Current conditions: Torrential rains flooded the streets of Milan, Italy • The U.K. recorded its coldest summer since 2015 • The temperature in Palm Springs, California, hit 121 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Summer 2024 was hottest on record
Summer 2024 was officially the warmest on record in the Northern Hemisphere, according to new data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Between June and August, the average global temperature was 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 1991-2020 average, beating out last summer’s record. August 2024 tied August 2023 for joint-hottest month ever recorded globally, with an average surface air temperature of 62.27 degrees Fahrenheit.
C3S
“During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S. “This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record. The temperature-related extreme events witnessed this summer will only become more intense, with more devastating consequences for people and the planet unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
2. Trump says climate change’s effect on sea levels is ‘not our problem’
During a speech at the Economic Club of New York yesterday, former President Donald Trump said that because of climate change, “the ocean is going to go down 100th of an inch within the next 400 years,” and dismissed this as “not our problem.” This appears to be a warped variation of his repeated claim that “the ocean is going to rise one eighth of an inch over the next 400 years.” He’s said this many times, occasionally subbing in “200 to 300 years” for 400 years. Either way, he’s incorrect. “Trump’s numbers are orders of magnitude off the mark,” wrote Heatmap’s Jeva Lange in her epic historical fact check of Trump’s various climate statements. “The oceans are on track to rise 3.5 feet to 7 feet along America’s coastlines by 2100,” Lange said. Back in 2022, Michael Oppenheimer, director of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton University, called Trump’s sea-level calculation “so far from accurate as to appear to have been entirely fabricated.”
3. U.S. and China find some common ground during climate talks
The U.S. and China had “excellent discussions” during climate talks this week in Beijing, climate envoy John Podesta said today. The two nations came closer to being on the same page about climate finance and greenhouse gas emissions cuts. “Notwithstanding some friction in our bilateral relationship, we can find places to collaborate for the good of our people and the good of our climate,” Podesta said. As Bloombergnoted, this is likely the last opportunity for the world’s two biggest emitters to try to find common ground ahead of the U.S. presidential election and the COP29 climate summit in November.
4. Ford F-150 Lightning sales rise in August
Ford reported some interesting August sales figures yesterday. The company saw a 50% jump in hybrid sales last month compared to a year before, and a 29% rise in electric vehicle sales, with F-150 Lightning sales up 160% year over year. But internal combustion engine cars still made up 86% of total monthly sales. The automaker recently scrapped its plans to build a three-row EV crossover and instead plans to make that vehicle as a hybrid, and will double down on producing more hybrid models.
5. Super Typhoon Yagi makes landfall in China
China evacuated 400,000 people from some of its southern provinces in anticipation of Super Typhoon Yagi. Schools are shut down, flights have been canceled, and Hong Kong’s stock market is closed. The storm struck the Philippines earlier this week but has doubled in strength since, and now packs wind speeds of about 140 miles per hour, giving it the power of a Category 4 hurricane. It made landfall on the popular tourist island of Hainan this morning and is expected to hit Guangdong, China's most populous province, before churning toward Vietnam’s historic Ha Long Bay. It is the strongest typhoon to strike China’s southern coast in 10 years, and according to NASA, it has been supercharged by unusually warm water in the Northwest Pacific Basin.
NASA
THE KICKER
“Everybody’s getting drunk and having a good time: ‘Oh, look at the gift they brought us!’ But at night, they’re going to sneak out of that horse, and they’re going to leave an environmental disaster.” –A long-time resident of Superior, Arizona, ponders the promise and perils of mining the town’s copper deposits, one of the largest remaining in the world.
C3S
