to healthcare, food and accommodation for those in need. It could be financed by “climate income” schemes that tax carbon and return revenues to the public.

3. Degrowth wouldn’t hinder climate action

In an economy reliant on growth, a recession is generally bad news for the environment.

For instance, for the UK to hit its net zero targets, it must make annual public investments of between £4 billion and £6 billion by 2030. A recession would threaten public spending as well as the confidence investors have in low carbon developments in transport, housing or energy.

But such investments do not have to depend on growth but could instead be made through collective and democratic decisions to make climate action a priority. Carbon taxes will play a large part in this, as will stopping fossil fuel subsidies like the £3.75 billion tax break granted to develop the Rosebank oil and gas field in the sea north of Scotland.

To make sure we stay within the environmental limits within which we can safely operate, sometimes known as our planetary boundaries, degrowth suggests democratically establishing limits on resource use. For example, global greenhouse gas emissions or non-renewable energy use could be capped at a given level, and decline annually.

Sharing these resource “caps” among the population would ensure that while we stay within these safe environmental spaces, everyone has equitable access to the resources required to lead a fulfilling life. In contrast to the pursuit of endless growth, degrowth puts both climate action and human wellbeing at its heart.

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Dr Katharina Richter, Lecturer in Climate, Politics and Society, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Archers’ electric vehicle row shows why rural areas may oppose chargers – but they also have so much to gain

Posted on April 19, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Long-running BBC radio soap opera The Archers might conjure images of an idyllic country life, but its storylines frequently highlight real tensions in British society.

The series, set in the fictional village of Ambridge, has been criticised in recent years for storylines which supposedly pander to younger listeners or fail to represent rural life accurately. But the Archers has never shied away from environmental issues, from the escapades of eco-warrior Tom Archer in the late 1990s to more recent episodes about soil health.

Lately, Ambridge has been gripped by a campaign to halt the construction of a new electric vehicle charging station, proposed on a parcel of land being sold by David and Ruth Archer – long-running characters at the centre of the series. This has provoked protests, debates about civic duty and police involvement in the rural idyll.

The placards and slogans of local opponents have fused topics of net zero and the energy transition with anxieties about the future of the countryside. What does this storyline tell us about real rural opposition to such changes?

Charging into trouble

The UK government has pledged to phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. If electric vehicles (EVs) are to replace them, charging infrastructure must be expanded to help people switch.

By some estimates there are over 35,000 active EV charging ports across the UK. The Department for Transport has pledged 300,000 public chargers by 2030 to stop a patchy network of charging points putting some drivers off buying EVs and allay concerns about their potentially shorter driving range.

An electric vehicle charging point in a quiet, coastal car park. — A public charging point in Shetland, Scotland.
AlanMorris/Shutterstock

Infrastructure built to fulfil national commitments to cut emissions will have important local consequences. The concerns voiced in Ambridge might resonate in rural communities playing host to new construction projects which can bring with them increased traffic, noise and damage to the landscape.

When researching opposition to energy infrastructure for a new book, we learned about Littlehampton in Sussex, a seaside town where residents successfully opposed an on-street EV charging scheme. Residents complained about not being consulted beforehand and argued that charging points, built without off-street parking, would draw drivers from elsewhere who would take spaces from them.

Rural communities have also opposed new renewable energy projects, such as solar farms, for their potential disruption or effect on property values. Many who moved to a rural area to enjoy its natural beauty argue that new infrastructure industrialises the countryside.

Finding community support

In The Archers – like in Littlehampton, Sussex – local opposition to new EV charging stations derives from a feeling that something is happening to residents, rather than with or for them. Some Ambridge residents are suspicious of the shell corporation behind the scheme. In real-life Sussex, residents said that they weren’t properly consulted.

Rural opposition is not inevitable, however. With amenities and services often clustered in bigger towns, rural households must travel further to access them, making them particularly vulnerable to rises in the price of petrol or diesel.

This vulnerability has been exacerbated by dramatic cuts to rural bus routes. An analysis by the Guardian found that one in ten routes were axed in 2022, with 42 routes lost from the west of England alone.

Withdrawing public transport funding cuts off rural communities from essential services and friends and family elsewhere. These same communities could benefit the most from an expanded EV charging network.

A bus shelter beside an empty rural road. — Cuts to public transport funding have hit rural communities particularly hard.
Harry Wedzinga/Shutterstock

Some rural communities aren’t waiting for this to happen and have taken to sharing electric cars to fill the gaps left by lost services instead. For example, new EV clubs are being formed in Wales to give people easier access to shared transport.

These schemes ask people to pay an annual membership fee in return for being able to book a car 48 hours in advance. This is helping people get to GP appointments or job interviews.

But while those living in Greater London might access a charging point every mile on average, this number jumps to one every 16 miles in rural areas.

Plugging the gaps

One reason why rural areas are underserved by EV chargers concerns their cost-effectiveness. In areas where there might be less immediate demand, the upfront investment needed to install a charging point will take longer to pay off.

New subsidies and grants could help install more chargers in more places. But it will be necessary to work with communities to prevent conflict.

