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Climate chronicle of the
war
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A study by Energymonitor.ai last year found Asia
has invested at least $490 billion in new gas
infrastructure, led by Vietnam and China. The
continent is the largest exporter and importer
of LNG. Because of its relatively lower
emissions compared to coal or oil, the gas is
considered a “bridge
fuel,”
lowering the dependence on traditional fossil
fuels like coal and oil. But the Russia-Ukraine
conflict has upended the LNG market. Europe was
in desperate need of energy as winter approached
but struggled to secure a necessary alternative
even as it cut off piped gas from Russia.
Despite lacking sufficient infrastructure,
Europe started to dip into the LNG supply that
would have gone to Asia, raising the demand and
causing prices to jump nearly 10
times
the average.
Ukrainian activists,
scientists and architects are pushing for a
postwar recovery unlike any in history, with a
focus on climate resilience and clean energy.
Thinking about rebuilding in the middle of a
war, with a new offensive against Russia in the
works, might seem far-fetched. But for Ukraine,
green
reconstruction is not just good for
the planet. It’s essential to the country’s
economic recovery and national security. Russian
attacks caused damages worth $8.1 billion in
Ukraine’s energy sector during the first year of
war, the Kyiv School of Economics estimates. The average Ukrainian
household endured 35 days without power last
winter.
Russia’s brutal
aggression has wreaked devastation in Ukraine
for more than a year. It has also forced a
fundamental rethink of geopolitics. Central to
that new thinking is the role of energy security
and how to manage the insecurities created by
the lopsided dependencies exposed by the
conflict. For decades, energy
security was perceived as a
matter of physical, temporal, and geographic
realities. It was about not only where fossil
fuel resources were located but also how oil and
gas coursed through pipelines, or was shipped on
tankers, across borders and into
markets.
The G7
leaders on Saturday agreed to stronger language
on short-term gas investments in the context of
Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine and the
resulting energy crisis. "We stress the
important role that increased deliveries of LNG
can play, and acknowledge that investment in the
sector can be appropriate in response to the
current crisis and to address potential gas
market shortfalls provoked by the crisis," reads
the text. The text makes clear these investments
must be limited to "the exceptional
circumstance" given the Russian-driven energy
shock and "as a temporary response."
Ukrainians will be
able to monitor the radiation background of the
Zaporizhia NPP online
Ukrainians
will be able to monitor the radiation background
level at the Zaporizhzhia NPP in Energodar
online on the Saveecobot platform. Measurements
of the radiation background are carried out
every day directly on the industrial site of the
station, reports the public organization
SaveDnipro on Facebook. So, as of May 17 at 3:30
p.m., the radiation background level was 90
nSv/h with a permissible value of 300 nSv/h. The
Saveecobot map is available at the
link.
Russian
airstrikes on Ukraine’s power grid plunged many
parts of the country into darkness last fall,
but one water company was able to keep its pumps
going. Its field of solar panels, installed as
an environmentally friendly measure before the
war, turned into a tool to resist the Kremlin’s
attacks. Now a growing number of Ukrainian
hospitals, schools, police stations and other
critical buildings are racing to install solar
power ahead of what many expect will be another
hard winter later this year.
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The Karaganda coal
basin, located in Kazakhstan, is one of the
world’s largest coal basins, with coal reserves
ranking third in the EECCA region.
Unfortunately, the coal mining operations in the
region have led to devastating environmental and
social impacts, including air and water
pollution, deforestation, and land degradation.
These issues have caused health problems and
displacement of local communities. To raise
awareness about the situation, CAN EECCA has
released a new short film titled “Karaganda Coal Basin
is Swallowing Kazakhstan’s
Climate” as part of our
#WorldWeWant campaign. The film features
interviews with residents and activists who
speak out against the harmful effects of coal
mining and advocate for a transition to
renewable energy sources such as wind and solar
power.
CAN
EECCA and Ecostan News share their reaction to
the adopted strategy and updated Nationally
Determined Contribution (NDC) of Kazakhstan. We
also present some remarks voiced by Kazakhstani
eco-activists that were not taken into account
by the developers. On February 2, 2023,
President Tokayev approved the country’s
low-carbon development strategy. Its official
title is “Strategy for Achieving Carbon
Neutrality of the Republic of Kazakhstan by
2060.” The Ministry of Ecology and Natural
Resources initially developed the strategy,
followed by the Ministry of National Economy of
Kazakhstan. The draft strategy went through
several rounds of public discussion; however,
the public’s comments were not significantly
considered.
Greenpeace
International has been declared undesirable in
Russia
Greenpeace
International has been declared undesirable in
Russia, a decision that makes us wonder what is
really undesirable. Protecting nature or harming
it and human health through pollution,
deforestation and ignoring the climate crisis?
"We believe that Greenpeace International's
declaration as an undesirable organization is
due to the fact that through our work we have
tried, in stopping environmentally destructive
plans. Every time we have spoken out against
such plans, we have had to overcome fierce
opposition from those who want to turn nature
into a source of income, who do not want to
think about the future of our country, and who
accuse us of acting against Russia's interests,"
Greenpeace said in its
statement.
Climate change is
expected to have profound impacts on water
resources and natural hazards in Central Asia
and South Caucasus. This has serious
implications for the management of water
resources and natural hazards in both regions.
This publication is the result of a joint
learning journey involving three thematic
networks of the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation (SDC) – Climate Change and
Environment, Disaster Risk
Reduction, and Water – and interested SDC
offices and partners. The basic idea was to
create the opportunity for participants to
address common challenges in a collaborative
manner while focusing on a specific region or
context.
Our
overheating world is likely to break a key
temperature limit for the first time over the
next few years, scientists predict. Researchers
say there's now a 66% chance we will pass the
1.5C global warming threshold between now and
2027. The chances are rising due to emissions
from human activities and a likely El Niño
weather pattern later this year. If the world
passes the limit, scientists stress the breach,
while worrying, will likely be temporary.
Hitting the threshold would mean the world is
1.5C warmer than it was during the second half
of the 19th Century, before fossil fuel
emissions from industrialisation really began to
ramp up.
Satellites
were used to track how lakes around the world,
from the Caspian Sea to the Great Salt Lake,
have changed over the last three decades. More
than half of the world's largest lakes and
reservoirs are drying up, a new study has found.
Climate change's hotter temperatures and
society's diversion of water have been shrinking
the world's lakes by trillions of litres of
water a year since the early 1990s. A close
examination of nearly 2,000 of the world's
largest lakes found they are losing about 21.5
trillion litres a year.
In January, the UAE
confirmed that Sultan Al Jaber had
been appointed as the president of
COP28.
Jaber is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil
Company (ADNOC). the biggest oil producer in the
country and the 12th biggest in the world. His
appointment hasn’t come without controversy.
Climate leaders and campaigners have voiced a
number of concerns calling it a “blatant
conflict of interest”. “You wouldn’t invite arms
dealers to lead peace talks. So why let oil
executives lead climate talks?” Alice Harrison,
fossil fuel campaign leader at Global Witness,
said at the time. Al Jaber says he is
approaching COP28 with a “strong sense of
responsibility and the highest possible level of
ambition.”
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Sent: Tuesday, May 23,
2023 1:44 PM
Subject: 🌏 CAN EECCA
Newsletter: War makes heat wave deadlier, Problem of Karaganda coal basin,
COP28 Presidency
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