Climate

• [New] Indonesia's government last year launched a plan to cut ocean plastic waste by 70% by 2025, and to end plastic pollution altogether by 2040.
• [New] The U.S. alone will need to invest $4.5 trillion over the next 5 years for infrastructure upgrades to water, energy, public roads, transportation, exporters and more.
• [New] Nearly half the world's population, around 3.6 billion people, face water-scarcity for at least one month per year, and it is expected that over 5 billion people will suffer some water shortage by 2050.
• [New] Over the next century, rising sea levels will gradually flood coastal communities around the world, displacing millions of people and posing an existential danger for many island nations.
• [New] The investment industry is alert to the growing threat of climate change, with global industry leaders coming together last year through the emergence of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative and the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance, both of which commit to net-zero by 2050.
• [New] China will reach carbon emission peak before 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, and large cities with a significant greening trend play an important role in neutralizing carbon emission and mitigating the impact of global climate change in urban areas.
• [New] With China recently committing to carbon neutrality by 2060 and Joe Biden promising to return the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change, the decarbonization push is becoming both global and synchronized.
• [New] Urban regions across the world - from the United States to Africa - could warm by more than 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century under a high-emissions climate change scenario.
• [New] The changes in PM 2.5 and O 3 - attributable deaths associated with climate change among the US census-projected population were estimated for 2030, 2050, 2075, and 2095 for each of 2 emission inventories and climate models.
• [New] Climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year between 2030-2050, at a cost of two to four billion dollars a year.
• [New] In the defense realm, issues with China that could flare up in 2021 or beyond include challenges to its claims in the South China Sea and its increasing military maneuvers around Taiwan.
• [New] In the best-case scenario of reaching the Paris target of capping global warming at 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, sea level will rise between 1 and 2 feet by 2100.
• [New] In 2021, we expect the Biden Administration to implement new approaches and ideas, ones that could propel certain themes, including infrastructure development, climate mitigation, and cannabis deregulation, as well as potentially reinvigorate domestic and international economic activity.
• [New] In the United States, Texas alone is projected to receive almost 1.5 million new migrants by 2100 as people try to escape extreme weather in other states, including Florida and Louisiana.
• [New] On the UK side there was much talk of the 'Sea of Opportunity' and some extravagant claims that £1.6 billion worth of fish per year should be repatriated to the UK via Brexit.
• [New] The global demand for fresh water will exceed supply by 40% in 2030, with some cities, like Cape Town, already suffering from water stress.
• The coming year could mark a breakthrough in cooperation between Moscow and Brussels on a broad range of issues related to climate change and environmental protection.
• In Paris, the world agreed to keep away from the worst impacts of local weather change by making an attempt to restrict international temperature will increase to 2 C above pre-industrial ranges by the top of the century.
• MDBs have pledged a rise in climate finance to US$ 65 billion by 2025, up 50% from the 2018 level, and to double adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025.
• A drop in a single-year' s emissions will not make a significant dent in the climate change problem, especially when it comes after the world hit new emissions highs in 2019.
• Halt of new drilling permits on federal lands and waters puts 1.1 million b/d of oil output and 3.7 Bcf/d of gas output at risk by 2025 if existing permits and drilled-but-uncompleted wells are allowed to continue.
• Man-made carbon dioxide emissions need to fall by about 45% by 2030, from 2010 levels, and reach net zero by mid-century to give the world a good chance of limiting warming to 1.5 C and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

Last updated: 11 January 2021