“Told you so” – that’s what climate scientists must often think when they hear complaints about extremely high temperatures. In last year’s 6th Assessment Report, the IPCC warned about heat waves, droughts and extreme weather in the Mediterranean and the United States, as Bernhard Pötter reports. The report at that time reads like a preview of the impacts of climate change that we are currently seeing in many regions of the world and that we are still facing in the near future.
The debate on how politicians can prevent even more extreme heat waves often revolves around economic incentives or bans. Two studies now prove: Surprisingly, many people like bans and regulations more than believed, reports Leonie Sontheimer. Particularly interesting: This also applies to the future of fossil heating systems.
The company Tree Energy Solutions wants to help build a CO2-free energy supply. The energy company even promises to keep the old gas grid usable. We took a closer look at the “green cycle” of hydrogen, CO2 and synthetic methane and found a few problems.
Will bans and innovations result in less “I told you so, and you didn’t listen”? We will continue to keep an eye on this.
The current heat waves in Europe and North America are bringing record temperatures and much concern – but experts are not surprised. Excessive heat around the Mediterranean, heat records in the US and expected temperature highs in Italy, France, Spain, Poland and Germany fit the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections. The panel has warned of precisely these conditions in its recent reports.
The EU space agency ESA reported last week that a prolonged and intense heat period in Europe has “only just begun.” The historic European heat record could be broken in Sicily and Sardinia. It stands at 48.8 degrees, which was measured in Sicily in 2021. The high-pressure area “Cerberus” brought dangerous heat to Italy, Greece, Spain and other Mediterranean countries.
On Monday, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) announced to investigate whether there had indeed been any new records. The national meteorological and hydrological authorities had notified it of “a number of daily and station temperature records.” In addition, some countries may have broken national maximum temperatures.
Scientists consider the region around the Mediterranean Sea as a hotspot for global warming: “Due to its particular combination of multiple strong climate hazards and high vulnerability, the Mediterranean region is a hotspot for highly interconnected climate risks,” according to a supplementary paper of the IPCC in the 6th Assessment Report. “The main economic sectors in the region (agriculture, fisheries, forestry, tourism) are highly vulnerable to climatic hazards.”
For the first time, the IPCC 2022 evaluated the region as a whole. It found that:
The science panel warns that the adaptation of “ecosystems and human systems” to these developments will encounter “hard limits.” That means they will reach points where adaptation is no longer possible, as the effects of droughts, heat waves, sea-level rise, ocean warming and acidification would combine and amplify each other. In some regions, new dikes could help protect the coast. But this is expensive and, at some point, will no longer be sufficient.
Wolfgang Cramer is one of the report’s lead authors and a scientist at the French institute IMBE, which researches the ecology of the Mediterranean. He is unsurprised that reality in the Mediterranean is catching up with the forecasts: “This is actually true for all IPCC findings,” Cramer told Table.Media. “Nature confirms our models.”
He sees the development on the Mediterranean as also “a mirror of the North-South conflict,” where similar environmental conditions have very different consequences. Because “a small farmer in the Nile Delta is much less protected against the effects than, say, a large farm in the Po Valley in Italy, which has an investor and EU agricultural policy behind it.”
Overall, intensified temperatures and more frequent heat waves affect “marine and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as on land and sea use (agriculture, forestry, fisheries, tourism, recreation, etc.) and human health,” the report warns. Flooding caused by more frequent torrential rain also threatens people and infrastructure. According to the IPCC, the Mediterranean region is particularly vulnerable because of a “unique combination of many factors”:
Climate change is also “likely” contributing to migration movements in the Mediterranean region, where about 20,000 deaths have been reported since 2014, the report says. Climate changes in West and Sub-Saharan Africa could trigger migration movements, but also hinder people’s mobility. Food insecurity, which climate change contributes to, is one of the reasons for migration. However, despite a long drought, there is “no evidence for direct causal linkage” between climate change and the conflict in Syria.
The persistent, unusual heat wave in the United States also matches the climate researchers’ projections. The current record temperatures in the desert states of Arizona, California and New Mexico are part of an IPCC scenario that received a “high confidence” rating in its 6th Assessment Report.
The report warns that “climatic hazards affected by hydrological change, including humidity-inclusive heat stress, extreme precipitation and more intense storms, are projected to intensify.” The extreme precipitation in the northeastern US also fits into the picture the IPCC experts compiled for the report.
