Broken Climate Pledges and Europe’s Heat Wave

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Today, a historic heatwave is crippling Europe, just as two of the world’s largest contributors to global warming are abandoning key commitments to limit emissions. My colleague Somini Sengupta, on why the era of global cooperation on climate is starting to unravel.

It’s Tuesday, July 19.

Somini, we wanted to talk to you because you’re the international climate correspondent at The Times and it very much feels like we’re experiencing a moment here that needs to be explained, in terms of both climate policy and climate conditions on the ground. So just to start, can you describe exactly what is happening right now in Europe?

Yeah. People in Europe and the United Kingdom are living in the climate future now.

So parts of England are hitting nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit or peaking over 37 degrees Celsius. That’s not normal, but it is normal now. Most homes are not built for this kind of heat anywhere in Europe.

I was in London a couple of weeks ago, and I walked across this bridge called the Hammersmith Bridge, which is only open to pedestrians and cyclists right now because it’s an old bridge in need of repair. And today, I learned that the bridge was being wrapped in foil —

— to prevent the structure from cracking in this heat. One small airport in London, a runway closed for a couple of hours today because the runway was literally melting. And apparently, a small section of it lifted.

The railway lines have slowed down. One of them is going to close tomorrow because, in extreme heat, some of the tracks start to buckle.

This is not just in England, of course. In France, several parts of France have hit record temperatures. This has affected some of the nuclear plants in France, where France gets a lot of its electricity from. In Spain, one of the newspaper headlines that I saw a couple of days ago said that Spain was experiencing an avalanche of uncontrollable wildfires. This, of course, exacerbated by the heat.

Right. I mean, from everything you’re saying and from everything I have been reading, it feels like not an exaggeration to say that many places in Europe right now are basically withering and melting.

Yes, it is. And this is all supersized by climate change. We will see much more of this every summer.

Right. And all of this is occurring at a moment when two of the most important players in climate policy and two of the biggest polluting forces in the world are taking pretty big steps away from the commitments that they have made to tackle warming temperatures. And that would be the US and Europe itself. And I want to begin with Europe, because Europe, as you have told us, Somini, has been seen as the great hope for climate activists and researchers.

The reason why Europe is so important is that it contains some of the biggest industrialized countries on Earth. And then if you add the United Kingdom to that, you’re talking about some of history’s biggest emitters.

Right.

And Europe, as well as the UK, had set out some really ambitious climate plans. So the European Union has enshrined in law a promise to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by more than half by 2030. Very similar law in the United Kingdom. So really ambitious short-term climate plans.

Right. And these commitments were really celebrated for their boldness when they were made. But then, of course, came the war in Ukraine, which upended the entire global energy supply and threatened almost every economy in Europe.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has absolutely challenged Europe’s climate plans. Europe is in a very tricky position because it gets a lot of its energy from Russia.

Right.

Specifically, gas. The Russian invasion of Ukraine squeezed the energy supply in Europe and it really accelerated a debate over which way Europe will go. Will it kind of double down on the development of its renewable energy sources so they are no longer as dependent on the gas from Russia, or will they accelerate efforts to get gas from anywhere other than Russia? That’s the debate that Europeans are having right now. And they made a decision a couple of weeks ago that seems to put their thumb on the get gas from anywhere other than Russia button.

Explain that decision.

So two weeks ago, the European Parliament voted to classify gas as a, quote unquote, green fuel. Gas is actually a fossil fuel. It’s not green. Its principal component is methane, which is a gas that warms up the Earth’s atmosphere really, really quickly.

So why would the EU reclassify a not green energy source as green? What was the argument for doing that?

Aha. Well, it basically greenlights a bunch of new gas projects and makes them eligible for cheap loans and, in some cases, public subsidies. So in reality, this means more new gas projects, and it means that Europe will prolong its reliance on gas.

And so what’s the practical impact of that going to be when we think about the climate goals that you reminded us of earlier for Europe?

The implication of this vote is pretty big because, on the one hand, it allows more gas projects to be built, not just for the next two to three years, but potentially for the next 20, 30 years, but it also sends a signal to other countries that one of the — these rich industrialized nations are willing to prolong their reliance on fossil fuels. So it’s much harder then for European countries to say to emerging economies, oh, don’t burn your coal or don’t develop your oil fields because it’s bad for the climate.

Right, because we, too, are embracing fossil fuels.

We, who are responsible for most of the emissions already in the atmosphere, whose impacts you are seeing right now in the form of extreme weather that we’ve just been talking about.

