Is Rishi Sunak high?

Hi friend,

I don’t know what British PM Rishi Sunak is smoking, but I want some.

It must be nice to be so out of touch with reality and not give one shit while the world burns around you and protesters take to the streets in their thousands to demand faster climate action.

In case you missed it, Sunak has pushed back a ban on new petrol and diesel cars to 2035 from 2030, citing “cost-of-living pressures” associated with the renewable energy transition.

His government will also ease the transition to heat pumps from gas boilers in homes, and won’t force households to improve their insulation.

His reason for backtracking on these crucial decarbonisation goals? That Britain could “afford” to make slower progress in reaching net-zero emissions because it was "so far ahead of every other country in the world”.

That’s like a marathon runner who’s winning the race deciding to walk the rest of the way because everyone else is so far behind him. All he’s doing is giving everyone else a chance to close the gap, making him eat their dust as they beat him to the finish line.

And anyway, how can you claim to be a world leader on net zero and still throw money and licenses at oil companies?

That’s right, Sunak also granted more than 20 licences to 14 oil companies, including Shell and ENI, to store up to 10% of the nation’s carbon emissions underground in oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

Giving the oil companies permission and funding to bury their skeletons is like paying an arsonist to put out the fire they started. You know they’re going to keep starting fires if they’re being rewarded for it, right?

I don’t know about you, but if I were PM, I’d do anything possible to keep leading the world in one of humanity’s biggest fights, not hit the brakes and start dragging my feet at a critical moment.

Four points of order:

1. Sunak is clearly out of touch with his constituents because AN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT POLL revealed that 71% of over-16s in the UK do not believe the nation will meet its 2050 net-zero target.

2. Did he even read the June report from the GOVERNMENT’S OWN CLIMATE CHANGE ADVISORY COMMITTEE that warned that the UK’s progress towards net zero was “worryingly slow” and that it was “markedly less confident” that the UK will meet its emissions targets than it was this time last year? In fact, it says the UK has far less mature plans for scaling low-carbon industries than other markets, with the risk of it falling further behind as the US, EU, and China push ahead with their green industrial plans.

3. He’s ignoring Chris Southworth, the secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce UK, who warned that the UK is also lagging far behind its Sustainable Development Goals.

4. He’s also ignoring businesses that want the government to take more urgent action on climate change, with hundreds of professionals holding a demonstration on London’s Millennium Bridge.

People are pissed, accusing Sunak of a “disgusting betrayal” of vulnerable people, and Al Gore saying he stabbed the younger generation in the back.

Why he chose to announce all this in the same week that New York Climate Week and the UN Climate Action Summit kicked off is beyond me. He’s either a sucker for punishment or truly daft. Or maybe he’s a genius because all the attention is on the UK when it should be on the two climate summits? 🤔

But this is also where the plot thickens.

Sunak did not attend the UN Climate Action Summit and also did not sign the high ambition coalition” of countries, which aims to push the world to cut greenhouse gas emissions faster.

The irony? The UK is a FOUNDING MEMBER of the coalition!

You can’t make this shit up.

The only way forward: Accountability, responsibility, action

Governments need to stop pandering to the oil and gas industry and stop using the development of the carbon capture and storage industry as an excuse to continue to pump millions into the industry (I’m also looking at you, Amazon and Microsoft).

They should be holding the big polluters to account, as California has, by hauling the world’s biggest oil companies to court.

The oil and gas companies also need to come to the party (and not hide behind carbon capture) and take responsibility.

Like the Rockefeller Foundation, which was founded with a fortune built on fossil fuels and is now increasing investments in climate-related initiatives from 25% to 75%. This makes it one of the biggest players in behind-the-scenes work to prevent climate change from worsening.

Instead, governments and corporations continue to ignore their advisors, ignore the protesters in the streets, and rest on their laurels.

To hell with everyone and everything, they’ll do it anyway and watch the world burn from their ivory towers.