The experts also point out how hostile sentiment in parts of US society has delayed responses to the problems: With “high confidence,” the urgency to address these risks has increased due to “misinformation on climate change” has contributed to “uncertainty, disregarded risk and urgency, and dissent.”
Two studies have now revealed surprising results in the debate on what a climate-friendly lifestyle can look like and how it can be achieved: Regarding the acceptance of political measures, a study by the German government’s “Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen” (German Advisory Council on the Environment) found that “regulatory measures, i.e., mandates and bans, generally have a much higher level of acceptance than economic incentives.” A large-scale EU research project on a “1.5° lifestyle” comes to a similar conclusion. It found that citizens often tend toward much more effective means than politicians would dare to apply.
Both studies come at a time when the controversial “Building Energy Act” (Gebäudeenergiegesetz, GEG) is the subject of heated debate in Germany over what consumers can contribute to climate action. Some of the central questions here are: How effective and how popular are bans? And do people base their decisions on economic rationality?
Of the suitable measures for the rapid heat transition, the ban on new gas and oil heating systems formulated in the GEG is the one with the greatest acceptance. This is one of the answers from research on the current debate about the heating law.
According to the IPCC, climate targets can generally only be achieved if people change their lifestyles. Thus, 40 to 70 percent of the necessary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 could be achieved through measures on the demand side. And “in order to achieve climate, environmental and sustainability goals, the behavior of people in Germany must become more environmentally friendly,” the German Advisory Council on the Environment also writes in its current special report.
“It was important to us to bring this topic out of the ideological minefield,” says Council member Annette Elisabeth Töller from the Fern-Universität Hagen, who coordinated the special report. In the debate about ecological behavior, environmentalists are often accused of shifting responsibility onto the individual – liberals, on the other hand, see freedom endangered in these questions. “That’s why we set clear criteria in the report for when political intervention is indicated.”
In the opinion of the German Advisory Council, measures aimed at changing behavior should be taken if:
The special report lists which government instruments are suitable for encouraging people to change their behavior. These include, for example:
At the same time, the experts also assess the political viability of such government interventions. One of the three case studies in the report is the heat transition in private homes. The result:
The expert report states that when households choose a heating system, “perceived economic efficiency,” and future developments such as rising carbon prices are “potentially not sufficiently” taken into account. The expert panel, therefore, “expressly” welcomes the GEG requirement that newly installed heating systems must be operated with at least 65 percent renewables from 2024 onwards. At the same time, the panel recommends a “clear prioritization of fulfillment options.” This means subsidies should prioritize heat pumps over pellet heating systems, for instance.
The report also recommends that policymakers offer households new incentives to consider energy-efficient renovation. This could be, for example, new regulatory standards, a very high carbon price or even an energy advisor from the neighborhood council knocking on the door. SRU author Töller herself is surprised at the comparatively higher acceptance of political measures, which “tend to have a much higher acceptance than economic incentives.”
The extensive EU 1.5° Lifestyle research project comes to a similar conclusion. The Europe-wide project explores what a lifestyle compatible with a maximum global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius looks like. “On the one hand, we are interested in what citizens or households can do. On the other hand – and this is just as important – we are investigating the political framework conditions for behavioral changes,” says Doris Fuchs, Professor at the University of Münster, coordinating the project.
In five Thinking Labs, one of them in Germany, representatives from business, politics, media, civil society, research and think tanks were asked to rate various instruments for behavioral change. The result: Taxes and bans have proven to be by far the most popular when it comes to air travel, cars in city centers or sugar in food, for example.
“This may come as a surprise at first glance, but it actually underscores what we keep confirming in research,” says Doris Fuchs. “Namely, that both stakeholders and citizens in joint decision-making processes often tend toward much more effective means than politicians dare to.”
In a previous project phase, seven deep-seated structures were identified that facilitate or impede a 1.5-degree compliant lifestyle. From these, the researchers derived the most effective levers.
The research team did not expect the first obstacle in particular, the focus on economic growth, says Fuchs: “The fact that the economy has to grow is a basic assumption that we rarely question. Yet we have so far only achieved a very limited detachment from economic performance and resource consumption,” says Fuchs. “Therefore, we have to ask ourselves how we can create quality of life in times when we can no longer afford further quantitative economic growth.”
