2020 Roundup: A year in Climate Records, Science, Catastrophes, Developments and Personal Milestones.

That is, what insights can we glean from this dumpsterfire of an year?

For the last issue of Climate Matters this year, I thought I’d do a quick roundup of notable climate events that happened in 2020. Considering the year that has gone by feels like a whole decade where a whole century happened and we’ve aged by a couple of years in it, it might be helpful to remember the major developments in the climate space. The important thing here would be to to gain perspective on what a clusterf*ck of a year 2020 has been and that we need to avoid willingly shooting ourselves in the foot by burning more fossil fuels in future. I’ll keep today’s newsletter very short but lots of links to papers, articles and reports. So your weekend reading is sorted!

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Let’s get to it then.

(This is a personal selection, btw)

Three major climate records set in 2020:

1. In August, Death Valley experienced the hottest ever reliably recorded temperature on earth

2. In October, Typhoon Goni became the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone ever recorded. (2020 also had the most active Atlantic storm season with 30 named storms, like never before.)

3. In May, Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration hit a record high 417.16 parts per million.

   Note: All three are highest extremes in all of human history that we know of.

Three events that showed us the complexity of climate crisis:

1. Locust plague: Looking back at the clusterf*ck that was 2020, I think a continent-hopping, unstoppable, apocalyptic locust swarm at the beginning of the year perfectly set the mood for the rest of the year. The prescience aside, the emergence of locusts as a new threat that crippled east Africa’s food security and jumped continents so easily, all because the locusts could mate and reproduce exponentially, thanks to an unusually warm Indian Ocean, that in turn caused an unusually long and wet season is the kind of ridiculous and unpredictable impacts of a warming world. Oh a new swarm is forming btw, as you read this.

2. Arctic meltdown: In a year that is primed to the hottest year so far in earth’s recorded history, it should come as no surprise that the Arctic had such a meltdown. But what should seriously worry us is the impending threat of sea level rise triggered by record and unstoppable melting of Arctic ice sheets and glaciers. New models have already predicted catastrophic melting of Greenland Ice sheet locked in already. Similar fate has been predicted for Antarctic Ice Sheet as well. Evidence is growing that these ice sheets may have crossed their tipping points, a point after which disintegration needs no external push and will continue on unabated. Together, Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet disintegration is set to cause at least 5 to 10 feet in sea level rise by 2100 according to one expert.

3. Hottest year/highest Co2 concentration despite COVID lockdown: While the world did make plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for five years now, we never saw anything like this in practical effect until coronavirus suddenly forced us into a global shutdown. In the same year where emissions saw such a steep and unprecedented drop, we also saw climate records being broken and extreme weather events unfold at an unseen scale or pace. If this doesn’t make us sit up and take notice how challenging it is going to be to escape the escalating impacts of global warming while preserving the future and present livelihood of billions of us, nothing will. But I think we may have got the point finally, see below.

   Note: That all of this is happening within a 1.2°C warming should have our alarm bells ringing. In the next 80 years, our most optimistic scenario is 1.5°C and where we’re heading with our current emission reduction targets is straight for 3°C.

Three hopeful developments that ushered in a major shift in climate action:

1. Biden ousting climate-denying Trump from office: Trump constantly undermining the threat of climate change and then pulling US out of Paris Agreement was such a downer in this dangerous and critical times for climate action. So I’m especially thrilled that the people of United States fought hard and got this maniac out of office within a single term. Good riddance!

2. China announcing a net zero pledge and backing it up with a plan: When no one expected. Xi Jinping pulled one out of the bag and suddenly announced that China, which is the current largest polluter annually (US is the largest historic polluter when considering cumulative emissions), will go net zero by 2060. This is a significant power move that helped solidify and propel the idea that the world needs to go NetZero to avert the worst of climate crisis. And while it is tempting to dismiss this announcement as PR because we don’t have solutions to decarbonise this drastically yet, China does seem to have a plan to get to carbon neutrality. Read- The Secret Origins of China’s 40-Year Plan to End Carbon Emissions

3. Coronavirus lockdown showing us the limitations of only changing individual behaviour to stave off climate crisis: This year’s coronavirus lockdown caused a 7% dip in our annual emissions, the largest reduction recorded ever. This was achieved by the whole world staying locked in their houses, not flying anywhere, not getting education in person, not going to work at best. At worst, people lost their homes, jobs, food, education, opportunities, livelihoods and even lives. This is not a workable plan to reduce emissions. This is a death sentence to life and societies as we know it. The debate has been finally settled that we cannot change the course of the planet without changing the systems that are ruining the planet, our societies and our future. About time, now let’s transform the goddamn systems that uphold inequality and the status quo!