— Tarryn ✌️

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This week's climate and sustainability news worth noting

🔥 Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has formally declared an El Niño event, increasing the likelihood of a hot, dry summer and elevating the bushfire risk. The declaration is the first in eight years and came as Sydney sweated through its hottest September day on record, which was 15C above average, and parts of the state reached a "catastrophic" fire rating.

✋ Over 200 experts have signed an open letter – and published a full-page ad in The New York Times – calling on Australia to speed up climate action, halt over 100 new coal and gas projects, and stop “climate annihilation”.

🚖 Eight EU companies are pushing to weaken new emissions limits on petrol and diesel engine vehicles. They’ve proposed a new law that waters down limits and monitoring, and delays the start date for the cuts.

🧑🏽‍⚖️ California has hauled five of the world’s biggest oil companies to court, accusing them of causing billions in damages and downplaying climate change risks. The civil case, filed against ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron, accuses the companies of misleading the public and suppressing information showing that reliance on fossil fuels would cause catastrophic results. California's state Senate also approved a bill requiring large companies to report their carbon footprints.

🇺🇸 Lots going on in America this week:

• An Environmental Protection Agency report found that the US’s Inflation Reduction Act could cut economy-wide carbon emissions by up to 43% compared to 2005 levels.

• But other research found that the US accounts for more than a third of the expansion of global oil and gas production planned by 2050. Surprisingly, the UAE is only seventh on the list, behind Canada, Russia, Iran, China, and Brazil.

• The Biden Administration has restored the power of states and tribes to review projects to protect waterways. They’ll be able to block energy projects like natural gas pipelines that could pollute rivers and streams.

• The government is also planting US$1 billion worth of trees around the country under a program that’s intended to reduce extreme heat.

• Biden unveiled the American Climate Corps a new climate jobs training program that it says could put 20,000 people to work in its first year on projects like restoring land, deploying clean energy, and improving communities’ resilience to natural disasters.

• The Administration is also investing US$100 million in recycling, the largest investment in 30 years, the majority of which will go towards improving recycling infrastructure in disadvantaged communities.

👨🏽‍⚖️ Leaders of nine small island states have approached the UN maritime court, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, seeking protection from climate change. They want the court to determine if ocean-absorbed CO2 emissions can be considered pollution and what obligations countries have to prevent it.

🚨 A multi-agency report has warned that climate change undermines nearly all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with only 15% on track. Coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization, the report says global efforts to tackle hunger, poverty and ill-health, improve access to clean water and energy, and other aspects are under threat from extreme weather and rising temperatures. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria says climate change and conflict are also hitting efforts to end three of the world's deadliest infectious diseases and that the world is likely to miss the 2030 target without “extraordinary steps”.

🚨 Global decarbonisation levels need to be 12 times higher than the average recorded over the last 20 years if the world is to get on track to deliver the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement, says PwC. And an analysis by Climate Action Tracker has revealed that no country is progressing adequately toward transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy generation.

😵 Earth’s sixth mass extinction is rapidly accelerating, with animal species going extinct 35 times faster than the historical norm, driven by human activities like habitat destruction and climate disruption. Meanwhile, Yale scientists say that animals equipped with sensors can provide localised and timely data on climate change impacts that current tech cannot. By tagging animals with sensors, scientists can improve measurements of temperature, salinity, air pollution, and animal stress levels, filling critical data gaps in remote areas.

⚡️ EU lawmakers have endorsed a deal to increase the share of renewables in the bloc’s energy mix to 42.5% of total consumption by 2030, with the aim of reaching 45%. The current goal is 32%.

🇧🇷 The Brazilian government is reinstating stricter greenhouse gas emissions targets first announced in 2015 as part of the Paris Agreement. The targets were weakened under former president Jair Bolsonaro. Restoring commitments is one thing; acting on them with bolder commitments is another.

🇺🇦 War-ravaged Ukraine has completed a power plant that can turn cow poo into a biomethane that can replace natural gas in homes. By 2040, up to a third of Ukraine’s domestic gas consumption could come from biogas.

