Friday January 11th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing post will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😊.
A Big Problem With India
There are certain countries in which reining in carbon pollution has been in direct conflict with modernization, which as of 2019 due to rapid green technological advances should no longer be an overwhelming issue. The biggest such country is India with a population of about 1.35 billion, which for over a hundred years has tried to overcome great poverty and now has the opportunity to do so if only regions within this vast country can generate much more energy and improve their electricity grid.
Unfortunately coal fired plants are a big part of India’s plans to modernize. Al Gore has said in his documentaries that if India’s plans to utilize coal for most of its energy needs come to fruition it’s game over for the climate. As far as I know the Narendra Modi government does not have a “Marshall Plan” to rapidly produce green infrastructure, mainly consisting of solar panels, the next couple of decades across India. Most planned coal fired plants are being built. Here is a frightening chart of carbon trends coming from India:
Quoting Glen Peters:
There has been a lot of excitement about solar & wind in India growing at >10%/yr, but CO₂ emissions continue to grow strongly on the back of growth in coal, oil, & gas use.#CarbonBudget https://t.co/XK3W5wSapO pic.twitter.com/AJGvfc4jAF
— Glen Peters (@Peters_Glen) January 5, 2019
On a positive note nearly everyday we get news of solar infrastructure being built in India. Here is an article published on 1/9/19:
Reprinting this brief article:
Macquarie Infrastructure & Real Assets and Indian state-owned power company NTPC are among the businesses interested in buying renewable energy assets from debt laden Mumbai concern Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) Ltd, according to Bloomberg.
State-owned natural gas company GAIL India and the Solar Energy Corporation of India are also said to have submitted expressions of interest.
IL&FS has 300 MW of solar projects under construction, owns wind plants with a capacity of 873.5 MW and further units under construction with a proposed capacity of 104 MW.
The asset sales are key to reviving IL&FS, which had total debts of $12.6 billion as of the end of March. The company has been defaulting on loans and bonds since August.
GAIL is seeking to enter the PV plants and battery charging station market. In August, it sought shareholder approval to amend its company charter to enable investment in startups, to build solar projects and to set up battery charging stations for electric vehicles as it looks to diversify beyond gas and petrochemicals.
With the government planning a major shift to EVs by 2030, GAIL fears its pan-Indian presence in the natural gas network could be costly and believes it has the capability of setting up charging infrastructure at a faster pace.
The company also wants to harness solar at its sites for self consumption and to feed to other installations by wheeling power.
So, the big question for today is how is India fairing in association with the Paris Climate Accords? One recent answer…not so good according to this article from India published in early December: https://www.indiatvnews.com/science/news-climate-reality-check-global-carbon-pollution-up-in-2018-489985
Quoting:
China increased its emissions in 2018 to 11.4 billion tons (10.3 billion metric tons), while the U.S. jumped to a shade under 6 billion tons (5.4 metric tons). The European Union spewed 3.9 billion tons (3.5 billion metric tons) and India soared to 2.9 billion tons (2.6 billion metric tons). Overall, the world is spewing about 1,300 tons (1,175 metric tons) of carbon dioxide into the air every second.
Sigh. If I come across some better news from my climate friends in association with India I will add it to this post. I’m hoping that due to education and the Internet India will make a very quick leap from old Industrial Revolution fuels to the new “Green Revolution” for the sake of all. We will see.
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Here is more climate and weather news from Friday:
Feeling the heat recently? That may be because we just had our hottest December ever recorded. pic.twitter.com/GOx2dbidqw
— Climate Council (@climatecouncil) January 11, 2019
The climate crisis is having a major impact on communities around the world, including those along the particularly vulnerable US East Coast: https://t.co/9c9kDoOnLr
— Al Gore (@algore) January 11, 2019
The economic viability of #NuclearPower is only going down down down
"#Nuclear power belongs in a museum!"
"We shouldn’t continue to squander public money on a technology that will never make economic sense"#1o5C#EnergyTransition#Renewables https://t.co/KO7PDyFV9P
— Prof Peter Strachan (@ProfStrachan) January 11, 2019
An import message
"The lesson from last year’s IPCC report is not – as some have said – that we have 12 years to respond to climate change, it’s that we must act immediately"
Chris Stark @ChiefExecCCC#1o5C#ClimateChange#ClimateChangeIsReal https://t.co/7lnTRhZhHX pic.twitter.com/g5UlanaiEM
— Prof Peter Strachan (@ProfStrachan) January 11, 2019
According to @ClimateCentral, #RochesterNY #ROC had its hottest year in 2012. Overall, 53% of the US cities monitored since 1870’s “experienced their hottest year during the decade of the 2010s.” https://t.co/tps9R2DO3X
— Frank J. Regan (@FrankRrrr) January 11, 2019
Instead of doing things such as subsiding fossil fuel companies & building new roads the government should be paying for social & environmental justice & sustainability officers to help Scarborough & other areas reach #ZeroCarbon ASAP, Extinction Rebellionhttps://t.co/gNpVzIpaXW
— Extinction Rebellion (@ExtinctionR) January 11, 2019
Which kills more people: extreme cold or extreme heat? Dr. Jeff Masters looks at the evidence https://t.co/ZR99sRk9c2 pic.twitter.com/baxVeovzEj
— Weather Underground (@wunderground) January 11, 2019
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity.)
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The Climate Guy