Three reports that told us something new and important about climate change:

1. Oxfam's Carbon Inequality report: Putting climate justice at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery, this briefing describes new research that shows how extreme carbon inequality in recent decades has brought the world to the climate brink and how the rich exert a disproportionate impact on emissions and warming. It sets out how governments must use this historic juncture to build fairer economies within the limits our planet can bear. 

2. United Nation’s Human Cost of Disasters 2000-2019: Released in October, the analysis confirms how extreme weather events have come to dominate the disaster landscape in the 21st century. In the period 2000 to 2019, there were 7,348 major recorded disaster events claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people (many on more than one occasion) resulting in approximately US$2.97 trillion in global economic losses. The last twenty years has seen the number of major floods more than double, from 1,389 to 3,254, while the incidence of storms grew from 1,457 to 2,034.

3. India's first Climate Change Assessment Report: Published by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India, this first ever comprehensive report discusses the impact of human-induced global climate change on the regional climate and monsoons of the Indian subcontinent, adjoining Indian Ocean and the Himalayas. As one of the highly vulnerable countries to climate impacts, this is a good first step for India. The report had no policy recommendations whatsoever, which was disappointing but a good first step to assess the risk nevertheless.

Three important papers published on climate change that improved our understanding of the current situation:

1. After 40 years, our understanding of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity got an upgrade. This is significant because it tells how the climate will respond to any change in carbon dioxide emissions in the long term scale with more clarity and how to plan emission reductions for future. Read: Why low-end ‘climate sensitivity’ can now be ruled out

2. A new study this year attributed responsibility to who caused the climate crisis and found out Global North was responsible for 92% excess emissions that caused warming. This is also very important because adaptation for most countries in the Global South isn’t really possible at the high end warming scenarios. So the ones responsible either need to mitigate rapidly or help us adapt to these extreme conditions or do both.

3. Economist Steve Keen debunked the appallingly bad neoclassical economics of climate change in a paper earlier this year. There are some wildly horrific predictions and statements out there, guiding policy sometimes too, that a warming planet isn’t necessarily bad for the world’s GDP overall. This paper is among a growing chorus of economists challenging such half baked ideas of economic growth in a warming world.

Three articles I wrote for Climate Matters that I’m really proud of:

1. Coronavirus lockdown did nothing for the apocalyptic dumpsterfire that'll be Climate Crisis. In the early days of the lockdown, the idea that nature is naturally healing dominated the media. Immediately I had to debunk that extremely annoying and wrong idea, and I started Climate Matters with this post.

2. 2020 could actually be one of the best years this century! I honestly didn’t expect 2020 would be as bad it turned out to be in term of climate change impacts. Scientists spoke about and I read about compounding crises that will go on to define climate crisis, but I really did not expect to be experiencing it already. When evidence was stacking up rather spectacularly, I decided to make a case for it. This went on to become one of the most read post on Climate Matters.

3. The Youth will not save us from Climate Crisis! I really feel for today’s youth. Not only is their future at stake, they are also not listened to and yet they are put on a pedestal with the heavy burden of saving the planet somehow. In this post, I expressed my solidarity for the youth today and implored today’s adults to act to save the planet instead of unrealistically pinning hopes on youth when we literally don’t have time to wait.

Three personal milestones in the last one year of doing climate change communication full time:

1. Getting media coverage multiple times: While media coverage is no measure of success, I have to admit it does feel nice when you get that extra validation. In the first year of my stint as a climate change communicator, I got featured by Mongabay India, One Earth, The Kathmandu Post, Vogue, Terra.do Climate School and even got recognized as a Young Climate Leader by India Climate Collaborative.

2. Writing this newsletter and publishing 17 articles: Even when I was a full time freelancer making majority money from writing, I don’t think I ever wrote 17 articles in a year. I’m going ahead and patting myself on the back for consistently writing about one topic this year and building this publication from scratch despite the pandemic. Of course this wouldn’t have been possible without your support, so please help me run this publication in 2021 as well.

3. Making a feature length film. Successful fundraising. Becoming a director?! As our documentary film nears completion, I’m pleasantly shocked at all that I’ve accomplished in the climate change space as a completely new entrant with no background whatsoever. I’ve raised close to 20000$ for the film and this is as good a time as any to announce that we’ve got United Nations Development Program(UNDP Nepal) onboard as a Title Sponsor for the film. I’m so excited for this resounding encouragement for a pilot project. Onwards and upwards to 2021!

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And that’s it for today! (I’ve typed it up in a hurry as I head off to the hills, sorry for any typos and please flag any mistakes if you find)

Happy reading and see you in 2021 with more explainers and articles on climate change.