The Climate Crisis This Year

The high and low points for climate change in 2019Climate scientists list most encouraging, most discouraging, developments of 2019. (Part II, to come, on outlook for 2020)

Bud Ward, December 11, 2019 (Yale Climate Connections)

"...[The brightest spot in an otherwise dim 2019 climate year was] the youth movements personified by, but not limited to, Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg...[which highlighted] the moral dimension of the climate problem...[There were also new science and technology developments] that may help greatly reduce future greenhouse gas emissions...[incuding continued reduction in the price of renewables and] the potential to use solar energy for high-temperature industrial applications...

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[Large-scale, system-wide actions] are being taken by countries around the world...[Canada] has a federal price on carbon and re-elected the party that introduced it...The United Kingdom has (at least temporarily) imposed a moratorium on fracking. Finland is phasing out coal and it will be banned by 2029. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is divesting from companies dedicated to oil and gas exploration. Ireland became the first country in the world to divest from fossil fuels entirely...

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New Zealand has committed to being carbon neutral by 2050, and Scotland by 2045...[N]early 70% of Scotland’s electricity is already green...[and] expansion of carbon neutrality goals across more of the U.S. states...[There is also increasing media coverage] of the climate crisis...[but a discouraging] lack of progress on policy issues...[and an even more discouraging tendency of increased popular awareness turning into fear, judgment,] and attacking each other..." click here for more

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