Positive climate stories in August
It’s been another month of scorching heatwaves and raging wildfires across the globe, as well as reports that the G20 has financed a staggering USD 1.4 trillion in 2022 alone to the fossil fuel industry. So how do we stay positive?
Here at Opportunity Green we’re supporters of coupling our outrage with optimism, so we’re here to share this month’s positive climate stories with you.
1. Historic vote in Ecuador to ‘just stop oil’
This month, Ecuadorian voters have passed a historic referendum to reject oil drillings in the Yasuní National Park, a protected area of the Amazon rainforest.
As well as being a home to Indigenous communities, the Yasuní National Park is also one of the most biodiverse areas of the planet.
This is a breath of fresh air with recent data showing that the Amazon rainforest, dubbed “lungs of the earth”, is close to reaching a tipping point. And yet, Amazon nations failed to agree on a common deforestation goal at a summit earlier this month.
But back to Ecuador: This vote will keep approximately 726 barrels of oil underground and protect some of the last ‘uncontacted’ Indigenous communities. Ecuador is now the first country worldwide to stop oil drilling through means of direct climate democracy.
Nemonte Nenquimo, Waorani Leader & Goldman Prize Winner says:
“Today is a historic day! As a Waorani woman and mother, I feel overjoyed with Ecuadorians’ resounding decision to stop oil drilling in my people’s sacred homeland.” Well said!
2. Landmark climate ruling in Montana: The Kids Are (All) Right
In Held v. State of Montana, the First Judicial District Court of Montana ruled in favour of 16 Montana youth. It declared that the state of Montana violated their state constitutional rights, including their rights to equal protection, dignity, liberty, health and safety, and public trust, all predicated on their right to a clean and healthy environment.
Ultimately, the court invalidated and enjoined Montana laws that promoted fossil fuel activities while leaving aside the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts decisions on fossil fuel extraction.
This landmark ruling is unprecedented in US history. Amongst other firsts, it is the first climate lawsuit successfully holding a US government accountable for worsening the climate crisis and thereby violating fundamental constitutional rights.
Michael Gerrard, Director of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, says:
“I think this is the strongest decision on climate change ever issued by any court.”
A recent report released by the UN Environment Programme and the Sabin Center shows that climate litigation has more than doubled in five years – and that the voice of vulnerable groups are being heard around the world with 34 cases having been brought by and on behalf of children and youth.
3. 98% decrease in single-use supermarket plastic bags
A few weeks ago, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs published data revealing that since a 5p charge was introduced in 2015, the usage of single-use supermarket plastic bags at main retailers has dropped by more than 98%.
Before the levy was introduced, the average person in England bought around 140 of these carrier bags annually – compared to two now.
In 2021, the charge was increased to 10p and extended to all businesses.
Anna Diski, Plastic Campaigner at Greenpeace says:
“We think the success and popularity of the plastic bag charge should make the government think again and do more right now to tackle plastic pollution.”
A great example is Wales which has banned plastic single-use carrier bags from 2024 onwards.
Efforts to curb plastic pollution are also in motion at the international level. In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted a historic resolution to develop the first international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution. The second round of negotiations took place earlier this year which resulted in 170 countries agreeing to develop a first draft by November.
4. A record number of solar and heat pumps installed across the UK
UK households have installed a record number of solar panels and heat pumps in the first six months of 2023, according to MSC, the industry’s official standards body.
About 17,000 households a month installed solar panels.
About 3,000 household installed heat pumps – this is a first.
While this is a record we can get on board with, it is still a long road towards the UK’s goal of reaching 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028.
Our Legal Director Carly Hicks says:
“Heat pumps are a key technology in the crucial race to decarbonise building stock, so it’s great to see that UK consumers are starting to move forward with installing them in their homes. However, across Europe fossil fuels still meet nearly 80% of heating energy demand. That is why our legal team is working behind the scenes to try to identify opportunities to move the sector further and faster towards where it needs to be if we are to have any chance of keeping the Paris Agreement 1.5°C temperature goal alive.”
5. Simon Sharpe sets out how we could go Five Times Faster on climate
On my hunt for positive climate stories, Aoife, our CEO and a voracious reader, stepped up and gave an uplifting book recommendation: Five Times Faster by Simon Sharpe which sets out how we can move five times faster, on climate change in science, economics and diplomacy.
Aoife is an economist (she was chair of Rethinking Economics before starting Opportunity Green) and is passionate about reforming economics to reflect more of the reality of the climate crisis.
Simon Sharpe’s first chapter on economics is titled ‘worse than useless’ and unfortunately that is often ‘our experience of economists’, in Aoife’s words. They focus too much on the ‘cost’ of solving climate change and often recommend incentivising the ‘cheapest’ thing to reduce emissions. Recent reporting on how mainstream economists have downplayed climate threat and underestimated the cost of climate change brings this into sharp relief.
And doing the ‘cheapest’ thing often only incentivises half-solutions, that turn out to be non-solutions (like using fossil gas in shipping or dodgy biofuels in aviation). We need to focus on getting to all the way to zero, as quickly as possible. Aoife commented on the book:
“The economics profession is failing our planet on climate. It is essentially nothing less than impossible to tell what the cost of decarbonising industries such as aviation and shipping will be because, as Simon Sharpe points out in his book, regulation stimulates innovation.
“If we want the price of green hydrogen and hydrogen-derived fuels to go down, then we need to ensure it is used and that will only happen if there is regulation to mandate its use. Don’t listen to the economists who tell you we should faff about at the margins, as Simon Sharpe illustrates clearly in his book: if we want to go five times faster on tackling climate change, we need to focus on zero. It’s really positive that this failure in the profession is being called out clearly!”