Despite the uproar in Ambridge, rural areas have a lot to gain from charging infrastructure. Residents will have differing views which planners must address.

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Ed Atkins, Senior Lecturer, School of Geographical Sciences and Dr Ros Death, Lecturer in Physical Geography, University of Bristol.

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

Nearly a quarter of people in the UK flush wet wipes down the toilet – here’s why they shouldn’t

Posted on April 19, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Charlotte Lloyd, University of Bristol

Whether you’re cleaning your house, your car or your child, there are a variety of wet wipes manufactured for the job. Wet wipes are small, lightweight and extremely convenient. They have become a staple in most of our lives, particularly so during and since the COVID-19 pandemic.

But according to Water UK, an organisation representing the water industry, flushing wet wipes down the toilet is responsible for 93% of sewer blockages and costs around £100 million each year to sort out. And the majority of these wipes, about 90%, contain plastic.

Water UK also found that 22% of people admit to flushing wipes down the toilet, even though most of them knew they posed a hazard. And it’s estimated that 300,000 sewer blockages occur every year because of “fatbergs”, with wet wipes one of the main causes.

But it seems wet wipes could soon be banned in England – well, at least the ones that contain plastic – as the government has said it will launch a public consultation on wet wipes in response to mounting concerns about water pollution and blockages. This follows pledges made by major retailers, including Boots and Tesco, to discontinue the sale of such products.

Market projections show that 1.63 million tons of material will be produced in 2023 for wet wipes globally – an industry worth approximately $2.84 billion (£2.04 billion). Though these figures are likely to be on the conservative side as manufacturers increased the production of disinfecting wipes in 2020 during the pandemic – and have remained at the same level since.

Despite the popularity and wide use of wet wipes, not a lot is known about their environmental footprint. This is because manufacturers are not obliged to state what the wipes are made from on the packaging, only the intentionally added ingredients. This creates a challenge for both scientists and consumers alike.

What we know

Wet wipes are made from non-woven fibres that are fused together either mechanically or with the aid of chemicals or heat. The individual fibres can be made from either natural (regenerated cellulose or wood pulp) or petroleum-based (plastic) materials, including polyester and polypropylene.

Most wet wipes are a mixture of natural and synthetic fibres – and the majority contain plastic. As well as the fibres, wet wipes also contain chemicals, including cleaning or disinfecting agents which are impregnated into the material.

Wet wipes, disinfecting wipes. — Wet wipes can cause a lot of issues for our sewerage system.
JoyImage/Shutterstock

Some wipes are designed to be “flushable” and contain chemical binding agents that are designed to release the fibres of the wipe when they are exposed to water. This means that if wipes are not disposed of correctly, they can create both a plastic and a chemical hazard to the environment.

It’s well known that plastic breaks down extremely slowly and persists for centuries in landfill. And if plastic-containing wipes are released into the environment – either through littering or via the sewerage system – they can pose a number of hazards.

The plastic problem

When wet wipes reach the environment – including soil, rivers and the ocean – they generate microplastic pollution in the form of microfibers. Microfibers are one of the most prevalent types of plastic pollution in the aquatic environment and affect ecosystems as well as potentially human health through their introduction into the food chain.

The problem has been exacerbated by these “flushable” wipes. One study identified seven different types of plastics as potential components of flushable wipes – meaning that they still risk being a source of microplastic pollution. Recent work has confirmed that wet wipes (along with sanitary products) are an underestimated source of white microfibers found in the marine environment.

Data on the environmental impact of the associated chemicals is lacking, but this is something my research group is currently working on. What is known though is that plastics have the ability to absorb other contaminants such as metals and pesticides as well as pathogens. And this provides a way for pollution to be transported large distances through the environment.

Flushable wipe going down the toilet. — Are flushable wipes really flushable?
Shutterstock/nito

Driven by environmental concerns as well as impending legislation, many plastic-free wipe products are now available or being developed. But even products made from natural fibres can still pose a problem to sewerage systems and so safe disposal – in a bin – is key.

The scientific evidence surrounding the environmental effects of bio-based plastics (plastics made from non-petroleum sources such as corn or potato starch) is also lacking, so caution is needed when thinking about simply switching from petroleum-based to bio-based plastics.

With this in mind, reusable washable products are a great alternative to disposables and have a much smaller environmental footprint. They are particularly handy around the home when washing is convenient.

That said, there will remain a market for disposables, but manufacturers should have to clearly label what the wipes are made from so that consumers can make a more informed choice.

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Charlotte Lloyd, Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow and Lecturer in Environmental Chemistry, University of Bristol.

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

What it means to be of the mountains: ethnography of social embrace in Nivica, Albania

Posted on March 31, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Aisling Tierney (right) with local Albanians during her research trip. — Aisling Tierney (right) with local Kurvalesh during her research trip to Albania.

In 2022, I made my fifth visit to the village of Nivica in the heart of the Kurvelesh mountainscape. It was a quick trip for lunch and to say hello to the community that has made me welcome there since 2017. Upon visiting the house of the first couple who hosted me, I was greeted with hot tea, sharp raki and sweet cakes. The older couple, Bame and Trendefille, cannot stop themselves from treating me like family. They embrace me. They take my hand to lead me to the indoor seating area. They hug me constantly.

