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It’s a proven fact: the relationship between rising global temperatures and the number of climate-related disasters is directly proportional.

From 1991 through 2023, each rise of 0.1°C in the average global air temperature led to 360 new records of climate-related disasters in Brazil, including severe droughts, flooding and storms. The consequential rise in the ocean’s surface temperature led to 584 new cases. There was an average increase of 100 new extreme events per year in Brazil over the period and subsequent economic losses amounting to some R$ 5.6 billion ($970 million) for each 0.1°C rise in average global temperature. The process has accelerated this decade, with 4,077 disasters recorded per year on average. During the 1990s, this number was a mere 725, meaning there has been a 460% increase since then.

These unprecedented data are from the study entitled “2024 – The Hottest Year in History,” carried out by the Brazilian Ocean Literacy Alliance, a group of multiple organizations focused on work related to the Ocean Decade. The project is coordinated by the Sea of Science Program at Brazil’s São Paulo Federal University (UNIFESP), the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and by UNESCO. It is funded by the Boticário Group Foundation and other NGOs. The study is the first volume in the series entitled “Brazil in Transformation: The impact of the Climate Crisis.” (...)

Beaver County, Pennsylvania, has lost jobs, businesses and people. But Shell says its complex has created nearly 500 jobs and paid $52 million in taxes, royalties and fees.

A Shell petrochemical plant in western Pennsylvania has failed to deliver many promised economic benefits to the surrounding county since it was announced more than a decade ago, according to an analysis released Friday by the Ohio River Valley Institute, a longtime critic of the project.

Beaver County, northwest of Pittsburgh, has lagged both the state and the nation in measures including growth in gross domestic product, employment and number of businesses since the company unveiled plans to build the massive $14 billion plant in 2012, the report said.

The report said that “by nearly every measure of economic activity, today Beaver County is worse off than it was before the Shell plant was announced in 2012. Today, Beaver County has fewer jobs, fewer businesses, and fewer residents.”

Shell spokeswoman Natalie Gunnell declined to comment on the specifics of the new report but said the plant has helped the local economy.

The Trump administration has already rolled back planned limits on PFAS chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and other health problems.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18216505

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China's top economic planning agency said on Sunday it was taking steps to scale back subsidies for renewable energy projects after a boom in solar and wind power installations.

China broke its own records for new solar installations in 2024 with installed capacity up 45% from the previous year. China now has almost 887 GW of installed solar power, more than six times the capacity of the United States, according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Highlights

Missed targets:

Indonesia’s energy transition efforts are continuously being undermined by policy inconsistencies and missed targets. Despite government regulations setting a limit of coal use at 30 per cent of the total energy mix by 2025, state electricity company Perusahaan Listrik Negara’s (PLN) coal use target was 62 per cent during the same period.

Renewable energy, which was supposed to reach 23 per cent of Indonesia’s energy mix by 2025, only reached 13.9 per cent in December 2024, even falling short of the revised target of 17–19 per cent by 2025.

The government is pushing EVs but the energy mix is still largely coal:

Electric vehicle policies fail to address that the electricity sector is Indonesia’s second largest emissions contributor, since the country favours coal for its electricity generation. And biomass cofiring is ineffective — 2.3 million hectares of land would be required to fire 52 power plants, potentially increasing emissions by 26.5 metric tonnes.