‘I am an optimistic person’: the scientist who studies climate catastrophes | Climate crisis | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/29/i-am-an-optimistic-person-the-scientist-who-studies-climate-catastrophes

“He said to me: ‘Look, we have this large ensemble of climate models here, do something with it.’

“So I was handed this huge gathering of data, and what that allows you to do is build statistics about rare and extreme events.”

Otto was armed with the information which would lead her a few years later, with her late colleague Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, to create the world’s first climate attribution unit to examine to what extent human driven climate change is responsible for extreme heatwaves, droughts and floods.

The journey from the creation of the World Weather Attribution unit to its current iteration, began with a paper Otto and Oldenborgh wrote on a heatwave in Russia in 2010. It was a classical academic paper, peer reviewed and published long after the event.

But when Heidi Cullen, one time chief scientist at the NGO Climate Central, suggested the work would be more powerful if it could be carried out faster, it was a breakthrough moment. “There was no reason we shouldn’t be able to do it faster,” said Otto. “We had the methodology that in principle doesn’t take a huge amount of time technically to run, so we could do it.”

Otto’s conclusions now come at speed, but are still written within the structure of scientific rigour and the available evidence. A great part of the work is communicating to the wider public and politicians the dangers of extreme weather and the message, most crucially, that it is being created by us.

...

. “One of the biggest scientific surprises for me this year was the floods in Nigeria because there was such a huge climate change impact,” said Otto. “They were made 80 times more likely as a result of climate change. That makes me think: ‘Oh wow, there is really a lot that we don’t understand in Africa’.”

TADEAS:

Seth Itzkan
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate/permalink/3467347920203604/

Great illustration. Note, #wetlands have the highest #carbon storage per area (hectare or acre), no doubt, but #grasslands have vastly more area and are, in total, the largest terrestrial carbon store. We must never drain existing existing wetlands for anything, and certainly not for grazing, yet, ironically, when we graze properly along river banks and natural depressions, we can expand and recreate wetlands. This is exactly what many HM ranchers are doing, recreating wetlands. Yebo that.

TUHO: tldr pro Rusko by se do roku 2030 zas tolik nemenilo, ale potom by jeho vliv sel dramaticky do kopru, protoze Evropa je pro nej hlavni odbytistie fosilnich paliv... Zaroven je pro Rusko dost likvidacni uhlikovy clo, zaroven nema zadny kredibilni plany na low-carbon prechod.

A jeste neco o geopolitickem dopadu green dealu... (vybrana pasaz o Rusku). Take paper z doby pred invazi. #geopolitika

In context, the Green Deal could have a major impact on Russia. In 2016, oil and gas revenues contributed 36 percent of the country’s government budget13 and Europe absorbed 75 percent of Russian natural gas exports and 60 percent of its crude oil exports14. Over the next decade, the EU-Russia oil and gas trade will not be substantially impacted, as Europe would only marginally reduce its oil and gas imports by 2030 even in a 55 percent emissions reduction scenario (see section 2), but the situation will radically change after 2030 when Europe is expected to substantially reduce its oil and gas imports. The EU will possibly shift from suppliers such as Russia where extraction is emissions-intensive to suppliers such as Saudi Arabia where extraction has roughly half the carbon footprint it has in Russia15.
Moreover, a carbon border adjustment mechanism (on EU imports other than oil and gas) would also reduce Russian goods exports as they tend to be very carbon intensive (Makarov and Sokolova, 2017). It is not clear how much Russia will seek to resist these efforts. Ruslan Edelgeriev (Putin’s climate adviser) told companies in February 2020 to prepare for the EU border tax, noting that “the EU wants to push through these regulations not because they don’t like our companies, but so that their own companies don’t overstep emissions targets”16. Russia’s inefficient energy system implies many opportunities to reduce carbon intensity in its economy. There is ample scope for European cooperation with Russia on increasing the use of renewables, reducing methane leakage and boosting energy efficiency.

https://www.bruegel.org/sites/default/files/wp_attachments/PC-04-GrenDeal-2021-1.pdf

Geopolitics of Electricity: Grids, Space and (political) Power

Although electricity grids shape and define both political and economic
spaces, the geopolitical significance of electricity remains underestimated.
In political communities and beyond, such grids establish new channels
for projecting geopolitical influence and new spheres of influence.
∎ In the Europe-Asia continental area, integrated electricity grids meet interconnectors – that is, cross-border transmission lines linking different electric grids. Interconnectors define new, partly competing vectors of integration that extend beyond already integrated electricity grids.
∎ In this context, it is attractive for non-EU states to belong to the electricity
system of continental Europe. This is because interconnected synchronous
systems form “grid communities” that share a “common destiny” – not
only in terms of electricity supply but also in terms of security and welfare.
∎ Germany and the EU must develop an electricity foreign policy in order
to optimise, modernise, strengthen and expand the European electricity
grid. Above all, however, Germany and the EU should help shape interconnectivity beyond the EU’s common integrated electricity grid.
∎ China is gaining considerable influence in the electricity sector, setting
standards and norms as well as expanding its strategic outreach – to the
benefit of its own economy. Its efforts are part of Beijing’s larger Belt and
Road Initiative (BRI), an attempt to reorient global infrastructure and
commercial flows.
∎ In the EU’s eastern neighbourhood, geopolitical issues have dominated
the configuration of electricity grids since the end of the Cold War. There
is unmistakable competition over integration between the EU and Russia.
∎ The eastern Mediterranean region, the Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions,
and Central Asia are, each in their own way, changing from peripheral
zones into interconnecting spaces. The EU, China, Russia and – across
the Black Sea – Iran and Turkey are competing in these zones to influence the reconfiguration of electricity grids. And in South and Southeast
Asia, India’s influence is on the rise

https://www.swp-berlin.org/publications/products/research_papers/2022RP06_GeopoliticsOfElectricity.pdf