Just a week before the visit I lost my father after a long and terrible illness. There was something profound about feeling so loved in a familiar domestic setting. I was different now. How I received their outpourings of love felt more meaningful than ever. When they asked about my father they were heartbroken to hear of his death. Both my parents were invited innumerable times by the couple, but there was never a chance my mother would make the trip up the wild rocky roads!

During the visit they shared stories of time together with my travel companions. My ego was certainly entertained by their generosity of spirit in these retellings. Amongst their chats, the man of the house said something so lovely and unexpected that I was left speechless. He said that I am Kurveleshi – that is, I am of the Kurvelesh, I am one of them. Coming from one of the most respected members of the community, it meant the world to me.

To be of the Kurvelesh means a lot of things and will be different depending on who you ask. What seemed to be important to Bame was that I showed respect. Concepts like Besa and Kanun are important in the region. The former is all about keeping promises and acting honourably, like a pledge to do right by people. The latter is an overarching customary law governing all aspects of traditional life, passed on through oral tradition for centuries. The Kurvelesh is the last remaining area where Kanun survives beyond the Ottoman era and into the modern age.

Bame compared my team of archaeological researchers to other foreign groups from a range of disciplines. He said we were different, we embraced the mountains and the local culture. We took a different mindset into our research practice that included the community in both personal and professional terms. It is not an exaggeration to say that the team feels like Kurvelesh is a second home. It is no longer a remote foreign place full of the unknown. For us, it is now a place of familiar and familial faces and friendships.

We love the people of the mountains and they love us back.

One of the most unexpected comments I received was why my team laughs so much! We are a jovial bunch, always singing and joking around. It seems less easy to laugh in the Kurvelesh. Life has been hard in the wake of Communism, which is still a sensitive subject for most of the older community. People do not like to talk about their experiences in forced labour groups and the suppression of cultural traditions. We do not push the subject. Like much of Albania, this is also a site of several war fronts, not least of which saw the razing of the whole village by the Greeks in 1913. Remnants of these warfronts constitute a large body of our collection of artefacts from fieldwalking surveys. These objects tell stories themselves. The bullet casings from one misfiring gun are found in several locations adjacent to the modern village. Decorative uniform badges are found in local fields. Artillery shells and rusted guns are even collected and hung on display in homes and the single village café. The past is visible, even if it is unspoken.

We also received comments about how the team is managed. Curious locals asked me how I get my team to work without shouting at them. They were surprised that we were all volunteering our time unpaid and at our expense to investigate local heritage. The fact that we were not renumerated seemed to change their perspective on our intentions in a positive manner.

The community were outwardly pleased that we were fully open about our research. They talked about their assumptions about foreign groups and how the archaeology of the country has been pillaged by others. Our efforts included welcoming anyone to visit the site at their leisure. We were frequently visited by the young and old alike, sometimes as a detour from a walk or while passing with a herd of goats to laugh at us working in the rain. We made our work even more visible by taking finds for cataloguing to tables in the local café, so that the whole community could see everything we had and how we worked with it. Informal lessons and visualisations helped the community to understand the breadth of our work. They were delighted to learn of our multi-period approach and began to bring objects for us to record.

Over time, the community began to trust us. Through friendships and openness, they could see we were there for the right reasons. One local man showed up one day with a purple plastic bag filled with pottery sherds and bronze coins. He allowed us to photograph and record them onto our database. Every item was handed back to him the next day in perfect condition. This happened a few times. Each instance proved we meant what we said – we were not there to take anything, we were there to observe, learn and record only. At the end of each season, we handed all the finds to the local leadership for storage, with some pottery samples collected by the national Institute of Archaeology for their archives.

The community were also surprised that we value their knowledge and insights. We were positively enthused when offered tours of sites that might interest our archaeological endeavors. Every suggestion and prompt from the community was cherished and integrated into our research, valued as of equal value to anything considered more “academic”. This respect for local knowledge also helped our reputation.

The reports compiled after each season were hugely beneficial in communicating the value of the compiled data. They included drawings and maps that showed the community how the data comes together to tell their stories. They were also keen to see how we used LiDAR and drone imaging with our GPS records to map concentrations of finds across the landscape. The visual stories transcended linguistic barriers and helped everyone see why our work was useful and relevant to them. For example, local B&B owners typically spend the most time with visitors and our data is helpful in conveying the history of the landscape to those eager to learn, whether domestic or foreign. The community hopes that the information plaques that we have contributed to and walking trails supported by other international groups, created in recent years, will help foster better understanding of their local history. In the future, they will create a museum featuring artefacts collected by us and the community alike.

Goats being herded in Albania along a winding mountain road.

What makes our research fieldwork a bit different than most is that we take with us interdisciplinary perspectives. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the lens by which we evaluate our work and contributions. This maps well onto local and national initiatives that seek to offset long-standing issues facing mountain communities. These issues include depopulation, losing traditional intangible cultural heritage, lack of attractive jobs, and environmental sustainability. Our heritage story is a small part of a much bigger picture. Rather than consider our work on our terms, we embrace domestic value systems and methods of seeing value.

