Top climate stories in U.S. in 2021 DevelopmentAid

Over the past year, it was evident that more nations and people became preoccupied by the climate crisis, along with the failures of global leaders to pave the way for a slower warming world. Progress continues to be too slow for the planet, making it an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, limit deforestation, increase conservation efforts and protect species while adopting strong climate stances individually and through national policies. According to the Climate Change Performance Index, the United States ranks 55th in the world when it comes to climate policies; another analysis by Yale University and Columbia University placed the country in 24th position in terms of environmental performance.

Partial agreement on climate goals at COP26

This was the largest summit on climate change since the 2015 Paris Agreement that brought together world leaders, delegates, and activists from nearly 200 nations to negotiate emissions commitments, carbon trading, and climate damage reparations. The aim of limiting the global warming temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius called for clean energy power as well as for phasing out coal power and inefficient fossil fuel. The two weeks of fierce negotiations were not enough to draft the all-agreed-by solutions on the climate crisis so it did not have the expected finality, considers Carolyn Fortuna, who came up with a rating of 2021 top climate stories in the United States for CleanTechnica.

On the last day of the summit, representatives of China and India came up with a last-minute change to the agreements that weakened the language around coal. A subsequent UN research estimated that countries’ short-term climate commitments would lead to 2.5 degrees Celsius (or 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warming. This is a full degree above the 1.5-degree target that scientists say is the highest level of warming in order to avoid the worst climate change effects.

One of the most important climate actions of 2021

The Charging Up America report outlined a series of steps required to make the electric vehicle charging infrastructure commonplace, easily accessible, and worry-free at home, work, or in public places. It was announced that two new electric vehicle programs will receive funding to address climate change by reducing carbon emissions as part of the recently enacted Law on Infrastructure Investment and Jobs.

To promote the electric vehicle stock of 26 million by 2030, public and workplace charging locations need to grow from approximately 216,000 chargers in 2020 to 2.4 million by 2030. This includes 1.3 million chargers at work, 900,000 public, and 180,000 direct current fast chargers. The associated charging investments for this are US$28 billion.

The National Electric Vehicle Program will provide funds to the States to strategically implement an electric vehicle charging infrastructure and to establish an interconnected network of data collection, access, and reliability.

Renewables gained importance and a good share of the energy market

The prices of renewable energy continued to decrease in 2021 and a record amount of solar and wind energy was produced. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, wind and solar energy accounted for 62% of the new electricity generation capacity in 2019 and 76% in 2020 while by September 2021 they reached up to 74% of the total renewables.

By October 2021, solar and wind power accounted for 14% of U.S. new electricity generation, large-scale solar panels represented 37.2%, small-scale solar accounted for 15.5% while fossil fuels accounted for 13.7%. These are big percentages for energy sources that were considered novel just a decade ago. In the U.S., wind and solar are simply less expensive than dirty fossil fuels and the costs of wind, solar and battery technologies continue to fall.

Biodiversity loss is linked to the climate crisis

The diversity of animals and plants constitutes a structure that makes the planet function, ensuring that there is oxygen in the air and fertile soils for crops to grow. Biodiversity loss is one of the three global crises – the others are climate change and a human health crisis. These are induced by economic activities and will lead us to an ecological disaster. The average abundance of native species in most major terrestrial biomes has dropped by at least 20% in the last century. The rapid disappearance of carbon-trapping mangroves and marine grasses prevents carbon storage and exposes coasts to storm surges and erosion.

Carolyn Fortuna gives certain reasons why so much biodiversity loss is occurring:

People destroy the habitat through activities such as agriculture, mining, and logging.
Overfishing destroys the interconnected ocean systems.
Pollution and introduced species dislodge native ones.

Unprecedented changes in climate and biodiversity, driven by human activities, have increasingly threatened nature, human lives, and well-being around the world.