OK, so let’s turn now to the US. We have talked, Somini, about the Supreme Court ruling that represented a major setback to the Biden administration’s attempts to cut US emissions on the show. That decision basically gutted the powers of the EPA, and thus the executive branch, to do that work. And then just a few days ago, it really felt like the president’s climate plan was officially and kind of irreversibly killed off by Senator Joe Manchin.

That’s right. Remember, when President Biden took office, he announced a pretty ambitious climate agenda. But late last Thursday, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he wouldn’t support what had become a vastly whittled-down piece of climate legislation. His fellow Democrats were negotiating with him for the better part of 18 months to get a climate law passed. In the end, he said he wouldn’t go for it. And this really was a blow to any hopes of getting climate legislation passed in the US, so much so that President Biden came out and acknowledged that legislative action on climate wasn’t possible.

Right. So an American president who has pledged to put the US back at the center of global efforts to reduce global warming is now having to say, sorry, folks, game over.

Yes. And remember, one of the first things he did when he took office as president is he rejoined the Paris Agreement. And there was lots of talk about America is back. This latest setback really makes a mockery of that America is back rhetoric.

Mhm. And just to put this all into perspective, what will it mean for the US and, to a degree, Europe, to backpedal, as they have almost simultaneously, when we think about the larger question of climate change and this number we all have in our head — 1.5 degrees Celsius — that we want to limit temperature rise to in the coming years?

Right. So remember, when we came out of the international climate talks in Glasgow, you heard world leaders saying, yes, our goal is to keep global temperatures from rising past 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, as compared to the beginning of the Industrial Age. That was their North Star, 1.5 degrees Celsius. You heard this from the United States. You heard this from European leaders. We are already 1.1 degree Celsius hotter — I’m talking about global average temperature — today compared to the beginning of the Industrial Age. So the failure of the United States to pass climate legislation, Europe saying, yeah, we’re going to have fossil fuels in the mix for a while longer — all of this is making it very, very difficult, if not impossible, to keep 1.5 degrees within reach.

Right. And so this decade, which was supposed to be the decade of combating climate change — you’ve talked about this, our colleague Coral Davenport has talked about this, the 2020s were going to be the period where the world got its act together — this decade is already starting to very much look like a failure just two and a half years in.

You know, there was some consensus developing that the world needed to very swiftly reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, like do it in this decade. That isn’t happening.

If anything, the world seems to be deepening its reliance on fossil fuels. That makes slowing down climate change really, really hard.

We’ll be right back.

So with the US federal government walking away from climate policy and Europe backsliding on it, what will be the biggest sources of action in the coming years? Who will take up this mantle? Will it be local government in places like the US? Will it be global corporations? Will it be smaller countries? What does your reporting tell us?

So first off, I think it’s important to acknowledge that, in public opinion poll after poll, a majority of Americans say the government should do more on climate. So can the White House do more? Well, yes. There are things that can do with executive action without legislative approval.

So the White House can regulate tailpipe pollution in cars and trucks, for example. It can set pollution regulations from power plants. It can focus on methane regulations. Many of these things are likely to be challenged in court, and so that is likely to slow down those kinds of regulations.

So who’s left? Well, there’s state action. There are big states, like California, that have set pretty ambitious state-level laws. So for example, in California, by 2035, all new car sales must be electric. By 2045, all of California’s electricity must come from zero-emissions sources, like solar and wind.

And in the state of New Mexico, for example, which has a lot of coal, the governor has set aside some money for local communities to be helped as coal plants are being retired. So there’s a scattershot approach, if you will, little things that might add up to something. But all of these local and state actions really cannot replace national climate legislation, which seems impossible at the moment.

Right. So beyond the US, are there places where you foresee impactful actions in the coming years? And let’s turn to Europe, for example, which we talked about a bunch in the first half of this episode.

Yeah. I know that we talked about this green designation for gas projects, which is infuriating to climate advocates. But look, Europe still has a law on its books to reduce emissions by more than half by 2030. So Europe is continuing to do quite a bit. For example, it has a law that says no new internal combustion engine cars to be sold by 2035. It is pressing all commercial buildings to put solar panels on their roofs. It is rolling out a lot of wind. In some countries, like Denmark, two thirds of its electricity comes from wind energy.

And then in European cities, you’re also seeing quite a bit of action. So in London, for example it is super expensive to bring an old polluting car into the city center. And you’re seeing that in many other European cities, these congestion taxes, restrictions on internal combustion engine cars coming into the city, really reducing a big source of emissions, which is from transportation.

