December 2024 – Page 6 – This is Not Cool

Trump Will Hand Global Leadership to China

BAKU, Azerbaijan — The coming U.S. retreat from leadership on global climate policy comes amid a dawning reality: For much of the world, China already calls the shots.

Beijing’s decades-long effort to dominate the world’s clean energy economy is enabling it to woo tight business alliances with governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America — without insisting on the labor and environmental safeguards that the United States and European Union typically demand. Those countries, in turn, are taking China’s side in disputes with the U.S. and Europe about trade policies or efforts to make rich nations step up their international climate aid.

And as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, promising to walk away from the Paris climate agreement, some diplomats at the U.N.-sponsored talks in Azerbaijan said they hope China will fill the void by championing steep cuts in greenhouse gas pollution. Trump has also pledged to shred Biden administration clean energy policies that were designed to weaken Chinese control of key technologies.

“We will need China’s continued leadership,” U.N. climate chief Simon Stiellsaid midway through the two-week COP29 summit that is expected to wrap up this weekend, in a speech that sought to anoint the country as a preeminent climate powerbroker. He urged Beijing to demonstrate to other nations that “stronger targets drive investment” — a message that, in a different context, might have served as a sales pitch for President Joe Biden’s big-spending clean energy policies.

Unstoppable. Worldwide, Drivers Plan on EV Transition

EV.com:

A new comprehensive survey reveals a significant shift in global automotive preferences, with 57% of drivers worldwide expecting to own an electric vehicle (EV) within the next 10 years.

The study, which surveyed 6,000 car drivers across major automotive markets, spotlights varying levels of EV enthusiasm across different regions and unveils distinct customer segments shaping the future of electric mobility.

Regional Variations in EV Adoption

According to Accenture, China leads the global push toward EVs, with 65% of drivers believing EVs represent the future of automotive transportation. The United States (U.S.) follows closely behind, with 54% of American drivers anticipating EV ownership within the next decade, and only 11% ruling out ever purchasing an EV.

European markets show more hesitancy, particularly in Germany, where only 37% of drivers express strong support forEVs. Whereas France showed similar skepticism with just 36% fully embracing an electric future.

As a result, these survey results align with recent market trends, as the U.S. has emerged as the world’s second-largest EV market in the third quarter, trailing only China, while some European markets experience slower growth.

Farm Incomes to Drop Again in 2024 – Clean Energy is A Lifesaver for Family Farms

Pressure on Farmers only increasing, as farm incomes will drop again in 2024. Increasingly unpredictable and severe weather, coupled with unstable international markets, makes stready income from clean energy even more important.

Drovers:

·After decreasing by $29.7 billion (16%) from 2022 to a forecast $155.9 billion in 2023, net farm income in 2024 is forecast to decrease further from the 2023 level by $39.8 billion (25.5%) to $116.1 billion.

· Net cash farm income reached $202.3 billion in 2022. After decreasing by $41.8 billion (20.7%) from 2022 to a forecast $160.4 billion in 2023, net cash farm income is forecast to decrease by $38.7 billion (24.1%) to $121.7 billion in 2024.

MarketPlace:

Hemmes: Well, here’s something that happened. Just last week, they were at the China international Expo, which is a half a million people, all the people China trades with, and they have a big expo. And the soybean people last year went met with all the Chinese government officials. This year, USDA wanted to set up the meetings, and the Chinese wouldn’t accept meetings with them. So that tells you. And then, I got a text from the United Soybean Board Chairman who was there, and they just announced, buckle up. It’s gonna be a fun ride. So there you have it.

Ryssdal: Have you harvested yet? It’s November, so you’ve already had your harvest, right?

Hemmes: Yep, I’m done. And last year, if you remember, I had, like, one of the best harvests I’ve ever had. This year was the worst harvest I’ve ever had. My husband goes, it’s not the worst. And I go, maybe not, but it’s the worst since I’ve been able to, you know, glean all the information off of every acre, you know, have the technology to do that. So, that’s why we have crop insurance.

Ryssdal: What happened? Was it too dry or what?

Helene Victims Hit FEMA Response. Wait Till Project 2025 Cancels FEMA.

Fox News hosts feign outrage at accounts of FEMA failures in the Helene recovery efforts around Asheville, North Carolina.
Someone needs to tell these folks that what America voted for in Project 2025, – the “privatization” of FEMA, and “shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government.”

Hollowing out our already strained emergency response capabilities just as climate extreme events begin to bite on nice middle class white Fox viewers…

Weather Extremes have Coffee Prices at Historic High

Perfect time to apply 100 percent tariffs, right?

Wall Street Journal:

Arabica coffee prices have hit their highest level since 1977 as concerns grow about tight global supplies.

Continuous arabica coffee futures on the ICE rose 2.8% to $3.175 a pound, near the all-time record of $3.356. Futures are up nearly 69% in the year-to-date.

