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Climate

Will 2024 Be Hotter Than 2023?

On weather trends, China’s climate envoy, and fixing the world's farming sector

Will 2024 Be Hotter Than 2023?
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Tornadoes terrorized Oklahoma overnight • Flash floods killed two people in China’s Guangxi region • It is 75 degrees Fahrenheit and clear in Rafah, where Israeli troops have seized the Gaza side of the border crossing with Egypt.

THE TOP FIVE

1. April broke heat records, but wild temperatures could moderate slightly soon

Temperature data for last month is rolling in, and the takeaway is that it was the hottest April on record for planet Earth. That marks 11 straight months of record heat, and researchers are starting to do some informed analysis on whether 2024 will displace 2023 as the hottest year. El Niño’s retreat could bring slightly cooler temperatures, and the data suggests that, while temperature records are still being broken, they’re not being absolutely shattered, which I suppose is good news? For example, September last year was 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the previest hottest September. Last month was only 0.1 or 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous hottest April. “If 2024 continues to follow its expected trajectory, global temperatures will fall out of record territory in the next month or two,” wrote climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. Still, he puts the chances that this year will be hotter than last at about 66%. “If the latter half of 2024 ends up similar to 2023, we may end up closer to 1.6C for the year as a whole.”

X/hausfath

2. China and U.S. climate envoys to meet in Washington

Coming up this week: Climate envoys for China and the U.S. will meet in Washington Wednesday and Thursday to discuss solutions for “accelerating concrete climate actions this decade,” the State Department announced. Liu Zhenmin and John Podesta will discuss topics like the energy transition, methane emissions, resource efficiency, and deforestation. The U.S. and China are the world’s top two greenhouse gas emitters, and the sit-down marks the envoys’ “first formal face-to-face summit before global negotiations in Azerbaijan this November,” Bloombergreported. China’s dominance in cheap green technology manufacturing will no doubt loom large over the talks, as well. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has criticized the country’s excessive output of products like solar panels, and recently called for “constructive” discussions to encourage China to reduce its manufacturing subsidies.

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  • 3. World Bank recommends rich nations stop subsidizing livestock farming

    The World Bank published a new report this week examining how countries can cut emissions from their food sectors. “Simply changing how middle-income countries use land, such as forests and ecosystems, for food production can cut agrifood emissions by a third by 2030,” said World Bank Senior Managing Director Axel van Trotsenburg. One recommendation, spotted byBloomberg, is that high-income countries stop subsidizing livestock farming and shift that financial support over to more environmentally friendly foods like fruits, vegetables, and poultry. “Globally, one-third of agricultural subsidies were directed toward meat and milk products in 2016,” the report said. But subsidies mask the true costs (environmental or otherwise) of these products. Cutting them could “lead to significant changes in consumption patterns and large emissions reductions.”

    World Bank/Recipe for a Livable Planet report

    Investment in overhauling agrifood will need to rise by $260 billion annually to halve emissions by 2030, the World Bank report said. But the cost benefits in terms of health, economic, and environmental outcomes are projected to surpass $4 trillion in 2030, which the report noted is a 16-to-1 return on investment costs.

    4. Lula calls for national climate disaster plan after floods devastate Brazil

    The flooding in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state has prompted President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to call for a national plan to be put into place for preventing and dealing with climate disasters, The Washington Postreported. He instructed top environmental lieutenant Marina Silva to start putting together a strategy. “We have to stop just running after disaster,” Lula told the Post. “We have to start preparing for what can happen from disasters. … We and the world need to prepare every day with more plans and resources to deal with extreme climate occurrences.” At least 83 people are known to have died in the floods but the death toll is likely to climb. More than 20,000 people have lost their homes. Hospitals are without power. Inmates have been released from flooded prisons. Looting has begun. “This is war; that is the word,” said journalist Kelly Matos. “It’s hopelessness, civil unrest. … The tsunami is here.”

    A flooded hospital entrance in Porto Alegre Max Peixoto/Getty Images

    5. Texas grid begins drawing power from new large solar and storage facility

    A large solar farm capable of powering 41,600 homes has been completed in Texas. The Zier facility in Brackettville, developed by Cypress Creek Renewables, has 208-megawatts of solar capacity and 80 megawatt hours of storage, and it’s already connected to and being used by the Texas grid “to ease supply strain in a time of increased demand,” Cypress Creek said in a news release. The company has 24 projects in construction or development in the state, one of which is a 100 megawatt hour battery storage facility that should be up and running next month.

    Cypress Creek Renewables

    THE KICKER

    “The worst thing for the energy transition is that it is perceived as being done by and for the elites.”Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency

    Yellow

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    Q&A

    You, Too, Can Protect Solar Panels Against Hail

    A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.

    This week's interview subject.
    Heatmap Illustration

    This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.

    The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

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    Hotspots

    The Pro-Renewables Crowd Gets Riled Up

    And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.

    The United States.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.

    • Activists came together on Earth Day to protest the Trump administration’s decision to issue a stop work order on Equinor’s Empire Wind project. It’s the most notable rally for offshore wind I’ve seen since September, when wind advocates protested offshore opponents at the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island.
    • Esther Rosario, executive director of Climate Jobs New York, told me the rally was intended to focus on the jobs that will be impacted by halting construction and that about a hundred people were at the rally – “a good half of them” union members or representing their unions.
    • “I think it’s important that the elected officials that are in both the area and at the federal level understand the humans behind what it means to issue a stop-work order,” she said.

    2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.

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    Spotlight

    How a Carbon Pipeline Is Turning Iowa Against Wind

    Long Islanders, meanwhile, are showing up in support of offshore wind, and more in this week’s edition of The Fight.

    Iowa.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

    Local renewables restrictions are on the rise in the Hawkeye State – and it might have something to do with carbon pipelines.

    Iowa’s known as a renewables growth area, producing more wind energy than any other state and offering ample acreage for utility-scale solar development. This has happened despite the fact that Iowa, like Ohio, is home to many large agricultural facilities – a trait that has often fomented conflict over specific projects. Iowa has defied this logic in part because the state was very early to renewables, enacting a state portfolio standard in 1983, signed into law by a Republican governor.

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