DeBriefed 27 September 2024: UN ‘pact for the future’; UK turns its back on coal power; River ‘rights’

Orla Dwyer

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

§ This week

UN climate focus

PACT FOR THE FUTURE: The UN general assembly meeting in New York signed off on a plan for countries to work together to tackle large global challenges, “with climate change one of the headline topics”, EuroNews reported. The agreement reaffirmed global pledges to transition away from fossil fuels, but did not raise global ambitions, the outlet noted. 

ACTION OVER WORDS: Amid the summit, developing countries “pleaded” with richer nations to end the “lip service” and take more action on climate change, Reuters reported. Samoan environment minister Cedric Schuster told reporters that “we need all countries, but particularly the G20, to lead the way” on emissions cuts and climate finance, the outlet said. 

AMAZON BLAZES: Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva mentioned Amazon fires in his UN general assembly opening speech, but “not the fact they’re adding to criticism of his administration’s own environmental stewardship”, the Associated Press said. The country’s portion of the Amazon rainforest recorded 38,000 fires last month – the highest in August since 2010, the newswire said. 

Around the world

  • ‘LIFE-THREATENING’: At least three people were killed and 1.3m left without power in “dangerous” Hurricane Helene, which made landfall over Florida on Thursday, CBS News reported. Sea surface temperatures have been “exceptionally warm” in the Gulf of Mexico – about 2C above normal for this time of years, BBC News said. 
  • COAL POWER: The Australian government cleared the way for three coal mines to extend their operations for a further 30-40 years in a move that has been criticised as “counter to action on climate change”, ABC News reported. 
  • BIG JOB: Former World Bank climate chief Rachel Kyte was appointed as the UK’s climate envoy – a position “axed” by former prime minister Rishi Sunak, according to the Guardian. 
  • GREENWASHING SPAT: French oil and gas company TotalEnergies is expected to appeal a South African advertising regulator ruling that it was “misleading” to “tout its commitment to ‘sustainable development’ in a campaign with the country’s national parks”, the Financial Times said. 
  • AI GOES NUCLEAR: Microsoft agreed to buy power from the Three Mile Island energy plant, “the site of the worst nuclear accident in US history”, which is set to reopen in 2028 “after improvements”, BBC News said. It added the deal is intended to bolster clean energy as “power-hungry data centres for artificial intelligence (AI) expand”. 

§ £1.7bn

The extra funds the UK needs to spend on nature in the next two years to meet a flagship international target, according to Carbon Brief analysis, also covered by the Guardian.

§ Latest climate research

  • Climate change doubled the likelihood of the heavy rainfall behind floods in central Europe earlier this month, a World Weather Attribution study found.
  • Research in Atmospheric Science Letters explored the “new paradigms and challenges” for scientists researching extreme weather.
  • The frequency of warm, dry and high fire-risk weather conditions have “surged” in parts of South America, including the Amazon region, in the past few decades, a study in Communications Earth and Environment found. 

(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 - A chart showing how the UK phased out coal power. (note)

The UK’s last coal-fired power plant will close this month, ending a 142-year era of burning coal to generate electricity. It is the first major economy – and first G7 member – to phase out coal power. This chart shows the use of coal for electricity in the UK from 1880-2025, in millions of tonnes. Read Carbon Brief’s Q&A on how the country reached this milestone. 

§ Spotlight

Rights for River Ouse

Image - The River Ouse in Lewes on 25 September 2024. Credit: Orla Dwyer / Carbon Brief. - The River Ouse in Lewes on 25 September 2024. (note)

This week, Carbon Brief visits a river that could be the first in the UK to gain its own rights.

The River Ouse runs for 35 miles across east and west Sussex in England, winding through the town of Lewes and meeting the English Channel at Newhaven. 

Since last year, the Ouse has been at the heart of community discussions in Lewes on what it means to give a river a voice – similar to a person – amid a growing global movement to grant legal rights to nature.  

Lewes district council approved a motion on River Ouse rights in February 2023, agreeing to develop and consider a river rights charter in two years. 

Ahead of the district council cabinet considering this charter next February, Carbon Brief visited the town to hear about the steps towards the Ouse gaining legal rights. 

‘Eco-centric view’

Matthew Bird, a Lewes Green town councillor (pictured right) who put forward the 2023 motion, told Carbon Brief that the charter will be comparable to the universal declaration on river rights used in other parts of the world: 

“It [will contain] things like the right to flow, the right to be free from pollution, the right to native biodiversity, the right to have a voice…The key thing for us is that it’s seeing things from an eco-centric point of view as much as you’re able to.”

The Ouse, as with many rivers, faces threats from climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and invasive species such as Himalayan balsam – a fast-spreading plant with explosive seed pods. 

Bird, who is also the director of the Love Our Ouse campaign, said that those involved in the motion aspired for a more holistic approach to tackling these issues. He told Carbon Brief: 

“We’re just so focused on sewage [in the Ouse] that all those other really challenging issues were sort of drowned out. It felt like river rights, rights of nature could almost be a framework for looking at that.” 

One focus of the movement is to grant the river the “right to restoration”.

Image - Lewes town councillor Matthew Bird. Credit: Orla Dwyer / Carbon Brief. - Lewes town councillor Matthew Bird. (note)

Restoring and protecting rivers has proven to be an effective adaptation measure against increasing flood risk. Lewes was badly flooded in 2000 after the Ouse burst its banks following heavy rainfall. Hundreds of people were evacuated.

Rights for rivers

Local campaigns are ongoing in other parts of the UK to give rights to rivers such as the Cam, Don and Medway. 

Further afield, a city in Brazil “legally recognised its waves as living beings” earlier this month. Ecuador was the first country in the world to include nature rights in its constitution in 2008.

Emma Montlake, the director of casework at the Environmental Law Foundation, who is also involved with Love Our Ouse, said that the charter, if approved, “will be a declaration by the local authority that they accept that the river has these rights”. She told Carbon Brief: 

“The charter will also introduce a governance structure that can represent the river. Whether that’s an inter-species council or a citizens’ assembly.” 

It will take longer to give legal rights to the river, however, “because there’s no national legislation to pin this on” in the UK, she added: 

“It’s about giving nature a voice that it doesn’t currently have. We have lots of legislation, we have protections for habitats and species, we have different regulations for permitting, for pollution. But…our laws are not adequate to protect nature.” 

§ Watch, read, listen

ICE JOB: Researchers spoke to the British Antarctic Survey’s podcast Beyond the Ice about their field work studying the “rapidly” changing Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. 

NOT-SO GREEN: DeSmog mapped the influence of Ireland’s “powerful farming lobby”, highlighting the “damage the [agricultural] sector is wreaking on Ireland’s climate targets”. 

HEATING UP: The New York Times explored Nigeria’s “cooling crisis” amid scarce electricity and rising temperatures. 

§ 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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