One of our team has undertaken a project interviewing the community about their lives and experiences culminating in an MLitt dissertation, How do rural communities negotiate the legacy of a contested landscape in contemporary southern Albania? (A. Donnelly 2020, 95pps). Her work explores the landscape, agricultural practices, ethnobotanical knowledge, local recipes, conflict and rebellion, unique worship practices, folklore, and music. A taught masters student also produced a dissertation, How can social media function as a tool for initial tourist development? Lessons from rural Albania (R. Sanders 2020, 77pps). Her research reviewed the multivocality of tourists, the power of word-of-mouth marketing, and authenticity of touristic experience as demarcated by local business owners. Other outputs include fieldwork reports in 2018 (Tierney et al. 131pps) and 2019 (Tierney et al. 41pps), and multimedia engagement through public-engagement videos and at conferences. Additionally, I have integrated learnings from fieldwork into both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching at two universities. Several peer reviewed papers are underway and will be published soon. They include a comprehensive overview of the SDGs at Nivica, fieldwork survey analysis and artefact analysis.

In academia, quantifiable outputs and impacts are championed. Even in the realm of public engagement academic discourse, the value of authentic, deep and personal trusting relationships are muted. For me, hearts and minds in a framework of respect are worth more than anything else. If our research work enables us to contribute positively to a community that we adore, then our work is a success. I am optimistic that this personal narrative helps to contribute something to how we view ourselves as fieldwork researchers in relation to the places and communities that we encounter and, hopefully, embrace. In a world replete with mental health strain and professional angst, as the higher education system pinches more and more, there are things more valuable than traditional academic milestones. It is one thing to love one’s work, it is another to be truly loved back by the people we work for.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Dr Aisling Tierney.

Intense downpours in the UK will increase due to climate change – new study

Posted on March 8, 2023March 8, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

A flash flood in London in October 2019.
D MacDonald/Shutterstock

Elizabeth Kendon, University of Bristol

In July 2021, Kew in London experienced a month’s rain in just three hours. Across the city, tube lines were suspended and stations closed as London experienced its wettest day in decades and flash floods broke out. Just under two weeks later, it happened again: intense downpours led to widespread disruption, including the flooding of two London hospitals.

Colleagues and I have created a new set of 100-year climate projections to more accurately assess the likelihood of heavy rain downpours like these over the coming years and decades. The short answer is climate change means these extreme downpours will happen more often in the UK – and be even more intense.

To generate these projections, we used the Met Office operational weather forecast model, but run on long climate timescales. This provided very detailed climate projections – for every 2.2km grid box over the UK, for every hour, for 100 years from 1981 to 2080. These are much more detailed than traditional climate projections and needed to be run as a series of 20-year simulations that were then stitched together. Even on the Met Office supercomputer, these still took about six months to run.

We ran 12 such 100-year projections. We are not interested in the weather on a given day but rather how the occurrence of local weather extremes varies year by year. By starting the model runs in the past, it is also possible to verify the output against observations to assess the model’s performance.

At this level of detail – the “k-scale” – it is possible to more accurately assess how the most extreme downpours will change. This is because k-scale simulations better represent the small-scale atmospheric processes, such as convection, that can lead to destructive flash flooding.

The fire service attending to a vehicle stuck in floodwater. — Flash flooding can be destructive.
Ceri Breeze/Shutterstock

More emissions, more rain

Our results are now published in Nature Communications. We found that under a high emissions scenario downpours in the UK exceeding 20mm per hour could be four times as frequent by the year 2080 compared with the 1980s. This level of rainfall can potentially produce serious damage through flash flooding, with thresholds like 20mm/hr used by planners to estimate the risk of flooding when water overwhelms the usual drainage channels. Previous less detailed climate models project a much lower increase of around two and a half times over the same period.

We note that these changes are assuming that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at current rates. This is therefore a plausible but upper estimate. If global carbon emissions follow a lower emissions scenario, extreme rain will still increase in the UK – though at a slower rate. However, the changes are not inevitable, and if we emit less carbon in the coming decades, extreme downpours will be less frequent.

The increases are significantly greater in certain regions. For example, extreme rainfall in north-west Scotland could be almost ten times more common, while it’s closer to three times more frequent in the south of the UK. The greater future increases in the number of extreme rainfall events in the higher resolution model compared with more traditional lower resolution climate models shows the importance of having k-scale projections to enable society to adapt to climate change.

As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture, at a rate of 7% more moisture for every degree of warming. On a simple level, this explains why in many regions of the world projections show an increase in precipitation as a consequence of human-induced climate change. This new study has shown that, in the UK, the intensity of downpours could increase by about 5% in the south and up to about 15% in the north for every degree of regional warming.

Group of girls with an umbrella walking through a city. — The projected increase in the intensity of rainfall is significantly greater in certain regions.
NotarYES/Shutterstock

However, it is far from a simple picture of more extreme events, decade by decade, as a steadily increasing trend. Instead, we expect periods of rapid change – with records being broken, some by a considerable margin – and periods when there is a pause, with no new records set.

