To meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and avoid the worst outcomes of climate change, the world needs to rapidly reduce carbon emissions. Identifying effective policies to reach national climate goals has been challenging, but a new study published in Science examined 1500 climate policies implemented over the last two decades, and found 63 that were successful. Researchers have outlined those policies in the paper, so other countries and regulators can emulate their success.

Using advanced statistical analysis, the researchers compared carbon dioxide emissions from 41 countries with those from analogous countries to control for extenuating circumstances like the global pandemic or fluctuations in energy prices. The scientists were looking for “breaks” or sudden changes in emissions that couldn’t be accounted for by anything other than policy interventions.

The study found the most effective way to lower emissions for industries in developed countries is to make producing carbon emissions more expensive. That could take the form of a tax on carbon or removing subsidies for fossil fuels.

“It turns out that pricing is particularly effective in those sectors where you have a lot of profit maximizing companies, and that of course applies to industry and the electricity sector, in industrialized countries with a strong economy,” Nicolas Koch, co-author of the study and researcher with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, told Mongabay in a phone call.

Many developing countries, however, have state-owned energy companies with regulated prices and energy inputs. For these countries, the researchers found a combination of tactics working in tandem was the most effective approach.

Koch gave China’s cap-and-trade scheme as an example. “China introduced pilot emission trading schemes putting a price on carbon for industrial firms in seven provinces of China.,” he said. On top of the carbon pricing China also reduced fossil fuel subsidies and gave financial incentives for energy efficiency measures.

The same tandem approach also works for reducing emissions from buildings. In Sweden regulators introduced subsidies to make it easier for homeowners to improve the efficiency of their homes. Many countries have done that, but Koch said what made Sweden successful was also telling homeowners that the price of heating fuel, both oil and gas, was about to more than double.

Most of the successful policies in the study took this carrot and stick approach. They make carbon emissions expensive and energy efficiency affordable. Koch said he hopes this study will provide regulators with guidance for future emissions reduction strategies.

“We hope that this really applied evidence for very specific cases, looking at your neighbor countries or looking at your peer countries, learning about successes in that way, perhaps that might be helpful,” Koch said.

Banner image: by Pixabay via Pixels

A handful of governments have spent nearly $30 billion in public funds on carbon capture and hydrogen projects, mostly for private fossil fuel companies, over the past 40 years, a new report from Oil Change International finds.

National governments are expected to spend an additional $115 billion to $240 billion in the coming decades, the report’s analysis shows. The United States, Norway, Canada and the Netherlands account for the bulk of this public spending, but it’s largely private companies that benefit.  

Around 83% of the captured CO2 is used for enhanced oil recovery, in which industrially compressed carbon is injected underground to extract more oil. Currently, 41 commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects are operating worldwide; the majority are managed by fossil fuel companies, such as ExxonMobil and Shell.

“Oil is the most profitable industry in the world, and the idea that we should be propping it up with public money is just plain ridiculous,” Lorne Stockman, the report’s lead author, told Mongabay by phone. “It shows the incredible influence that this industry has over our policy making and over our politicians, and it needs to stop.”

Intense lobbying efforts have helped keep CCS funding flowing, despite criticism about its effectiveness as a solution to climate change. At least 475 lobbyists supporting CCS were identified at COP28, outnumbering the 316 Indigenous representatives present, a survey found.

Global CCS capacity is estimated at 65 million tons, 0.15% of 2023 emissions. But real figures are significantly less, as existing projects capture as little as 10% of their capacity.

“It is only a solution for the fossil fuel industry, not for people and the planet,” the report warns.

Existing projects fail to deliver on their promised output when extracting oil, and more than 80% of projects have failed to launch at all, despite receiving substantial public investment.

The now-defunct coal-fueled FutureGen project received $1 billion in pledges by the United States government only to be canceled less than five years later.

Meanwhile, Norway spent at least $3 billion Norwegian kroner ($280 million) on a full-scale carbon capture project at the Mongstad oil refinery that was ultimately scrapped. The waste of public money was criticized by Parliament and government auditors.

Intended to reduce emissions, these technologies could have the opposite effect and delay a shift away from fossil fuels, Oil Change International’s analysis suggests.

Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University civil and environmental engineering professor not involved with the report, said that public subsidies are better spent on moving toward wind and solar energy.

“We should focus on what works and not waste time on things that don’t,” he told Mongabay by phone.

