Monthly Summaries
Issue 78, June 2023
[DOI]
The Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry during heavy smog in New York, June 6, 2023. Photo: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images.
June media coverage of climate change or global warming in newspapers around the globe increased 8% from May 2023 and was also 3% higher than June 2022 levels. International wire services increased 15% while radio coverage similarly went up 10% from May 2023. Compared to the previous month, coverage increased in Africa (+5%), the European Union (EU) (+8%), Asia (+9%), Latin America (+14%), and in North America (+20%). Meanwhile, coverage dipped from the previous month of May in the Middle East (-17.5%), and in Oceania (-22%). Figure 1 shows trends in newspaper media coverage at the global scale – organized into seven geographical regions around the world – from January 2004 through June 2023.
Figure 1. Newspaper media coverage of climate change or global warming in print sources in seven different regions around the world, from January 2004 through June 2023.
Among countries that we at the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) monitor, United States (US) print coverage increased 17% while Canadian print coverage went up 25% (see Figure 2) in June 2023 from the previous month. Coverage was up on the US and Canada respectively 11% and 12% in June 2023 from the previous year of June 2022.
Figure 2. Newspaper coverage of climate change or global warming in Canadian newspapers Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and National Post from January 2004 through June 2023.
Moving from the quantity of coverage to its content, political and economic-themed media stories about climate change or global warming shaped a good bit of coverage in the month of June. To begin, media attention was paid to a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) agreement to cut plastics pollution, with connections made to climate change. For example, Associated Press correspondents Angela Charlton and Jennifer McDermott reported, “Global negotiators have agreed to craft a draft treaty to end plastic pollution, a preliminary but crucial step toward tackling one of the most lasting sources of human waste. Environmental advocates cautiously welcomed the outcome of five days of U.N. talks in Paris on plastic pollution, but expressed concern that the petroleum industry and some governments would water down the eventual treaty. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels. Delegates at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for Plastics agreed Friday evening to produce an initial draft before their next meeting in Kenya in November, participants said. The committee is charged with developing the first international, legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, on land and at sea. A coalition of “high-ambition” governments led by Norway and Rwanda, along with environmental groups, want to end plastic pollution altogether by 2040 by slashing production and limiting some chemicals used in making plastics. “Projections suggest that a child born today will see plastic production double by the time they turn 18, but we know that the consequences of increasing plastic production will be disastrous for our health, the planet, and the climate,” said Dr. Tadesse Amera, who led the International Pollutants Elimination Network’s delegation at the talks. “The stakes are high, but we are optimistic by the growing awareness among delegates of the need for global controls.” Countries with big petroleum industries like the U.S., China and Saudi Arabia are focusing instead on plastic recycling, and want country-by-country rules instead of across-the-board limits”. Meanwhile, Times of India journalist Vishwa Mohan noted, “as the world gears up to mark the 50th World Environment Day with a focus on solutions to plastic pollution, nearly 170 countries, including Indian, have agreed to prepare a draft text – called zero draft – of an international treaty by November to end plastic pollution through multiple measures in a time-bound manner”.
Patience Nabukalu and Greta Thunberg, attend a Fridays for Future protest in Bonn, Germany on June 12 against a planned oil pipeline in East Africa. The protest would see oil transported in a new 1443 kilometer long pipeline from Western Uganda through Tanzania to the Indian Ocean. Photo: Henning Kaiser/AP. |
In the first weeks of June, the United Nations (UN) held their annual climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany (SB58) as a mid-way point between the previous Conference of Parties meeting (COP27) in Egypt on the way to the next COP (28) in the United Arab Emirates. Discussions and reactions emanating from the meeting grabbed media coverage. For instance, UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ sharp criticism of fossil fuel industry antics that delay and distract from concerted climate policy action earned attention. For example, Associated Press correspondent Frank Jordans reported, “The head of the United Nations launched a tirade against fossil fuel companies Thursday, accusing them of betraying future generations and undermining efforts to phase out a product he called “incompatible with human survival.” Secretary-General António Guterres also dismissed suggestions by some oil executives — including the man tapped to chair this year’s international climate talks in Dubai — that fossil fuel firms can keep up production if they find a way to capture planet-warming carbon emissions. He warned that this would just make them “more efficient planet-wreckers.” It’s not the first time the U.N. chief has called out Big Oil over its role in causing global warming, but the blunt attack reflects growing frustration at the industry’s recent profit bonanza despite warnings from scientists that burning fossil fuels will push the world far beyond any safe climate threshold”.