This is simply a reflection of the complex interplay between natural variability and the underlying climate change signal. An analogy for this is waves coming up a beach on an incoming tide. The tide is the long-term rising trend, but there are periods when there are larger waves, followed by lulls.

Despite the underlying trend, the time between record-breaking events at the local scale can be surprisingly long – even several decades.

Our research marks the first time that such a high-resolution data set has spanned over a century. As well as being a valuable asset for planners and policymakers to prepare for the future, it can also be used by climate attribution scientists to examine current extreme rainfall events to see how much more likely they will have been because of human greenhouse gas emissions. The research highlights the importance of meeting carbon emissions targets and also planning for increasingly prevalent extreme rainfall events, which to varying degrees of intensity, look highly likely in all greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.

The tendency for extreme years to cluster poses challenges for communities trying to adapt to intense downpours and risks infrastructure being unprepared, since climate information based on several decades of past observations may not be representative of the following decades.

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Elizabeth Kendon, Professor of Climate Science, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Seasonal Worker visa route encounters problems

Posted on February 27, 2023March 3, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Radio 4 interview with Dr Lydia Medland

Following the Home Office revocation of the license of one of the seasonal agricultural worker recruitment operators, Dr Lydia Medland spoke to BBC farming today on 20th February 2023 about the scheme (listen here).

The UK Seasonal Worker visa route allows workers to come from around the world to work for up to six months. There are (or were) seven ‘operators’ of the scheme. These are licenced by the government as the recruiters and sponsors of the workers and are responsible for both enforcement of the scheme requirements, particularly ensuring that workers go home at the end of their stay, and for worker protection.

The UK has had some form of seasonal worker migration scheme since the end of World War II, but the current scheme dates from 2019, when following Brexit, EU workers no longer had access to the UK labour market, and UK fruit and vegetable growers and food producers had to look elsewhere to fill seasonal labour vacancies.

At the end of 2021, Dr Medland and Dr Scott (University of Gloucestershire) wrote a briefing outlining problems in the design of the scheme recommending major changes including a guaranteed minimum income, and for workers to have full access to public services.

In her interview with Radio 4 on 20th February Dr Medland spoke of her concerns that the same companies are responsible for ensuring workers’ return as are responsible for preventing their exploitation, saying that with ‘…outsourcing to for-profit businesses of this dual very important role, it isn’t surprising that something has gone wrong, I think the UK should go back to the drawing board on this scheme.’ Academic research has found (see for example Costello and Freedland, 2014) that where there is an interaction between protection of workers and enforcement of migration law, the enforcement role takes precedence. This leaves workers vulnerable to exploitation because they fear the same organisations and laws that are also meant to protect them.

Radio 4 put these comments to the Home Office who said, ‘The seasonal workers route has been running for three years and each year there have been improvements.’ However, the increasing scrutiny of the scheme by researchers, NGOs and journalists may be having some impact because on 23rd February 2023 Mark Spencer, the Farming Minister announced that Seasonal Workers coming to the UK on the scheme would be guaranteed 32 hours a week of work. This is in response to reports that workers are returning in debt because of there is less work than originally expected.

Whilst the Seasonal Workers visa route is no longer officially a ‘pilot’ it has only been renewed until the end of 2024 and it remains open to significant review. This policy is part of the focus of the ‘Working for 5 a day’ project because seasonal migrant workers are a vital part of the labour force that ensures consumers have access to fruit and vegetables. We will continue to follow this policy development and its changing context.

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This blog was written by and has been reposted with kind permission from Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Lydia Medland. View the original blog.

Climate change is threatening Madagascar’s famous forests – our study shows how serious it is

Posted on January 20, 2023March 27, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Urgent action is needed to protect Madagascar’s forests.
Rijasolo/AFP via Getty Images

Global climate change doesn’t only cause the melting of polar ice caps, rising sea levels and extreme weather events. It also has a direct effect on many tropical habitats and the animals and plants that inhabit them. As fossil fuel emissions continue to drive climate change, large areas of land are forecast to become much hotter and drier by the end of this century.

Many ecosystems, including tropical forests, wetlands, swamps and mangroves, will be unable to cope with these extreme climatic conditions. It is highly likely that the extent and condition of these ecosystems will decline. They will become more like deserts and savanna.

The island nation of Madagascar is of particular concern when it comes to climate change. Of Madagascar’s animal species, 85% cannot be found elsewhere on Earth. Of its plant species, 82% are unique to the island. Although a global biodiversity hotspot, Madagascar has experienced the highest rates of deforestation anywhere in the world. Over 80% of its original forest cover has already been cleared by humans.

This has resulted in large population declines in many species. For example, many species of lemurs (Madagascar’s flagship group of animals) have undergone rapid population decline, and over 95% of lemur species are now classified as threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Drier conditions brought about by climate change have already resulted in widespread bush fires throughout Madagascar. Drought and famine are increasingly severe for the people living in the far south and south-western regions of the island.

Madagascar’s future will likely depend profoundly on how swiftly and comprehensively humans deal with the current climate crisis.

What we found

Our study investigated how future climate change is likely to affect four of Madagascar’s key forest habitat types. These four forest types are the dry deciduous forests of the west, humid evergreen forests of the east, spiny bush forests of the arid south, and transitional forests of the north-west corner of the island.

