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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,” Bloomberg reported. 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 by Bloomberg, 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 Post reported. 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

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    Texas Flood Among Worst in 100 Years
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    Current conditions: The remnants of Tropical Storm Chantal will bring heavy rain and potential flash floods to the Carolinas, southeastern Virginia, and southern Delaware through Monday nightTwo people are dead and 300 injured after Typhoon Danas hit TaiwanLife-threatening rainfall is expected to last through Monday in Central Texas.

    THE TOP FIVE

    1. Death toll in Central Texas floods climbs to 82, with more than 40 still missing

      Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

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    Politics

    The Permitting Crisis for Renewables

    A fifth of U.S. counties now restrict renewables development, according to exclusive data gathered by Heatmap Pro.

    Counties, clean energy, and pollution.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

    A solar farm 40 minutes south of Columbus, Ohio.

    A grid-scale battery near the coast of Nassau County, Long Island.

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    Green
    Hotspots

    Judge, Siding With Trump, Saves Solar From NEPA

    And more on the week’s biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.

    The United States.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    1. Jackson County, Kansas – A judge has rejected a Hail Mary lawsuit to kill a single solar farm over it benefiting from the Inflation Reduction Act, siding with arguments from a somewhat unexpected source — the Trump administration’s Justice Department — which argued that projects qualifying for tax credits do not require federal environmental reviews.

    • We previously reported that this lawsuit filed by frustrated Kansans targeted implementation of the IRA when it first was filed in February. That was true then, but afterwards an amended complaint was filed that focused entirely on the solar farm at the heart of the case: NextEra’s Jeffrey Solar. The case focuses now on whether Jeffrey benefiting from IRA credits means it should’ve gotten reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.
    • Perhaps surprisingly to some, the Trump Justice Department argued against these NEPA reviews – a posture that jibes with the administration’s approach to streamlining the overall environmental analysis process but works in favor of companies using IRA credits.
    • In a ruling that came down on Tuesday, District Judge Holly Teeter ruled the landowners lacked standing to sue because “there is a mismatch between their environmental concerns tied to construction of the Jeffrey Solar Project and the tax credits and regulations,” and they did not “plausibly allege the substantial federal control and responsibility necessary to trigger NEPA review.”
    • “Plaintiffs’ claims, arguments, and requested relief have been difficult to analyze,” Teeter wrote in her opinion. “They are trying to use the procedural requirements of NEPA as a roadblock because they do not like what Congress has chosen to incentivize and what regulations Jackson County is considering. But those challenges must be made to the legislative branch, not to the judiciary.”

    2. Portage County, Wisconsin – The largest solar project in the Badger State is now one step closer to construction after settling with environmentalists concerned about impacts to the Greater Prairie Chicken, an imperiled bird species beloved in wildlife conservation circles.

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