Banner image: A man protests carbon capture and storage in Devon in the United Kingdom. Image by Matt Hrkac via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

The Kingfisher oil project in Uganda operated by a Chinese company has resulted in numerous human rights violations, including forced evictions, inadequate compensation, threats, violence and loss of livelihoods, a new report says. Climate Rights International (CRI), a U.S.-based nonprofit, published the report on Sept. 2.

“Our findings substantiate that this project is not for the benefit of the people living in the area or for the country,” Brad Adams, CRI executive director, said in a press briefing. “It’s actually harming the environment, harming the climate and harming the human rights of people in Uganda and particularly in the Kingfisher area.”

For the report, CRI interviewed 98 people living in and around the Kingfisher oil project area located on the southeastern shore of Lake Albert. The oil project is operated by the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company Uganda Ltd. (CNOOC) and jointly owned by CNOOC, TotalEnergies EP Uganda and the Uganda National Oil Company.

Many residents near Lake Albert depend on fishing for their livelihoods. However, ever since the arrival of CNOOC and the Ugandan military, fishers told CRI that the military regularly seizes and burns boats and beats and arrests fishers.

Several fishers and two whistleblowers involved in the Kingfisher oil drilling activities told CRI that oil drilling, which began in January 2023, has led to oil dumping in the lake and a drastic decline in fish.

The land acquisition process has also been rife with coercion and intimidation, and compensation is either nonexistent or inadequate, residents told CRI. The military has forcefully evicted people, even emptying entire villages. Moreover, several local women reported intimidation and sexual violence from the Ugandan soldiers as well as personnel of the oil companies operating at Kingfisher.

The Kingfisher project is part of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline initiative that aims to transport oil from Uganda to Tanzania for export to international markets. The project runs through many ecologically and culturally sensitive areas, and villagers who criticized the project have been arrested and harassed.

CNOOC and TotalEnergies did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for a comment at the time of publishing. CRI also sent letters to the oil companies outlining the residents’ allegations but hasn’t heard back, Adams told Mongabay.

With the report published, Adams said CRI expects that banks and insurance companies will decide not to provide any new funds needed for the project.

“It would be both unethical and create serious reputational risk in their home countries when we and our Ugandan partners expose their participation,” Adams added. “We are also expecting that the Chinese government will reconsider its decision to involve CNOOC in the project since the violations we have exposed will increase China’s unpopularity on the continent. China has finally become sensitive to local concerns with its investments, since it has seen a major backlash in many countries due to the behavior of some of its companies.”

Banner image: A UPDF marine burns nets at Kingfisher oil field. © Environment Governance Institute.

When eight young northern elephant seals suddenly began showing up at a deep-sea observatory, researchers were taken by surprise. Their repeated visits to the research site, otherwise a speck in the vast, dark ocean, wasn’t a chance occurrence, a new study reveals. The mammals were likely drawn to the area by the observatory’s sonar pulses.

A team of scientists made the discovery while studying the effects of light and bait on fish behavior at a research site located 645 meters (2,116 feet) deep, at Barkley Canyon, off the west coast of Canada. The researchers used a high-definition camera, hydrophone and acoustic imaging sonar, a system that transmits sounds to map and image features and animals.

While reviewing the footage, the team unexpectedly came upon at least eight male elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), ages 4-7, who visited the observatory multiple times between June 2022 and May 2023.

“These repeat visits suggest that the seals may be using the general site as a focal foraging area,” study lead author Héloïse Frouin-Mouy, a marine biologist and bioacoustician at the University of Miami, U.S., told Mongabay in an email.

The footage gave the researchers some unique insights into elephant seal behavior in the deep sea. For instance, the videos showed that the young male elephant seals preferred to eat sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) over snailfish (Careproctus spp.).

“This was evident when an elephant seal we named Dennis mistakenly caught a snailfish while attempting to capture a sablefish, only to quickly release it,” Frouin-Mouy said. “This is important because the prey of males, in contrast with females, is not well known.”

Moreover, footage of only male seals at the research site, but no females, suggests that the two have different foraging habitats and behaviors. “We know from previously published tagging studies that female northern elephant seals forage in the open ocean on pelagic species, while male northern elephant seals forage on benthic species at the ocean floor along the continental shelf,” Frouin-Mouy said.

Most intriguing, she added, was the elephant seals’ ability to locate the small research site in the open ocean, in complete darkness, multiple times. The researchers suspect that the observatory’s sonar had a role to play.

