DeBriefed 20 September 2024: Europe’s worst storm for ‘two decades’; Record solar boom; How China talks about its energy transition

Wanyuan Song

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

§ This week

Europe in crisis

STORM BORIS: Floods brought by Storm Boris – the worst storm “in at least two decades” in central Europe – killed at least 21 people, said Al Jazeera. According to Time, the storm dumped five times the average amount of rainfall expected in September across the region. In response, European commissioner Ursula von der Leyen pledged €10bn to help repair the damage, reported Deutsche Welle. The New York Times stated that the floods were a “clear reminder” of the threats posed by extreme weather.

PORTUGAL WILDFIRES: More than 5,000 firefighters have been fighting around the clock to rescue people in Portugal amid scores of wildfires, said the Times. At least seven people, including three firefighters, have died in the fires, reported Al Jazeera. The European Union warned that the “devastating floods” and “deadly wildfires” will become “our new normal” as the climate warms, the Associated Press reported.

Global extremes

TYPHOONS IN CHINA: Two typhoons, Bebinca and Pulassan, hit China this week, while a third, Typhoon Soulik, is expected, reported the China Meteorological News Agency. Bebinca, Shanghai’s strongest storm since 1949, brought China’s financial hub and surrounding areas to a “virtual standstill”, said the New York Times. The “short interval” between these two typhoons posed “big disaster risks” in China’s coastal areas, said Zhang Ling, the chief forecaster of China’s Central Meteorological Observatory, cited by the China Meteorological News Agency. 

NIGERIA FLOODS: The “worst flooding in two decades” has killed 37 people in Nigeria, where more than 200 inmates escaped from a prison in the north-east in the aftermath, reported the Guardian. The Times quoted Nigeria’s vice-president, Kashim Shettima, who said the disaster served “as a sobering reminder of the increasing threats posed by climate change, not just globally, but particularly to regions like ours”.

§ Around the world

  • EU APPOINTMENT: Teresa Ribera, Spain’s ecological transition minister, was appointed as EU commissioner Ursula von der Leyen‘s second-in-command, with a “vast portfolio”, including climate and competition policy, Politico reported.
  • LAMMY SPEECH: The UK’s foreign secretary David Lammy said in his first major address since taking office that climate change posed a more fundamental threat than terrorism or Vladimir Putin, according to the Independent. 
  • COP WARNING: UN climate chief Simon Stiell wrote a letter to countries stating that their new emissions pledges “will be among the most important policy documents produced this century”.
  • HAGUE ADS: The Hague in the Netherlands became the first city in the world to pass a law banning advertisements promoting fossil-fuel products, wrote the Guardian. 
  • AMAZON DROUGHT: BBC News cited official data from Brazil showing the water levels in many of the rivers in the Amazon basin reached their lowest on record, following the “most intense and widespread” drought the country had ever seen.
  • EU-CHINA EVS: China and the EU failed to reach a deal on ending a dispute over tariffs on imported China-made electric vehicles (EV), but more talks to find “a negotiated solution” were expected, the South China Morning Post reported.

§ 754,303

The number of EVs registered in Norway as of this week, making it the first country in the world with more zero-emission vehicles than petrol cars, reported Energy Monitor.

§ Latest climate research

  • A survey of more than 200 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists published in Communications Earth and Environment found that most are “sceptical that warming will be limited to the Paris targets of well below 2C, but are more optimistic that net-zero CO2 emissions will be reached during the second half of this century”.
  • Heat extremes over lakes are increasing in duration by 1.4 days per decade, according to new Nature Climate Change research.
  • An article in Environmental Science and Policy “unravel[led] the intricate connections between climate change, food systems and human health”, from a global-south perspective.

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

§ Captured

Image - The world is on track to install a record 593GW of new solar capacity this year (note)

The world is on track to install a record-breaking 593 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity in 2024, according to analysis by thinktank Ember. This would be up 29% on 2023 levels and nearly six times the amount added just five years ago. In addition to established leaders, such as China, Europe and the US, Ember said there was strong growth in new markets, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, in 2024. It added that solar growth continues to outpace many forecasts for the industry, “put[ting] ambitious climate pledges within reach”.

§ Spotlight

How China talks about its energy transition

This week, Carbon Brief covers the findings of a new report exploring how Chinese media is covering its transition away from fossil fuels.

China is both the world’s largest annual greenhouse gas emitter and the biggest renewable energy builder, having, by a huge margin, installed more wind and solar than any other country.

While China’s path to clean energy is fast accelerating, the way that its transition is being relayed to the public by domestic media outlets remains largely impenetrable to those outside its borders.

In a new report, Greenpeace East Asia used AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to analyse how China’s energy transition was covered by domestic media outlets from January 2023 to April 2024.

Climate impacts

By tracking nearly 800 articles, the report found that discussions of its energy transition generally fell into three categories.

These included “energy security”, “overseas expansion, competition and cooperation” and “technological pathways” for achieving the transition, report author Xinnan Wang explained to Carbon Brief.

She added that Chinese media outlets are “increasingly” drawing links between China’s energy system and growing climate impacts across the country:

“In particular, when discussing energy security, the impact of extreme weather on [China’s] power system and how the system can enhance resilience or flexibility to deal with extreme weather has become a primary narrative.”

In addition, Chinese media is increasingly covering “practical issues and solutions that arise during the transition process”.

This includes, for example, “how the power system needs to be upgraded to accommodate a high proportion of renewable energy, how to let renewables participate in the market, and how Chinese companies address green trade barriers and carbon footprint issues”.

Expert voices

As well as tracking the range of energy and climate topics being covered by Chinese media, the report also examined which institutes and experts are being quoted the most.

It found that, due to increasing climate impacts in the country, there is a growing “number of voices coming from meteorological departments”.

However, the most cited opinions, according to the report, were from Xin Baoan, former chairman of the State Grid Corporation of China – one of the largest energy companies in China – Dr Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), and Liu Hanyuan, chairman of Tongwei Group – a leading renewable energy company.

Image - Word cloud showing most cited climate experts in Chinese media from 2023 to April 2024. Source: Greenpeace East Asia (note)

Wang explained to Carbon Brief that both companies play “a significant role in the power system and energy transition”.

The prominence of Liu, in particular, gives an indication of the “growing influence of Chinese renewable enterprises” within the country, she added.

Birol, meanwhile, became a centre of media attention during a trip to China last year.

Around the time of his visit, he was interviewed by China Energy News, a newspaper under the management of the People’s Daily, a Communist party-affiliated media outlet, where he described the country as the “well-deserved world champion of clean energy”.

This article was a “focal point for media citation” at the time, according to the report.

§ Watch, read, listen

SOMALIA CRISIS: BBC climate editor Justin Rowlatt has produced a special report and podcast on how conflict and climate change conspire to fuel despair in Somalia.

DECARBONISATION: Climate Sense, a podcast from the US nonprofit Brookings, asked: “How do we decarbonise the stuff in our lives?”

TECHNO-ENERGY: The Financial Times published a comment piece by entrepreneur and author of “Exponential”, Azeem Azhar, who argued that “as the techno-energy system increases efficiency, electricity will become the common currency”.

Coming up

Pick of the jobs

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to [email protected].
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