Using computer-based modelling, we simulated how each forest type would respond to climate change from the current period up to the year 2080. The model used the known distribution of each forest type, and current and future climatic data.

We did this under two different conditions: a mitigation scenario, assuming human reliance on greenhouse gas reduces according to climate commitments already made; and an unmitigated scenario, assuming greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at their current rate.

Our results suggest that unmitigated climate change will result in declines of Madagascar’s forests. The area of land covered by humid forest, the most extensive of the four forest types, is predicted to decrease by about 5.66%. Dry forest and spiny bush are also predicted to decline in response to unmitigated climate change. Transitional forest may actually increase by as much as 5.24%, but this gain will almost certainly come at the expense of other forest types.

We expected our model to show that mitigating climate change would result in net forest gain. Surprisingly, our results suggest entirely the opposite. Forest occurrence will decrease by up to 5.84%, even with efforts to mitigate climate change. This is because global temperatures are forecast to increase under both mitigated and unmitigated scenarios.

These predicted declines are in addition to the huge losses of forest already caused by ongoing deforestation throughout the island.

It looks as if the damage has already been done.

Climate change, a major threat

The results of our research highlight that climate change is indeed a major threat to Madagascar’s forests and likely other ecosystems worldwide. These findings are deeply concerning for the survival of Madagascar’s animals and plants, many of which depend entirely on forest habitat.

Not only will climate change decrease the size of existing forests, changes in temperature and rainfall will also affect the amount of fruit that trees produce.

A Lemur on tree in the forest. — Madagascar lemurs and other animal and plant species may become extinct if the forests disappear.
Rijasolo/AFP

Many of Madagascar’s animals, such as its lemurs, rely heavily on fruit for food. Changes in fruit availability will have serious impact on the health, reproductive success and population growth of these animals. Some animals may be able to adapt to changes in climate and habitat, but others are very sensitive to such changes. They are unlikely to survive in a hot, arid environment.

This will also have serious knock-on effects for human populations that depend on forests and animals for eco-tourism income. Approximately 75% of Madagascar’s population depends on the forest and subsistence farming for survival, and the tourism sector contributes over US$600 million towards the island’s economy annually.

To ensure that Madagascar’s forests survive, immediate action is needed to end deforestation, protect the remaining patches of forest, replant and restore forests, and mitigate global carbon emissions. Otherwise these remarkable forests will eventually disappear, along with all the animals and plants that depend on them.

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This blog is written by Daniel Hending, Postdoctoral Research Assistant Animal Vibration Lab, University of Oxford and Cabot Institute for the Environment member Marc Holderied, Professor in Sensory Biology, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Marc Holderied

Detectable impacts of Climate Change in the UK; a new review for the next Climate Change Risk Assessment

Posted on January 17, 2023March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

2022 was another year of “unprecedented” weather. Provisional figures indicate that it was the warmest so far recorded, with almost every month hotter than average. Much of the country had a notably mild New Year, despite the cold snap in mid-December. This was preceded by the third warmest autumn on record, and that by a scorching summer, with the hottest day ever recorded in July. But summer’s heat waves were also accompanied by a rise in the number of daily deaths across the country. People around the world are becoming increasingly more aware of events like these, and their impact in the UK is particularly concerning amidst the ongoing cost-of-living, energy, and NHS crises.

Aerial view of the Wennington wildfire, London, 19 July 2022. Source: Harrison Healey, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

Ahead of the Fourth UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA4), the Climate Change Committee (CCC) are asking what we know about the impact of past and present climate change on natural and human systems here in the UK specifically. At the global level, the 2021 IPCC sixth assessment working group I (AR6 WGI) report concluded: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.” This single sentence has been informed by decades of research by people at the cutting edge of climate science, and the evidence to support it has grown stronger in every IPCC report since they began. The report goes on to say: “Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe.” In last year’s follow-up AR6 WGII report on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, an extensive assessment of the science led to the conclusion that the magnitude and proliferation of extremes caused by human-induced climate change were having widespread, adverse impacts on both nature and people. Last summer’s heatwaves, and the concurrent dangers to health, homes, and the environment, were a graphic illustration of the nature of such human-induced impacts.

The study of impacts that informed this conclusion is the remit of climate scientists who specialise in “detection and attribution”. This is about looking at what is changing around us and being able to pinpoint the cause(s) – and particularly, whether human-induced climate change is at the root. To inform CCRA4, the CCC have commissioned a joint Bristol and Exeter University team to conduct a comprehensive review of the detection and attribution of climate change in the UK. The first part will cover the detection and attribution of weather and climate changes in the UK, relevant to specific “Climate Impact Drivers”. The second will cover attribution of impacts on societal, infrastructural, economic, and biodiversity sectors. We aim to find out what studies have been done so far, where the gaps are, and whether they can be filled, or if they would require substantial new methodological or data advances. We aim to identify variables which are key drivers of multiple impacts, and, importantly, where further attribution analysis is needed – especially when the impacts are critical for UK risk.