The EU 1.5 Lifestyle research project began in May 2021 and is expected to run for four years. In addition to researching effectiveness, acceptance and policy frameworks for behavior change, it also aims to “implement transformative approaches to 1.5° lifestyles.”
Germany is currently revising its national hydrogen strategy. The strategy calls for 50 to 70 percent of the country’s hydrogen demand to be covered by imports by 2030. But hydrogen transport via ship is technically challenging. For this reason, LNG derivatives are to be imported for the most part by 2030.
A proposal that is also of great interest to the German government is now brought into the debate: A carbon-free cycle for energy supply. The energy company Tree Energy Solutions (TES) proposes using renewable energies and hydrogen to produce a synthetic gas as a hydrogen derivative and thus create a carbon-free energy cycle. This synthetic gas is intended to help cement or steel companies, for example, achieve their climate targets.
Tree Energy Solution (TES) is a 2021 company based in Schiphol, the Netherlands, with branch offices in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, and other locations. Together with Eon and Engie, the company is set to operate a floating LNG terminal off Wilhelmshaven from winter 23/24. TES maintains cooperative agreements with utility EWE, energy companies EON and Australia’s Fortescue Future Industries. A year ago, company executives already presented their ideas to the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action led by Robert Habeck, who is trying to combine a secure energy supply for Germany with the idea of decarbonization. But how realistic is the TES concept?
Tree Energy Solutions aims to:
What sounds complicated has some advantages:
The TES concept has greatly interested the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) and the Chancellery. But a BMWK spokesperson points to potential shortages and competition for carbon, which is required for the production of the synthetic gas and “at the same time, however, also for sustainable aviation fuels.”
Regarding the availability of CO2, Tree Energy Solutions is optimistic: The company’s customers “will install CO2 capture technologies to meet their climate targets and reduce their ETS levies,” a spokeswoman explained. The company offers CO2 transport via rail and, once available, pipeline, she said. If TES customers “are not able to capture 100 percent of the CO2, we compensate through direct air capture.”
But the availability of CO2 could not be the only problem:
Europe is currently gripped by heat waves. But beyond the current maximum temperatures, a team of researchers from the Crowther Lab study group at ETH Zurich were interested in how the urban climate in different regions will change in the long term. They analyzed temperature and precipitation data from 520 cities around the world and combined it with an optimistic estimate that the world will warm by a global average of 1.4 degrees by 2050.
According to these analyses, 77 percent of cities will experience climates similar to those that exist today in metropolitan areas that are, on average, about 1,000 kilometers closer to the equator. 22 percent will experience conditions where no major city exists today. On average, the urban climate in Europe will thus move 20 kilometers south each year.
We only show a European excerpt from the global interactive graphic here: In 2050, the climate in Stockholm will feel like living in Budapest today. Helsinki will be similar to Vienna, the Austrian capital to Skopje in Montenegro, Madrid to Fez in Morocco, and London’s climate will resemble Melbourne in Australia. Moscow will feel like Detroit. And Berlin, Paris, Kyiv and Brussels will all share the same climate, namely with Canberra in Australia. bpo
The two news stories came right after one another a few days ago: Global air traffic reached a new record, as data from the tracking company Flightradar24 showed – and a little later, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported the highest temperatures worldwide since record-keeping began, according to preliminary data. Airlines around the world expect strong summer business and high profits. The vacation season has begun, and many people want to travel again. Including via plane.
It is difficult to comprehend the simultaneity of the climate crisis and increasing air traffic. Climate action is not making any headway in the sector. Yet air traffic is responsible for around three percent of global CO2 emissions – and other greenhouse gases, some of which have an even greater impact on the climate, on top of that.
Air travel is a service used by a privileged minority. In no other area is the inequality of emissions so glaring: As studies show, in the United Kingdom, for example, members of wealthier, highly educated, and urban households are the ones who travel by air. Globally, air travel is reserved for a tiny minority.
A tiny fraction of humanity – the one percent that flies the most – is responsible for more than half of total passenger emissions. Flights are considered a luxury rather than a necessity. Researchers rank nearly half of leisure flights as non-essential. Given the environmental cost of these flights, this is alarming. Why is the industry allowed to fly under the radar?
Airlines play a pivotal role in this. Their marketing weaves enticing tales of adventure and urgent business. The importance of air travel in building social capital makes things even more challenging. When air travelers are informed of the negative environmental impact of their actions, it can cause cognitive dissonance. That means: Some feel inclined to deny the reality of climate change. Others believe that new technologies will allow things to continue as before. This psychology of denial is particularly pronounced among frequent flyers.