The sonar pulse frequencies fall within the hearing range of northern elephant seals, Frouin-Mouy said, meaning the mammals can detect the sounds. Furthermore, the same individual seals visited the site repeatedly, mostly to eat fish available there, sometimes 10 or 30 days in a row, but only when the sonar was active. After the sonar failed, their visits declined drastically.

“Our findings suggest that the northern elephant seals learned to associate the sonar noise with food availability at the site — a phenomenon known as the ‘dinner bell’ effect — and used this acoustic cue to visit the site more frequently,” Frouin-Mouy said.

Banner image of northern elephant seal foraging for food. Image courtesy of Ocean Networks Canada.

Every year, massive herds of large mammals take on arduous long-distance migrations to find food, favorable weather and a suitable place to raise their young. An international team of scientists has now launched the first-ever online atlas showcasing the migration paths of several hooved mammals, also known as ungulates, from around the world.

The new Atlas of Ungulate Migration, developed by more than 80 scientists with the Global Initiative on Ungulate Migration (GIUM), provides up-to-date migratory paths of 20 global populations of mammals. Among these are well-known migrations, such as that of the wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), which migrates in herds of millions between Kenya and Tanzania, as well as the long trek of the African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana) between Zimbabwe and Botswana (elephants aren’t true ungulates but are considered to be almost-ungulates with toes instead of hooves).

The atlas also maps lesser-known treks, such as those made by the saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) in Kazakhstan, the Mongolian khulan or wild ass (Equus hemionus hemionus) in Mongolia, the takin (Budorcas taxicolor tibetana) in China, red deer (Cervus elaphus) in Europe, and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in the western U.S.

This atlas, researchers say, can help governments, conservationists and wildlife managers better understand animal movement. It can also help them tackle various threats to migratory wildlife, including poaching, climate change and fragmentation of key habitats from infrastructure like roads, railways and fences.

“This atlas represents a major milestone for conservation worldwide, and we believe the migration maps will be a tangible and effective tool to help stem the loss of the world’s ungulate migrations,” Matthew Kauffman, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and member of the GIUM scientific advisory board, said in a statement.

Earlier this year, a report published by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), a United Nations biodiversity treaty, found that nearly 44% of migratory species listed under the CMS are experiencing population declines. A key threat is the loss and fragmentation of their habitats due to human activities.

The interactive atlas maps some of these threats, such as a railway line that slices across the saiga antelope’s migratory path in Kazakhstan.

“Understanding how animals respond to the types of mitigation options available, in addition to where animals are being blocked by fencing or railways, is important for restoring migrations severed by development,” Nandintsetseg Dejid, a wildlife ecologist with the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Germany, said in the statement.

Anthony Sinclair, a wildlife ecologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, told Science that the current atlas has information gaps in places like South America. However, the GIUM researchers noted in the statement that they’ll be adding migratory maps for many more ungulate populations in the future.

Banner image of saiga antelope by Yakov Fedorov via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Torrential rains and strong winds from Typhoon Yagi devastated northern Vietnam on Sept. 9, leaving a reported 58 people dead and 732 injured. Dozens more are missing.

In the week of Sept. 3, Yagi killed at least 20 people in the Philippines and four more in southern China. The total estimated death toll as of Sept. 10 morning has reached at least 82. Among the victims were an infant and a 1-year old, Vietnamese media reported.

The storm is the region’s strongest in a decade, with wind speeds exceeding 230 kilometers per hour (143 miles per hour). It has destroyed bridges, factories and farms, caused power outages, and forced hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee their homes.

The typhoon has now weakened to a tropical depression, but authorities warn of more potential flooding and landslides in the days ahead. Thirteen regions in Vietnam are under high risk for flash floods following the storm.

More than 3,500 households in Yen Bai in northeast Vietnam are being evacuated following rising water levels in the Red River. A bridge there collapsed on the morning of Sept, 9 while vehicles were crossing.

A 2018 report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change listed Vietnam as one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change impacts, citing rising sea levels and more powerful storms.

“There will continue to be extreme weather events as present, but coming faster than anticipated, more intense, more frequent and more difficult to predict,” Dao Xuan Lai, head of the climate change and environment unit at the United Nations Development Programme’s Vietnam office, told Mongabay.

Banner image: Satellite imagery of Typhoon Yagi in the South China Sea on Sept. 4. Image by NOAA (Public domain).

Update: The story was updated to reflect confirmed death toll as of Sept. 10, 2024.