Disastrous weather events placed the climate crisis on a personal level

In Texas, the year commenced with power outages as a result of massive winter storms, hitting the area with an unexpected energy crisis. The frozen wind turbines were blamed when the actual reason was the cold temperatures that stalled the production of natural gas.
In mid-summer, the California Dixie fire discharged smoke fumes and quickly warmed the air above it. Chimney-like fire clouds attracted water particles and grew into fire-fueled thunderstorms. Wildfires also raged out of control in Colorado, Arizona, Kansas, and Montana. As of December 31 last year, the National Interagency Fire Center’s (NIFC) reported a total of 58,733 wildfires across the United States that had burned more than 7.13 million acres.
A record-breaking heatwave, taking the lives of almost 200 people, occurred in the Pacific Northwest at the end of June last year.
In August, Hurricane Ida hit the Louisiana coast with winds of over 241 kms per hour (150 miles per hour). The storm triggered the most oil spills detected from space after a meteorological event in the Gulf of Mexico. Generally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a total of 55 spill reports. These disasters highlight the fragility of offshore oil and gas infrastructures due to the severe storms fueled by climate change.
By the end of the 2021 summer, 99% of the U.S. West of the Rocky Mountains was in a state of drought; Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country, was at only 40% of its capacity. The federal water administrators announced that they had no option but to reduce the amount of water some states received from the Colorado River. Today, 40 million people depend on water in the Colorado River Basin, even as water resources are diminishing due to a great drought.
Record rains fell in the eastern United States. In Louisiana, homes were blown away by hurricane-force winds and thousands of people have been displaced.
The December tornadoes and storms that devastated parts of the United States were called by the Chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency the “new normal” in the era of climate change that we have to build resilience against.

According to the American National Centers for Environmental Information, 2021 set a new annual record of 22 weather and climate disaster events resulting in billion-dollar damages. The year 2021 is the seventh consecutive since 2015 when such events have affected the United States. Over the last 42 years (1980-2021), the years 1998, 2008, 2011-2013, and 2015-2021 were those with 10 or more different disaster events causing costs of billions of dollars. In 2021, 20 weather events and climate disasters causing billion-dollar damage occurred across the United States. The total damage caused by these events was US$145 billion, making 2021 the third most costly year on record after 2017 and 2005.

Biden’s executive actions for the environment

President Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement and blocked the Keystone XL pipeline. His executive actions slowly overturned nearly 50 regressive environmental policies of his predecessor Donald Trump. The Washington Post’s environmental action tracker noted the pace of 32 new measures and 30 proposals for environmental protection.

In the month of December alone, the Biden administration enacted the following climate-related orders:

Overturned a rule granting manufacturers a derogation from uniform energy efficiency testing procedures.
Called on the federal government to operate on clean energy by 2030, switch to zero-emission cars and trucks by 2035, and make federal buildings carbon-neutral by 2045.
Revoked a rule that lessened the efficiency standards of showerheads that allowed them to use unlimited amounts of water.
Approved two major new solar projects.
Announced plans to set new standards for replacing millions of underground lead water service lines and providing billions of dollars to fund the effort.

His further actions foresaw Clean Energy and Climate Investments through the Build Back Better Framework, a US$555 billion package of grants, tax credits, and other policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, these were crippled by Senator Joe Manchin thus weakening the transition to clean energy and the need to subsidize the production of electric vehicles.

According to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, previous temperature fluctuations were caused by large-scale natural processes while the current warming is mainly due to human actions. Analyzing how and why temperatures have changed in the past is essential to understand the current warming trends and how human and natural influences will interact to determine what happens in the future. Understating past climate changes also makes it clear that the effects of recent warming are occurring in addition to stresses that make people and nature vulnerable to changes in ways they have never experienced before.

The multitude of the climate disasters, summits, and environmental events of 2021 makes it difficult for these to be covered in just one article. This is particularly sad given the disinformation and denial around the climate crisis. The United Nations scientific reports made it clear that we can no longer stop global warming from intensifying but we still need to act towards preventing the planet from becoming even hotter. This will require all of us to become climate change activists and call for countries’ coordinated efforts to stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.