The aviation industry’s current business model, which relies on volume growth with minimal profit margins, is not sustainable in the long term. If it remains unchanged, aviation’s contribution to climate change will likely increase further. Tourism alone – which includes all travel with at least one overnight stay, whether business-related or for vacation purposes – could consume 40 percent of the carbon budget we have left if we want to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees without climate action.
Fortunately, however, there is also considerable support for measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. In a survey in Germany, a two-thirds majority of respondents supported no fewer than three such measures: a carbon price that would increase the cost of flying, regulations that would require airlines to cut emissions, and the abolition of subsidies.
But decisive political stakeholders often consider consistent climate action a high political risk. In particular, the most influential are often frequent flyers. At the same time, there is a structural lack of effective global regulation in aviation. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) attempts to paint itself climate-green through offsets. Simultaneously, it prevents effective climate action at the global level.
Researchers and analysts suggest three sets of measures to address climate change in aviation:
Pricing is probably the most important aspect. The climate impact of aviation is severely underpriced, and kerosene is still exempt from international taxation. The now-planned inclusion of intra-EU flights in the EU Emissions Trading System is an important step – but one that continues to ignore the non-CO2 greenhouse gases that account for the larger share of climate damage.
Some climate action groups advocate a frequent flyer levy. This would see a flight tax gradually increase with each additional flight. In fact, this policy has gained support within the Climate Assembly UK, like the proposal to scrap the tax exemption on kerosene. This support is also present in Germany. As a start, take-off and landing of private aircraft could be taxed in the high four-digit range and private aircraft could be required to use e-fuels from 2030 exclusively.
The democratic will to address the climate-damaging effects of air travel exists. Now it still needs to translate into international political will. An important step would be for the German Chancellor and the German Finance Minister to push for bilateral and multilateral agreements to ensure the immediate harmonized taxation of kerosene, first across the EU and then internationally.
Felix Creutzig was IPCC lead author and leads the Land Use, Infrastructure and Transport working group at MCC Berlin.
“Told you so” – that’s what climate scientists must often think when they hear complaints about extremely high temperatures. In last year’s 6th Assessment Report, the IPCC warned about heat waves, droughts and extreme weather in the Mediterranean and the United States, as Bernhard Pötter reports. The report at that time reads like a preview of the impacts of climate change that we are currently seeing in many regions of the world and that we are still facing in the near future.
The debate on how politicians can prevent even more extreme heat waves often revolves around economic incentives or bans. Two studies now prove: Surprisingly, many people like bans and regulations more than believed, reports Leonie Sontheimer. Particularly interesting: This also applies to the future of fossil heating systems.
The company Tree Energy Solutions wants to help build a CO2-free energy supply. The energy company even promises to keep the old gas grid usable. We took a closer look at the “green cycle” of hydrogen, CO2 and synthetic methane and found a few problems.
Will bans and innovations result in less “I told you so, and you didn’t listen”? We will continue to keep an eye on this.
The current heat waves in Europe and North America are bringing record temperatures and much concern – but experts are not surprised. Excessive heat around the Mediterranean, heat records in the US and expected temperature highs in Italy, France, Spain, Poland and Germany fit the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections. The panel has warned of precisely these conditions in its recent reports.
The EU space agency ESA reported last week that a prolonged and intense heat period in Europe has “only just begun.” The historic European heat record could be broken in Sicily and Sardinia. It stands at 48.8 degrees, which was measured in Sicily in 2021. The high-pressure area “Cerberus” brought dangerous heat to Italy, Greece, Spain and other Mediterranean countries.
On Monday, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) announced to investigate whether there had indeed been any new records. The national meteorological and hydrological authorities had notified it of “a number of daily and station temperature records.” In addition, some countries may have broken national maximum temperatures.
Scientists consider the region around the Mediterranean Sea as a hotspot for global warming: “Due to its particular combination of multiple strong climate hazards and high vulnerability, the Mediterranean region is a hotspot for highly interconnected climate risks,” according to a supplementary paper of the IPCC in the 6th Assessment Report. “The main economic sectors in the region (agriculture, fisheries, forestry, tourism) are highly vulnerable to climatic hazards.”
