Skeptical Science New Research for Week #19 2024

Climate change & geopolitics

China at COP27: CBDR, national sovereignty, and climate justice, Yeh & Loizeaux, Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2024.2349652

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

A paradigm shift? African countries call for the non-use of solar geoengineering at UN Environment Assembly, Biermann & Gupta, PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000413

Editorial: Crucial air quality, atmospheric environment, and climate change in low- and middle-income countries, Sooktawee et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1412771

How does science and technology studies contribute to climate mitigation research? Advanced review of infrastructure as a concept and method, Silvast et al., WIREs Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.888

It’s time to broaden what we consider a ‘blue carbon ecosystem’, James et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.17261

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability or Climate Change, Democratic staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and Democratic staff of the Senate Budget Committee, US. Congress

The joint staff investigation, focused on ExxonMobil Corporation (Exxon), Chevron Corporation (Chevron), Shell USA Inc. (Shell), BP America Inc. (BP), the American Petroleum Institute (AI), and the Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber), provides a rare glimpse into the extensive efforts undertaken by fossil fuel companies to deceive the public and investors about their knowledge of the effects of their products on climate change and to undermine efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Documents demonstrate for the first time that fossil fuel companies internally do not dispute that they have understood since at least the 1960s that burning fossil fuels causes climate change and then worked for decades to undermine public understanding of this fact and to deny the underlying science. Big Oil’s deception campaign evolved from explicit denial of the basic science underlying climate change to deception, disinformation, and doublespeak. The fossil fuel industry relies on trade associations to spread confusing and misleading narratives and to lobby against climate action. All six entities—Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, API, and the Chamber—obstructed and delayed the Committees’ investigation.

Can the World Bank Deliver on Climate Change? Testing the Evolution Roadmap through Loss and Damage, Michael Franczak, International Peace Institute

The establishment of a new Loss and Damage Fund and Funding Arrangements at COP27 and the Fund’s operationalization and initial capitalization at COP28 were milestones in the UN climate regime. The World Bank engaged in the Transitional Committee process as a potential host and trustee for the Fund, a member of a new “High-Level Dialogue,” and a direct provider of loss and damage (L&D) support. The implementation of the Fund and Funding Arrangements is the first big test of the World Bank’s commitment to evolving its policies, practices, and relationships.

Natural Gas and the Energy Transition: Security, Equity, and Achieving Net Zero, Phillip Cornell, The Atlantic Council

Put simply, even as policymakers move to aggressively deploy renewable and zero-carbon energy resources, natural gas remains a valuable tool in limited volumes to manage the context dependencies of a transitioning energy system in the short, medium, and long terms.

Climate Resilience and Democratic Governance In Central America’s Northern Triangle, Salazar Vides et al., Wilson Center

The authors explore the effects of extreme weather events in the three Central American countries of the Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—and the efforts of local communities, despite all odds, to build resilience in the face of the increasingly brutal effects of climate change.

Climate.Changes.Security. Navigating Climate Change and Security Challenges in the OSCE Region, Hans Lampalzer and Gerald Hainzl (eds), Landesverteidigungsakademie (LVAk) / Institut für Friedenssicherung und Konfliktmanagement

The security sector itself contributes to climate change. Moreover, its impact is less understood than that of other sectors. Secondly, security as a global and human good is severely impacted by climate change. Thirdly, global challenges – or even threats – demand global responses. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest regional security organization, acknowledged the urgency of the matter in its landmark decision at the Stockholm Ministerial Council in December 2021. Thirteen articles provide insights into various research findings of experts from different OSCE participating States.

Decarbonizing Aviation: Enabling Technologies for a Net-Zero Future, Walker III et al., Clean Air Task Force

The authors use information from a literature study and from interviews with industry participants to develop scenarios for achieving net-zero aviation emissions by 2050 using a mix of four aviation fuels: bio-Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), synthetic kerosene, hydrogen, and ammonia. To ground the analysis, the authors compared their results to supply projections for each fuel from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) net-zero-emissions-by-2050 (NZE) scenario. None of the fuel quantities required in the scenarios was allowed to exceed the IEA NZE supply projections, with the exception of ammonia, where the IEA projection reflects only existing uses and marine fuel usage. For hydrogen, the authors used the IEA NZE projection of hydrogen supply for transportation uses only, which makes up approximately half of the IEA’s projection for total hydrogen supply. The synthetic fuel supply was governed by the IEA projection for available CO2 from DAC only.

Climate Resilience Roadmap, Climate Planning Division, Metropolitan Transportation Authority

The authors take a deep dive into understanding New York City’s public transportation’s remaining vulnerabilities — not just to one climate hazard but to all of them. It also offers a detailed plan on how the city must respond, outlining actions to protect its’ subways, maintenance yards, bus depots and commuter rail lines from floods, shield bridges from the impact of high winds, and mitigate the dangers of extreme heat on infrastructure. These projects will cost approximately $6 billion over the next 10 years. Most significantly, it reconceives climate resilience as integral to everything that the MTA does. The authors chart a path toward integrating climate resilience into the foundation of the MTA’s work moving forward, enabling it to upgrade and improve its’ system, while preparing for the weather conditions that are coming.