The surge reflects weather concerns in powerhouse producer Brazil, including an extended drought and high temperatures.

Despite good coffee flowering on recent rains in the country, there are worries that the flowers might not attach to the branches, which could lead to production losses in the next season, ING analysts said in a note.

Higher exports this year on stronger prices have also reduced stockpiles, and a low production season could significantly tighten supplies, ING added. Brazil exports rose 8.1% on-month to 4.9 million bags of coffee in October, a record for the month.

Production in Brazil has underperformed for the last four years on adverse weather and if that trend becomes a norm, high coffee prices are needed to rationalize a further supply response, Citi analysts wrote. That said, production in other countries has been growing, a trend that is likely to intensify over the next few years in response to higher prices.

Yahoo Finance:

A severe drought earlier this year in Brazil has fueled worries about the country’s output. That comes on top of concerns about another bean variety produced in Vietnam, after a key coffee belt was hit by dryness during the growing period and heavy rains arrived at the start of harvest.

Might Be a Bad Time to Wreck NOAA and America’s Weather Service

Just as we are accelerating into an age of superstorms, let’s dismantle our ability to predict and adapt to the new reality. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Ryan Maue is a former NOAA official in the Trump administration, not well regarded by mainstream climate scientists, but even he thinks Project 2025’s plan to destroy one of the Crown Jewels of American science, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric administration, is nutty. We’ll have to be taking sanity whenever we can get it in coming years.

Ryan Maue in the New York Times:

For people who care about weather and climate, one of the most concerning proposals on the table is to dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The authors of Project 2025, a blueprint for the administration crafted by conservative organizations, claim erroneously that NOAA is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” and should be “broken down and downsized.” An arm of Mr. Trump’s team, the Department of Government Efficiency, to be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, wants to eliminate $500 billion in spending by cutting programs whose funding has expired. That could include NOAA.

With the rising costs of and vulnerability to extreme weather in a changing climate for the United States, dismantling or defunding NOAA would be a catastrophic error. Rather, there is a golden opportunity to modernize the agency by expanding its capacity for research and innovation. This would not only help Americans better prepare for and survive extreme weather but also keep NOAA from falling further behind similar agencies in Europe. While the incoming administration may want to take a sledgehammer to the federal government, there is broad, bipartisan support for NOAA in Congress. It is the job of the incoming Republican-controlled Congress to invest in its future.

NOAA was established via executive order in 1970 by President Richard Nixon as an agency within the Department of Commerce. Currently its mission is to understand and predict changes in the climate, weather, ocean and coasts. It conducts basic research; provides authoritative services like weather forecasts, climate monitoring and marine resource management; and supports industries like energy, agriculture, fishing, tourism and transportation.

Project 2025 Author Russel Vought outlines a project of terror against scientists

Helene Relief Flounders as Disasters Overwhelm Funding

As climate fueled disasters accelerate, Congress struggles to keep funding in the pipeline.

Helene and other storms this year made clear how vulnerable our built infrastructure is to a new order of extremes. Turns out our economic infrastructure is creaking under the strain as well.

Below: The long-duration lake-effect snow event along the Great Lakes is entering its fourth day. Nearly 6 feet of snow has already accumulated, and the storm is expected to continue into Tuesday, potentially bringing total snowfall to over 7 feet.

Looking Back at the 2024 Hurricane Season

Meteorologists warned as early as February that this hurricane season could be catastrophic, and they turned out to be right.
Above, Senior Meteorologist John Morales, who went viral with this tearful response (see below) to the rapid intensification of Hurricane Milton, some weeks ago, sums up what we know about the season that just ended.
(FYI, Morales misspeaks and says “millions” when he means “billions” at the end, where he describes hurricane damages)

NBC Miami:

he 2024 hurricane season is ending. It was catastrophically impactful.

The backloaded season ended with seven hurricanes forming in six weeks between Sept. 25 and Nov. 5 — the most ever observed for this period. Four of those were major hurricanes: Helene, Kirk, Milton and Rafael. Twelve named storms formed after the climatological peak of the season in early September.

The season also featured a record-breaking start, followed by a peak-season lull.

Numbers confirm the 2024 season was “Hyperactive”

Hurricane Beryl was the earliest Atlantic basin Category 5 hurricane on record. It razed Carriacou and neighboring Grenadine Islands in the southeastern Caribbean at the beginning of July, then went on weaken but still cause significant storm surge flooding across parts of Texas and Louisiana.

After Beryl dissipated on July 9, almost a month passed until Hurricane Debby formed in early August and went on to strike Florida’s Big Bend. Only one other storm formed in August — Hurricane Ernesto, which impacted the northeastern Caribbean and Bermuda. It took until mid-September before the hurricane season really got going in earnest.