For the first time, the IPCC 2022 evaluated the region as a whole. It found that:
The science panel warns that the adaptation of “ecosystems and human systems” to these developments will encounter “hard limits.” That means they will reach points where adaptation is no longer possible, as the effects of droughts, heat waves, sea-level rise, ocean warming and acidification would combine and amplify each other. In some regions, new dikes could help protect the coast. But this is expensive and, at some point, will no longer be sufficient.
Wolfgang Cramer is one of the report’s lead authors and a scientist at the French institute IMBE, which researches the ecology of the Mediterranean. He is unsurprised that reality in the Mediterranean is catching up with the forecasts: “This is actually true for all IPCC findings,” Cramer told Table.Media. “Nature confirms our models.”
He sees the development on the Mediterranean as also “a mirror of the North-South conflict,” where similar environmental conditions have very different consequences. Because “a small farmer in the Nile Delta is much less protected against the effects than, say, a large farm in the Po Valley in Italy, which has an investor and EU agricultural policy behind it.”
Overall, intensified temperatures and more frequent heat waves affect “marine and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as on land and sea use (agriculture, forestry, fisheries, tourism, recreation, etc.) and human health,” the report warns. Flooding caused by more frequent torrential rain also threatens people and infrastructure. According to the IPCC, the Mediterranean region is particularly vulnerable because of a “unique combination of many factors”:
Climate change is also “likely” contributing to migration movements in the Mediterranean region, where about 20,000 deaths have been reported since 2014, the report says. Climate changes in West and Sub-Saharan Africa could trigger migration movements, but also hinder people’s mobility. Food insecurity, which climate change contributes to, is one of the reasons for migration. However, despite a long drought, there is “no evidence for direct causal linkage” between climate change and the conflict in Syria.
The persistent, unusual heat wave in the United States also matches the climate researchers’ projections. The current record temperatures in the desert states of Arizona, California and New Mexico are part of an IPCC scenario that received a “high confidence” rating in its 6th Assessment Report.
The report warns that “climatic hazards affected by hydrological change, including humidity-inclusive heat stress, extreme precipitation and more intense storms, are projected to intensify.” The extreme precipitation in the northeastern US also fits into the picture the IPCC experts compiled for the report.
The experts also point out how hostile sentiment in parts of US society has delayed responses to the problems: With “high confidence,” the urgency to address these risks has increased due to “misinformation on climate change” has contributed to “uncertainty, disregarded risk and urgency, and dissent.”
Two studies have now revealed surprising results in the debate on what a climate-friendly lifestyle can look like and how it can be achieved: Regarding the acceptance of political measures, a study by the German government’s “Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen” (German Advisory Council on the Environment) found that “regulatory measures, i.e., mandates and bans, generally have a much higher level of acceptance than economic incentives.” A large-scale EU research project on a “1.5° lifestyle” comes to a similar conclusion. It found that citizens often tend toward much more effective means than politicians would dare to apply.
Both studies come at a time when the controversial “Building Energy Act” (Gebäudeenergiegesetz, GEG) is the subject of heated debate in Germany over what consumers can contribute to climate action. Some of the central questions here are: How effective and how popular are bans? And do people base their decisions on economic rationality?
Of the suitable measures for the rapid heat transition, the ban on new gas and oil heating systems formulated in the GEG is the one with the greatest acceptance. This is one of the answers from research on the current debate about the heating law.
According to the IPCC, climate targets can generally only be achieved if people change their lifestyles. Thus, 40 to 70 percent of the necessary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 could be achieved through measures on the demand side. And “in order to achieve climate, environmental and sustainability goals, the behavior of people in Germany must become more environmentally friendly,” the German Advisory Council on the Environment also writes in its current special report.
“It was important to us to bring this topic out of the ideological minefield,” says Council member Annette Elisabeth Töller from the Fern-Universität Hagen, who coordinated the special report. In the debate about ecological behavior, environmentalists are often accused of shifting responsibility onto the individual – liberals, on the other hand, see freedom endangered in these questions. “That’s why we set clear criteria in the report for when political intervention is indicated.”