National: Climate Change Concerns Dip, Monmouth University

Most Americans continue to acknowledge the existence of climate change, according to the latest Monmouth University poll a very serious problem has fallen below half. Support for government action to reduce activities that impact the climate has dipped below 6 in 10 for the first time since Monmouth began polling this topic nearly a decade ago. The poll finds that the drop in the importance and urgency of climate change has been most pronounced among younger adults.

CH4harting the CO2urse. Reducing GHG Emissions from the U.S. Natural Gas Supply Chain, Garvin Heath, National Petroleum Council

Natural gas is the largest primary energy produced in the United States and its use is growing. Yet getting this gas to homes and businesses creates greenhouse gas emissions. That is why reducing emissions from America’s natural gas is an urgent priority that requires collaborative solutions. The National Petroleum Council brought together a diverse group of stakeholders with the expertise to analyze this complex issue and identify ways to reduce natural gas GHG emissions for all future supply and demand scenarios. The result: actionable consensus on ensuring a lower-emission natural gas system. The study’s research charts a course forward to meaningfully reduce emissions from the natural gas system, contributing significantly to the United States’ ability to achieve its climate goals. The report concludes that through the implementation of existing policies, voluntary commitments, technologies, and market mechanisms, a 63{2add217ad2235d262e63a186eb2903fa1b3aade4b9d8db7a510444e5d82aac71} reduction in methane emissions can be achieved by 2030. The report went further to identify an additional pathway that methane emissions decrease by 70{2add217ad2235d262e63a186eb2903fa1b3aade4b9d8db7a510444e5d82aac71} and carbon dioxide emissions reduce by 33{2add217ad2235d262e63a186eb2903fa1b3aade4b9d8db7a510444e5d82aac71} through 2050.

For Our Future: Indigenous Resilience Report, Reed et al., Government of Canada

In recent years, Canada has increasingly faced severe impacts of climate change, including higher temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns, extreme weather events, and rising sea levels. Climate change has already impacted First Nations, Inuit, and Métis livelihoods, culture, social relations, food security, health, well-being, and ways of life. Despite experiencing disproportionate impacts to climate change, Indigenous Peoples have been actively responding to environmental change since time immemorial and have developed Indigenous Knowledge Systems to respond to it. For Canada to reduce some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis it currently faces, Indigenous Knowledge Systems need to be considered. This is the first Indigenous-led report that draws on Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, and experiences to explore multidimensional and intersecting aspects of climate change impacts and adaptation.

Liquefying the Gulf Coast, Saha et al., The Robert D Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University

The authors find that the rapid expansion of liquefied natural gas exports from the United States perpetuates sacrifice zones in communities of color and low-income communities on the Gulf Coast.

Obtaining articles without journal subscriptions

We know it’s frustrating that many articles we cite here are not free to read. One-off paid access fees are generally astronomically priced, suitable for such as “On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light”  but not as a gamble on unknowns. With a median world income of US$ 9,373, for most of us US$ 42 is significant money to wager on an article’s relevance and importance. 

• Unpaywall offers a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that automatically indicates when an article is freely accessible and provides immediate access without further trouble. Unpaywall is also unscammy, works well, is itself offered free to use. The organizers (a legitimate nonprofit) report about a 50{2add217ad2235d262e63a186eb2903fa1b3aade4b9d8db7a510444e5d82aac71} success rate

• The weekly New Research catch is checked against the Unpaywall database with accessible items being flagged. Especially for just-published articles this mechansim may fail. If you’re interested in an article title and it is not listed here as “open access,” be sure to check the link anyway. 

How is New Research assembled?

Most articles appearing here are found via  RSS feeds from journal publishers, filtered by search terms to produce raw output for assessment of relevance. 

Relevant articles are then queried against the Unpaywall database, to identify open access articles and expose useful metadata for articles appearing in the database. 

The objective of New Research isn’t to cast a tinge on scientific results, to color readers’ impressions. Hence candidate articles are assessed via two metrics only:

• Was an article deemed of sufficient merit by a team of journal editors and peer reviewers? The fact of journal RSS output assigns a “yes” to this automatically. 
• Is an article relevant to the topic of anthropogenic climate change? Due to filter overlap with other publication topics of inquiry, of a typical week’s 550 or so input articles about 1/4 of RSS output makes the cut.

A few journals offer public access to “preprint” versions of articles for which the review process is not yet complete. For some key journals this all the mention we’ll see in RSS feeds, so we include such items in New Research. These are flagged as “preprint.”

The section “Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives” includes some items that are not scientific research per se but fall instead into the category of “perspectives,” observations of implications of research findings, areas needing attention, etc.

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Journals covered

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Previous edition

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