Climate Basics Podcast Episode 8 notes

COP 30 has ended and with the US not attending at a national level, many were looking to China to take over the leadership mantle.


China has stated that it prefers a multilateral approach, thereby choosing not to exercise its natural leadership position in the Energy Transition, given its outsized role in the manufacturing of solar panels and EV vehicles.


We discuss the history of the UNFCCC, the development of the COP and the likelihood of China's role increasing in prominence in the short to mid-term, as it continues to manufacture solar and EVs at scale.


Waiting for China's Leadership in Climate Change Struggle - Ep 8 show notes

Writer: Greg

UNFCCC

UN Climate Change Conference - Belém, November 2025 | UNFCCC

IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

About Montreal Protocol

1987 international agreement on CFC's and ozone layer

Opinion | What Environmentalists Like Me Got Wrong About Climate Change - The New York Times

regret for not concentrating on methane because, at the time, it was a small contributor to the overall emissions profile and to simplify the message to the broader public, a decision to focus on carbon emissions was made

Now is advocating concentrating on methane leaks from oil and gas fields, particularly those which are inactive but still leaking - i.e. these fields are an easy fix and the biggest "bang for our buck" in terms of net result

https://www.zeroby2050.ca/post/waiting-for-china-s-leadership-in-climate-change-struggle-ep-8-show-notes 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ep 16 Show Notes: Could Big Insurance Become a Climate Ally? Risk Assessment & Adaptations to Climate Change

How is the insurance industry being impacted by climate change?  TLDR - it’s bad.  Insurance has started a process of contraction - withdrawing coverage from policies and areas of high risk, like flooding, wildfires, and storm damages, in order to protect their own bottom line. Companies insuring high-risk homes have cancelled contracts with paying customers or reduced that their contracts will cover, cutting private insurance out of whole regions - leaving homeowners uninsured or dependent on state-sponsored insurance alternatives.  Meanwhile, Insurance as a whole is still growing. That isn’t because they’re covering more properties, but because they invest in stocks, bonds and mutual funds just like any other private equity, and they make good money more reliably doing that than they could from the increasingly unstable insurance sector. Just the life insurance sector alone reached 35 trillion dollars in assets back in 2022. They are making money from the money they alr...
Read more

Deep Dive: Insurers Warn Themselves, the Old Models Likely Wrong, as Earth is Warming Faster (March, 2026).

  Summary of this Deep Dive: This video discusses a 2024 report titled Climate Scorpion , a collaborative effort between the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) and the University of Exeter . The report examines how the insurance and risk assessment industries are re-evaluating their models in light of accelerating climate change. Key Takeaways: Shifting Risk Curves:  The video uses an infographic ( 0:51 ) to explain how weather event distributions have changed. A "century storm"—previously a rare, low-probability, high-severity event—is now becoming a standard expectation for annual occurrences ( 2:40 - 3:00 ). The "Sting" of Climate Change:  The report highlights that global warming is driving more frequent and severe weather, such as floods and hurricanes. This is caused by increased thermal energy in the oceans converting into kinetic energy ( 0:35 - 0:53 ). Insurers Reassessing Models:  The insurance industry is warning itself that historical models used...
Read more

Climate Basics Podcast Episode 20 notes

Water scarcity & Desalination: First, let’s talk about why desalinisation is necessary. Essentially water - fresh water drinkable water - has always been a key factor in survival, that's for anyone, humans especially. Traditionally, when you look back on history where there's water, that's where people have put their settlements. That's why so many of the greatest cities in the world are coastal or on huge rivers. The default regular supply of fresh water is what allowed those big populations to flourish and go centers of industry to take hold. You might not realize it but machines actually use a lot of water too, especially in construction and materials fabrication as well as in the production of various chemicals. You can only grow so large until you get to a point where you're utilizing all of the fresh water that's available to you nearby that's when Society started building aqueducts in rome, qanats in arabia and persia, canals in china and sout...
Read more