Detection and attribution is a rapidly evolving field, with focus only relatively recently moving from meteorological attribution (e.g., weather extremes) to impact attribution (e.g., consequences for humans and ecosystems). Our systematic review of the literature and final report will be key to tying it all together, especially with the UK focus required by the CCC. But to be able to present the most up-to-date findings, and thus make informed recommendations, we need to ensure that we have considered all relevant studies. So, if you, or someone you know, has published on this topic – whether UK specific or not – we’d like to know about it! Help shape and inform the next UK Climate Change Risk Assessment.

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This blog was written by Regan Mudhar, Professor Dann Mitchell (University of Bristol), Professor Richard Betts and Professor Peter Stott (University of Exeter/UK Met Office).

Four ways winter heatwaves affect humans and nature

Posted on January 11, 2023April 14, 2023 by janet.crompton

Temperature anomaly in Europe, Jan 1. Much of the continent was 10°C or more (dark red and grey) above the long-term average.
WX Charts, CC BY-NC

An extreme winter heatwave meant countries across Europe experienced a record-breaking New Year’s Day. New daily temperature records for the month of January were set in at least eight countries: Belarus, Czechia, Denmark, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Netherlands and Poland.

In many cases the temperatures were not just breaking the old highs, but smashing them by massive margins. On a typical January day in Warsaw, Poland, temperatures would barely go above freezing, yet the city recently experienced 19℃, breaking the previous January high by 5.1℃.

New January records were set at thousands of individual stations in many other countries such as 25.1℃ at Bilbao airport in Spain, 0.7℃ hotter than the previous record set only last year. Large areas of central and Eastern Europe experienced temperatures 10℃ to 15℃ warmer than average for this time of year – and that has persisted through the week.

When Europe experienced extreme heat in July of last year, more than 20,000 died. Fortunately winter heatwaves are much less deadly, but they can still affect both human society and natural ecosystems in many ways.

1. Less energy is needed

In Europe deaths due to cold weather vastly outweigh those caused by extreme high temperatures – in the UK there are ten times more. Warmer winters will reduce this excess mortality and, with the current cost-of-living crisis, many will have been relieved that a heatwave meant less energy was needed to heat their homes.

Electricity demand is influenced by things like the time of day, the day of the week and socio-economic factors like the COVID pandemic or the war in Ukraine. The weather also makes a difference. For example, in Poland and the Netherlands demand was noticeably lower than average, especially since January 1 was a Sunday. The extent of the heatwave also meant countries could refill some of their winter gas reserves, or large batteries.

Energy consumption in Poland December 28 to January 5. The red line shows the 2022-2023 heatwave period, and the grey lines show available data from 2015-2022.
Hannah Bloomfield / data: transparency.entsoe.eu, Author provided

2. Reduced yields for some crops

Winter warm spells don’t always have such a positive impact though. For instance a lack of snow in the mountains affects agriculture and can reduce crop yield, since snow creates an insulating blanket that prevents frost from penetrating into the soil. This means snow can actually increase soil moisture more than rainfall, thus improving growing conditions later in the season.

The big snow melt in spring time replenishes reservoirs and allows hydroelectricity generation, but unexpected snow melt can lead to flooding. Changes to the timings of these events will require preparation and adaptation to enable a steady supply of water to where we need it.

Warmer temperatures will create longer growing seasons in many regions. This is not always the case though. A recent study showed that for alpine grasslands an earlier growing season (the point when snow has melted entirely) leads to ageing and browning of the grasses in the later part of the summer.

3. The snow economy is in trouble

The heatwave caused ski resorts across the Alps to close in what should be their busiest time of year. In January the slopes would be expected to have a good covering of snow – but instead we saw green grassy fields.

This hits the local economy where many people rely on winter sports tourism. Events such as the Adelboden alpine ski World Cup are relying on artificial snow, which comes with a further environmental cost increasing the carbon footprint of ski resorts and requiring a large water supply. Indeed, the Beijing winter Olympics used the equivalent of daily drinking water for 900 million people to generate the artificial snow it required.

4. Animals out of sync with the climate

We humans are perhaps fortunate, as we are able to adapt. Some ski resorts have already opened mountain bike trails in winter to offer alternative tourism, but wildlife and ecosystems cannot adjust so rapidly.

In the mountains many species, such as ptarmigan and mountain hares, change their colouring for winter to camouflage in the white snow. The timing of this change is determined by length of day – not the temperature or amount of snow. These creatures are at greater risk of being preyed on when it is warmer.

White rabbit, brown background — Mountain hares are dressed for a climate that has changed.
Mark Medcalf / shutterstock

Over the past century heat extremes in Europe have increased in intensity and frequency. Both the general warming and heatwave events have been firmly attributed to humans.

Future projections suggest these trends will continue and heatwaves in both summer and winter will get hotter, last longer, and occur more often. We need to learn to adapt for these changes in all seasons and think about the impacts on everyone – and everything – on our planet.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Vikki Thompson, Senior Research Associate in Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol and Dr Hannah Bloomfield, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Risk Analytics, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

After COP27, is 1.5C still alive?