In the opinion of the German Advisory Council, measures aimed at changing behavior should be taken if:
The special report lists which government instruments are suitable for encouraging people to change their behavior. These include, for example:
At the same time, the experts also assess the political viability of such government interventions. One of the three case studies in the report is the heat transition in private homes. The result:
The expert report states that when households choose a heating system, “perceived economic efficiency,” and future developments such as rising carbon prices are “potentially not sufficiently” taken into account. The expert panel, therefore, “expressly” welcomes the GEG requirement that newly installed heating systems must be operated with at least 65 percent renewables from 2024 onwards. At the same time, the panel recommends a “clear prioritization of fulfillment options.” This means subsidies should prioritize heat pumps over pellet heating systems, for instance.
The report also recommends that policymakers offer households new incentives to consider energy-efficient renovation. This could be, for example, new regulatory standards, a very high carbon price or even an energy advisor from the neighborhood council knocking on the door. SRU author Töller herself is surprised at the comparatively higher acceptance of political measures, which “tend to have a much higher acceptance than economic incentives.”
The extensive EU 1.5° Lifestyle research project comes to a similar conclusion. The Europe-wide project explores what a lifestyle compatible with a maximum global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius looks like. “On the one hand, we are interested in what citizens or households can do. On the other hand – and this is just as important – we are investigating the political framework conditions for behavioral changes,” says Doris Fuchs, Professor at the University of Münster, coordinating the project.
In five Thinking Labs, one of them in Germany, representatives from business, politics, media, civil society, research and think tanks were asked to rate various instruments for behavioral change. The result: Taxes and bans have proven to be by far the most popular when it comes to air travel, cars in city centers or sugar in food, for example.
“This may come as a surprise at first glance, but it actually underscores what we keep confirming in research,” says Doris Fuchs. “Namely, that both stakeholders and citizens in joint decision-making processes often tend toward much more effective means than politicians dare to.”
In a previous project phase, seven deep-seated structures were identified that facilitate or impede a 1.5-degree compliant lifestyle. From these, the researchers derived the most effective levers.
The research team did not expect the first obstacle in particular, the focus on economic growth, says Fuchs: “The fact that the economy has to grow is a basic assumption that we rarely question. Yet we have so far only achieved a very limited detachment from economic performance and resource consumption,” says Fuchs. “Therefore, we have to ask ourselves how we can create quality of life in times when we can no longer afford further quantitative economic growth.”
The EU 1.5 Lifestyle research project began in May 2021 and is expected to run for four years. In addition to researching effectiveness, acceptance and policy frameworks for behavior change, it also aims to “implement transformative approaches to 1.5° lifestyles.”
Germany is currently revising its national hydrogen strategy. The strategy calls for 50 to 70 percent of the country’s hydrogen demand to be covered by imports by 2030. But hydrogen transport via ship is technically challenging. For this reason, LNG derivatives are to be imported for the most part by 2030.
A proposal that is also of great interest to the German government is now brought into the debate: A carbon-free cycle for energy supply. The energy company Tree Energy Solutions (TES) proposes using renewable energies and hydrogen to produce a synthetic gas as a hydrogen derivative and thus create a carbon-free energy cycle. This synthetic gas is intended to help cement or steel companies, for example, achieve their climate targets.
Tree Energy Solution (TES) is a 2021 company based in Schiphol, the Netherlands, with branch offices in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, and other locations. Together with Eon and Engie, the company is set to operate a floating LNG terminal off Wilhelmshaven from winter 23/24. TES maintains cooperative agreements with utility EWE, energy companies EON and Australia’s Fortescue Future Industries. A year ago, company executives already presented their ideas to the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action led by Robert Habeck, who is trying to combine a secure energy supply for Germany with the idea of decarbonization. But how realistic is the TES concept?
Tree Energy Solutions aims to:
What sounds complicated has some advantages:
The TES concept has greatly interested the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) and the Chancellery. But a BMWK spokesperson points to potential shortages and competition for carbon, which is required for the production of the synthetic gas and “at the same time, however, also for sustainable aviation fuels.”
Regarding the availability of CO2, Tree Energy Solutions is optimistic: The company’s customers “will install CO2 capture technologies to meet their climate targets and reduce their ETS levies,” a spokeswoman explained. The company offers CO2 transport via rail and, once available, pipeline, she said. If TES customers “are not able to capture 100 percent of the CO2, we compensate through direct air capture.”
But the availability of CO2 could not be the only problem:
Europe is currently gripped by heat waves. But beyond the current maximum temperatures, a team of researchers from the Crowther Lab study group at ETH Zurich were interested in how the urban climate in different regions will change in the long term. They analyzed temperature and precipitation data from 520 cities around the world and combined it with an optimistic estimate that the world will warm by a global average of 1.4 degrees by 2050.
