🌳 COP28, climate anxiety, and green financing

Welcome to the first Climate Crunch newsletter, where we summarize the five most important pieces of climate change and green transition news for you once per week.

Today’s newsletter is all about COP28, or the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). You might think it’s contradictory for one of the world’s biggest oil-exporting countries to host a global conference on fighting climate change. And you’d be right.

Critics argue that the UAE is trying to ‘greenwash’ its reputation as one of the biggest contributors to CO2 emissions and rising temperatures, while UAE officials claim that they’re trying to lead the way in mitigating climate change’s worst effects. We’ll let you be the judge.

Here’s the biggest news from COP28 and the five things you need to know this week:

1️⃣ 3C Temperature increase on the horizon

A new report found that we are on track to experience 3C (3 degrees Celsius) of global heating during the 21st century. Previous climate summits have agreed upon 1.5C as a goal for slowing climate change, so a 3C temperature increase would be nothing less than catastrophic.

2️⃣ All about climate finance

It’s all about the Benjamins — The U.A.E. committed to investing $270B in the green transition by 2030. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, was a no-show after making major promises on climate financing at last year's COP27 summit.

A new study published this week estimated that $2.4T will need to be invested annually to effectively navigate the green transition and slow climate change. Lord Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and a co-author of the study, pulled no punches when asked about the topic:

“The world is not on track to realize the goals of the Paris Agreement. The reason for this failure is a lack of investment, particularly in emerging markets and developing countries outside China.”

3️⃣ U.S. proposes nuclear fusion plan

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry introduced a 35-nation plan to expand the use of nuclear fusion as an energy source. Current nuclear power plants are powered by nuclear fission, and efforts to invest in fusion as a means of producing energy could “revolutionize our world,” according to Kerry.

The U.S. and the U.K. signed a fusion research cooperation agreement last month, while other countries like Japan, Australia, China, and Germany have been investigating fusion's potential as an energy source. The U.S.-led initiative should accelerate the process of researching nuclear fusion and its feasibility as a possible alternative energy source.

4️⃣ Climate anxiety on the rise

Google found that searches related to climate anxiety reached an all-time high this year. Some of the most searched terms were:

• Climate anxiety

• Eco-anxiety

• What is eco-anxiety?

• How to deal with climate anxiety?

English-language searches for these and related terms were 27 times higher in 2023 than in 2017.

Meanwhile, Portuguese-language searches for these topics were up an eye-popping 73x over that period. Not surprising, given that Portugal has dealt with wildfires, blistering heat, and extreme droughts in recent years.

BONUS READING: Psychology and environmental studies professor Susan Clayton wrote an essay entitled, "Don't Ignore Your Climate Anxiety" for TIME Magazine this year.

5️⃣ Oil spill threatens Gulf of Mexico

Late last month, the U.S. Coast Guard estimated that over 1.1 million gallons of oil had spilled into the Gulf of Mexico recently. It's unclear where the oil spill came from, but the Coast Guard is investigating whether it came from a burst pipeline.

History of Oil Spills in the Gulf of Mexico — 1.1 million gallons sounds like a lot, but it’s nothing compared to the 130 million gallons that seeped into the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in 2010.

BP, which owned the rig, ended up paying over $14B in fines for the Deepwater leak. That wasn't the only oil leak discovered in the Gulf in 2010. Between 2004 and 2010, an estimated 30 million gallons of oil leaked into the Gulf from an oil platform owned by Taylor Energy that was destroyed by a hurricane in 2004. This was the longest-lasting oil spill in U.S. history.

Thanks for reading! Please reply with any thoughts or feedback you’d like to share about the newsletter.

-the Crunch Bunch