Posted on December 2, 2022April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton

Try booking a train on Boxing Day in the UK and you’ll soon find out that none are running. Well, not entirely. One small railway line managed by indomitable Gauls still holds out: The Eurostar. And airports are still being served as plains are still flying. Obvs. If this is not just the present, but also our future, then Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, is right: “We’re at 1.2 degrees now. If in 5 years we’re at 1.5, then we’re…. we’re…. I won’t use that word now.”

Apologies, I got carried away. Back to planes (flying), trains (not running) and automobiles (driving). These are symptomatic of the mess we’re in, but nothing compared to the mess we’re heading towards. And nothing compared to the mess others already find themselves in. If these current trends continues the number of refugees is set to increase from 21m in 2022 to 1bn in 2050 (Mia Mottley again). Many originate from Africa which is responsible for only 4% of global emissions (and 2% of historic emissions) and home to 600m without access to electricity.

While inanimate capital moves freely across borders, refugees are increasingly prevented from doing so. As their poverty and desperation grows in a warming world, their cost of borrowing increases as the World Bank uses per capita income as a proxy for borrowing conditions. Consequently, such countries (Least Developed Countries – LDCs) borrow at 12-14% while rich countries (the G7) borrow at 1-4%. According to Indian economist Joyashree Roy, these countries need 7% growth per year to escape their plight but if they are borrowing at +10% cost of capital, this growth will not be powered by renewables.

Neither will the focusing on the supply of renewables alone deliver Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Demand-side interventions are necessary to shift investment patterns and create new economic opportunities that are synergistic with SDGs. But all this depends on infrastructure access and empowerment to make the right choices, which in turn are determined by the flow of finance. To put on track for 1.5C, these flows need to quadruple to $4-6trn per year, according to Macky Sall, Senegalese President and current Chairperson of the African Union. IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee, goes one step further: access to capital is the key determinant of limiting global warming to 1.5C. Concessional access to finance was provided during COVID, as Mia Mottley pointed out, so why can it not be provided to prevent climate catastrophe?

Dr Colin Nolden (left) at COP27 with IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee and Dr Alix Dietzel

On the plus side, outgoing COP26 President Alok Sharma suggests that 90% of global emissions are covered by a net zero target. Almost 1/3rd of the global population who accumulate 55% of global GDP are covered by Emissions Trading Schemes, according to Stefano de Clara, Head of the International Carbon Action Partnership. Then again, the current average carbon price stands at $6/t. This needs to increase to $75/t by 2030 to limit warming to 2C, not to mention 1.5C, according to Dora Benedek from the International Monetary Fund.

Without such a massive increase in the cost of carbon, emissions are expected to be only 12% (6GtCO2eq) lower in 2030 compared to today. What about magic??, you might interject at this point. Current Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Direct Air Capture (DAC) capacities amount to around 4 hours of global emissions and are projected to amount to around 16 hours in 2030, according to Sven Teske from the University of Technology Sydney. To keep 1.5C alive, we need to reduce emissions by 30-50% in by 2030 (Dora Benedek again). So yes to magic, but only within the bounds of Kate Raworth’s famous doughnut.

And it’s both sides of that tasty doughnut that we need to bear in mind. On the outside, quick wins are possible regarding methane emissions which are responsible for around 0.5C of the 1.2C we stand above pre-industrial levels. Around 0.1C of warming can be addressed by cutting gas flaring and coal related methane emissions at no cost, according to US Deputy Climate Envoy Richard Duke. Addressing such emissions deliver invaluable co-benefits on the inside. 15% of all deaths (7million a year) are due to polluted air, according to Jane Burston of the Clean Air Fund. Companies are having to pay a pollution premium to attract talent to polluted cities.

It’s both the out and the in-side of the doughnut we need to focus on for a just transition to happen. According to Heike Henn, of Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and whatnot, Article 6 is emerging as the mechanism to allocate those $100bn/a finance pledged in Paris which never materialised as well as the trillions needed to implement NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) and SDGs.

Not Article 6.2 though, which requires adjustments in GHG registries upon the transfer of a carbon credits (Internationally Transferrable Mitigation Outcome – ITMO) and is already seeing emerging economies lowering ambition in their NDCs. Article 6.4 is what I’m talking about. Although it will take years to be operationalised, its infrastructure is being developed as we speak. The Climate Action Data Trust, for example, can significantly lower transaction costs of carbon market transactions through automated Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) and tokenisation to create digital carbon assets.

Now it’s down to ambitious countries to form alliances and agree on a sharing mechanism to convert the 1.5C target into demand for mitigation action distributed dynamically over time, and measure achievement and contribution using Article 6.4. “Getting to net zero is a heroic task”, according to Dirk Forrister of the International Emissions Trading Association, “and you won’t get there by going alone”.

Where does this leave 1.5C? “I find it hard to stay optimistic”, said Nichola Sturgeon on day 1 of COP27. I echo this sentiment. Yet we need to remind ourselves that the combined net zero targets, if implemented, can limit warming to 1.7C and increase, yes INCREASE, global GDP by 0.4% per year, according to Fatih Birol from the IEA. If we can’t sort this out, bins will be burning.

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Colin Nolden, Bristol Law School, University of Bristol.

Colin Nolden