According to these analyses, 77 percent of cities will experience climates similar to those that exist today in metropolitan areas that are, on average, about 1,000 kilometers closer to the equator. 22 percent will experience conditions where no major city exists today. On average, the urban climate in Europe will thus move 20 kilometers south each year.
We only show a European excerpt from the global interactive graphic here: In 2050, the climate in Stockholm will feel like living in Budapest today. Helsinki will be similar to Vienna, the Austrian capital to Skopje in Montenegro, Madrid to Fez in Morocco, and London’s climate will resemble Melbourne in Australia. Moscow will feel like Detroit. And Berlin, Paris, Kyiv and Brussels will all share the same climate, namely with Canberra in Australia. bpo
The two news stories came right after one another a few days ago: Global air traffic reached a new record, as data from the tracking company Flightradar24 showed – and a little later, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported the highest temperatures worldwide since record-keeping began, according to preliminary data. Airlines around the world expect strong summer business and high profits. The vacation season has begun, and many people want to travel again. Including via plane.
It is difficult to comprehend the simultaneity of the climate crisis and increasing air traffic. Climate action is not making any headway in the sector. Yet air traffic is responsible for around three percent of global CO2 emissions – and other greenhouse gases, some of which have an even greater impact on the climate, on top of that.
Air travel is a service used by a privileged minority. In no other area is the inequality of emissions so glaring: As studies show, in the United Kingdom, for example, members of wealthier, highly educated, and urban households are the ones who travel by air. Globally, air travel is reserved for a tiny minority.
A tiny fraction of humanity – the one percent that flies the most – is responsible for more than half of total passenger emissions. Flights are considered a luxury rather than a necessity. Researchers rank nearly half of leisure flights as non-essential. Given the environmental cost of these flights, this is alarming. Why is the industry allowed to fly under the radar?
Airlines play a pivotal role in this. Their marketing weaves enticing tales of adventure and urgent business. The importance of air travel in building social capital makes things even more challenging. When air travelers are informed of the negative environmental impact of their actions, it can cause cognitive dissonance. That means: Some feel inclined to deny the reality of climate change. Others believe that new technologies will allow things to continue as before. This psychology of denial is particularly pronounced among frequent flyers.
The aviation industry’s current business model, which relies on volume growth with minimal profit margins, is not sustainable in the long term. If it remains unchanged, aviation’s contribution to climate change will likely increase further. Tourism alone – which includes all travel with at least one overnight stay, whether business-related or for vacation purposes – could consume 40 percent of the carbon budget we have left if we want to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees without climate action.
Fortunately, however, there is also considerable support for measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. In a survey in Germany, a two-thirds majority of respondents supported no fewer than three such measures: a carbon price that would increase the cost of flying, regulations that would require airlines to cut emissions, and the abolition of subsidies.
But decisive political stakeholders often consider consistent climate action a high political risk. In particular, the most influential are often frequent flyers. At the same time, there is a structural lack of effective global regulation in aviation. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) attempts to paint itself climate-green through offsets. Simultaneously, it prevents effective climate action at the global level.
Researchers and analysts suggest three sets of measures to address climate change in aviation:
Pricing is probably the most important aspect. The climate impact of aviation is severely underpriced, and kerosene is still exempt from international taxation. The now-planned inclusion of intra-EU flights in the EU Emissions Trading System is an important step – but one that continues to ignore the non-CO2 greenhouse gases that account for the larger share of climate damage.
Some climate action groups advocate a frequent flyer levy. This would see a flight tax gradually increase with each additional flight. In fact, this policy has gained support within the Climate Assembly UK, like the proposal to scrap the tax exemption on kerosene. This support is also present in Germany. As a start, take-off and landing of private aircraft could be taxed in the high four-digit range and private aircraft could be required to use e-fuels from 2030 exclusively.
The democratic will to address the climate-damaging effects of air travel exists. Now it still needs to translate into international political will. An important step would be for the German Chancellor and the German Finance Minister to push for bilateral and multilateral agreements to ensure the immediate harmonized taxation of kerosene, first across the EU and then internationally.
Felix Creutzig was IPCC lead author and leads the Land Use, Infrastructure and Transport working group at MCC Berlin.