Right. So whereas the US approach will be local and it will be scattershot, Europe’s will be more transnational, more integrated, and seemingly more impactful.

That’s right. I mean, Europe does still have something of a plan. But that’s not enough. You need to have all of the big emitters, including the US, rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to avert climate catastrophes like the ones we’re seeing now.

Well, let’s talk about that, the idea of climate catastrophes, in the wake of everything you have just explained, because the worst impacts of climate inaction are probably never going to be felt by places like the US and the countries of Europe, places that you have described as the Global North, Somini. And when we use that phrase, what we really mean is mostly wealthy countries that can afford to adapt to climate change.

The heatwave in Europe, yes, it’s very bad, but as you just said, the UK is wrapping its bridges in foil. It can afford to do that. It can afford air conditioning, if people want it. In the Global South, which is traditionally countries without those resources, the ability to adapt is nowhere near as great. So what will be the impact of the decisions that are now being made in the US and in Europe on those countries in the Global South?

Right. So by Global North, we mean the rich industrialized countries that are responsible for most of the historic emissions.

Right.

Countries in the Global South aren’t responsible for most of those emissions, but their people, particularly their poorest people, are the ones that are feeling the impact most seriously, most acutely. So in India and Pakistan, for example, you had these off-the-charts prolonged heatwaves. In low-lying island nations in the Pacific, in South Asia, in the Caribbean, you have countries that are losing farmland every time there’s a storm surge because global sea levels are rising.

Right.

And so what really matters when the US can’t get climate legislation passed is that millions of vulnerable people suffer. And so that’s why, in the next few months, you’re likely to hear louder calls from people in the Global South who say they need to get paid for the repeated losses and damages that they’re seeing in their countries because of inaction by these rich industrialized countries.

And when they say get paid, they essentially mean reparations, payments from wealthy countries who inflicted the climate damage that is now occurring in the Global South.

In polite diplomatic language, Michael, they don’t call it reparations. They call it losses and damages, loss and damage. And you’re going to just hear increasing calls for loss and damage funding. We’ve also seen a resistance to that sort of separate pot of money from countries in the Global North, including in Europe and the United States. So it’s been a can kicked down the road for many, many years. But I suspect that, in the climate talks coming up in Egypt, you’re going to hear a lot more about this.

But Somini, won’t that end up, in many ways, pitting country against country, region against region, the North against the South in a way that very much seems at odds with the spirit of global cooperation that has really been essential to the idea of getting climate change contained? I mean, what you’re describing is a scene in which, increasingly, the Global South looks at the inaction of the Global North and says, we’re furious with you, pay up. That does not seem like a recipe for everyone holding hands and saying we’re going to limit our fossil fuels and our carbon output.

Look, there was a brief moment of international cooperation in 2015 when all of the nations of the world came together and agreed to the Paris Climate Accord.

Right.

That was predicated on some really crucial things. One was that the rich industrialized countries would quickly reduce their own emissions. They would set their targets and they would do it. That hasn’t happened.

The other condition was that the rich world would give money to poor countries to shift away from polluting fuels and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. That money hasn’t come forward. So there is a serious lack of credibility precisely at this moment when we are seeing accelerating climate impacts.

Right. And this whole system is built on credibility. So what happens when that credibility starts to go away? Where does it leave this global project, this existential project of trying to contain rising temperatures?

It leaves that project in tatters.

Well, Somini, appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael.

On Monday afternoon, the Secretary General of the United Nations delivered a dire warning to world leaders about rising temperatures, calling it a, quote, “climate emergency.” We have a choice, he said — collective action or collective suicide. Meanwhile, the heatwave in Europe is expected to continue today, with temperatures in London forecast to reach 102 degrees Fahrenheit and temperatures in Paris forecast to reach 106.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

On Monday, prosecutors in Florida delivered their opening statement in the sentencing trial of Nikolas Cruz, the gunman who killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida four years ago.

Cruz, who has pleaded guilty to 17 murders and 17 attempted murders for those he injured, faces either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

And police are crediting an armed bystander with ending a mass shooting at a mall in Greenwood, Indiana by killing the suspected gunman shortly after he opened fire.

The suspect, who was armed with a rifle, a pistol and 100 rounds of ammunition, killed three people before the bystander shot him to death.

Today’s episode was produced by Michael Simon Johnson, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Diana Nguyen and Will Reid. It was edited by M.J. Davis Lin and Marc Georges, contains original music by Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for The Daily. I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.