🪸 Citizen scientists in a volunteer seaweed removal program have contributed to a 600% coral regrowth in Magnetic Island, leading to increased coral diversity.

🤖 Environmentalists have warned that the widespread adoption of generative artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT and Bard, is contributing to the climate crisis through massive energy and water consumption and releasing tons of emissions.

🔬 From the labs:

• 🛩️ MIT researchers have developed a method to produce 100% sustainable aviation fuel from plant waste.

• 🪸 A study finds that shading coral reefs for a few hours a day can reduce bleaching caused by extreme weather events.

And in business news

❌ The EU will ban environmental claims such as “climate neutral”, “green”, “biodegradable”, and “eco-friendly” by 2026 unless companies can prove the claim is accurate. The rules will also ban claims based on emissions offsetting and green labels that are not from approved sustainability schemes.

👎 A poll of 1,400 senior executives in businesses operating across 22 countries found that 45% of companies globally are expecting to miss their short-term decarbonisation targets for 2030.

✅ The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has published its finalised set of recommendations, intended to harmonise corporate disclosures on their nature-related risks and impacts.

👏 Woodside, a company in Australia, has been temporarily blocked from moving ahead with seismic blasting as part of a major gas project off Western Australia’s northern coast. The company did not properly consult with traditional owners before it was given approval to carry out the testing, which was due to begin last week.

📦 Amazon will buy 250,000 metric tonnes of carbon removal from 1PointFive, a subsidiary of oil company, Occidental Petroleum. It will also buy 100,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits from another company. Last week, Microsoft said it would buy 315,000 metric tonnes of CO2 removal from another project. The amount of CO2 that both companies are paying to “capture” pales in comparison to how much climate pollution they continue to produce.

👏 The Rockefeller Foundation will donate US$1 billion over five years to combat climate change, prioritising investments in sustainable development. The Foundation, founded with a fortune built on fossil fuels, will allocate over 75% of future funding to climate-related initiatives (up from 25%), marking a significant shift in focus and making it one of the biggest players in behind-the-scenes work to prevent climate change from worsening.

🚛 DHL is investing €80 million in a specialised biomethane production facility in Cork, Ireland. Biomethane will serve as the primary fuel source for 150 trucks at the new facility, which will process 90,000 tonnes of industry and consumer food waste annually, diverting it from landfills.

Well, that's interesting

📢📢📢

The chorus against climate change is getting louder, with all this happening in just one week:

🗽 In New York, tens of thousands of people marched in the city to demand President Biden and other world leaders end fossil fuels. They’re pissed that Biden approved new oil and gas drilling permits, despite his campaign promise to end drilling.

🇬🇧 In London, hundreds of business professionals held a demonstration over climate change on Millennium Bridge. Businesses want the government to take more urgent action.

🇪🇺 In the EU, six young people are taking 32 European nations to court to demand rapid emissions reductions, in what is the largest climate legal action. Crowdfunded with over ￡100,000, the claimants say that climate policies are inadequate and violate their human rights. They want a binding ruling to compel countries to escalate their emissions reductions.

🇳🇱 In The Netherlands, over 3,000 climate activists were arrested during ongoing protests against government fossil fuel subsidies. Demonstrators blocked a major highway for five days.

🎭 Also in New York, about 100 environmentalists shut down the city’s Museum of Modern Art, demanding the removal of board member Marie-Josee Kravis, whose husband, Henry Kravis, is tied to the fossil fuel industry.

🇱🇾 In Libya, authorities are clamping down on protesters who have demanded accountability for what they say was a botched official response to this month’s devastating flooding.

One small thing you can do

Don’t buy products that contain micro-beads.

Micro-beads pass through wastewater plants and end up in the oceans, where they can be eaten by fish. Humans then eat the fish and end up in our bodies.

Because lots of little actions combined can add up to something remarkable.

I'll leave you on this happy note...

Apple nails sustainability storytelling.

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