Other aspects of the UN meeting in Bonn also generated media stories. For example, New York Times journalist Max Bearak reported, “An unavoidable tension surrounds this year’s United Nations-sponsored climate talks in November: They will take place in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, and the most important role at the talks is held by the man who heads the national oil company. The executive, Sultan al-Jaber, and other representatives of the Emirates have argued that they have a “game changing” plan to fight climate change by welcoming oil and gas companies from around the world to participate more fully in the talks. In other words, invite the producers of the fuels that cause the majority of global warming as key players in developing a plan to slow the warming. In an interview, Majid al-Suwaidi, an Emirati diplomat who will also play a major role at the climate talks, known by the acronym COP28, said, “We need to engage the people who have the technical know-how, the skills, the technology — and, by the way, the people who provide jobs — in a conversation about how they transform.” To activists who have attended these conferences for years, that notion sounds far-fetched. “It’s just like how tobacco lobbyists need to be kept out of conversations about cancer prevention,” said Catherine Abreu, who heads Destination Zero, a network of nonprofits working on climate issues. The conference will take place amid a backdrop of resurgent fossil fuel investment after a brief, pandemic-era dip. Energy use derived from fossil fuels accounts for more than two-thirds of global emissions. Over the past year, the world’s biggest producers — places like the United States, Saudi Arabia, Norway and the Emirates — have approved dozens of vast new drilling projects. This month, the Emirates received long-sought permission from OPEC, the coalition of oil-producing nations that coordinates on output and prices, to pump more oil starting next year. ADNOC, the oil company Mr. al-Jaber heads, is investing billions in meeting those new targets”.
Shortly following the UN meeting SB58 in Bonn was a two-day summit in Paris that focused on restructuring financial arrangements in order to more capably serve frontline communities largely in countries of the Global South. For example, Associated Press journalists Fatima Hussein and Paul Wiseman reported, “While restructuring debt and reducing poverty will be part of the summit Thursday and Friday, climate will be the main driver, with representatives from developing nations in Africa, Asia and elsewhere having a prominent seat at the table. The World Bank and IMF have been criticized for not factoring climate change into lending decisions and being dominated by wealthy countries like the U.S., with the neediest nations most at risk of global warming left out of calling the shots. While those are the primary problems to solve, some doubt the splashy summit led by French President Emmanuel Macron will be able to take major strides to correct those challenges. Still, the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact will draw roughly 50 heads of state and government — from Germany, Brazil, Senegal, Zambia and more — with more than 100 countries represented. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley will play a major role as a leader of the Bridgetown Initiative, a plan to reform development lending by freeing up money after climate disasters and targeting the higher borrowing costs and debt that developing nations face. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, new World Bank President Ajay Banga, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, and climate activists Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate also are set to attend. Masood Ahmed, president of the Center for Global Development think tank in Washington, isn’t expecting much concrete action from the gathering but a broad agreement that “we’ve got to think much bigger, much bolder. We need to be willing to change.” It’s been hard, however, to summon the political will to spend taxpayer money to combat climate change, said Ahmed, a former senior official in both the IMF and World Bank”.
Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal correspondents Matthew Dalton and Andrew Duehren wrote, “The leaders of wealthy nations want private investors to send a flood of capital to poorer countries to lift them out of poverty and bankroll the response to climate change. Instead, those investor funds are drying up. Rising interest rates and financial stress have choked off finance to the world’s poorest countries, leaving them with debt burdens that are larger than they have been in nearly three decades. The market turmoil and the aftereffects of the global pandemic have pushed these countries deeper into poverty, reversing years of income gains and undermining their transition to cleaner energy, one of the rich world’s top development priorities. The gap between advanced economies and poor ones on wind and solar deployment is now so large that the Netherlands, one of the rainiest countries in Europe, generates more solar electricity than all of sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Energy Agency”. Furthermore, La Vanguardia journalist Eusebio Val wrote, “Paris aspires to become a planetary benchmark for ecological transformation and adaptation to global warming. That is why its municipal council approved an ambitious project on June 5, the "local bioclimatic urban plan", a detailed roadmap for the next twenty years (...) The French capital, in fact, has been with a philosophy for 15 years clear –although not always to the taste of the neighbors– of marginalization of the private car, promotion of the bicycle and aggressive vegetation (...) The 2024 Olympic Games want to be the greenest and a showcase for the bicycle (...) In 1885, little Before the Eiffel Tower was erected, the average temperature in Paris was 10.7°C. In 2010 it had already risen to 13°C. It is estimated that in 2085 it can reach 14.5ºC. Experts think that there will be heat peaks of 50°C, a temperature typical today of the deserts of Arizona or -Arabia”.
Also in June, the European Scientific Advisory Council of the European Commission presented proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 90% and 95% by the year 2040 compared to 1990 and this earned media attention. For example, an editorial in La Vanguardia noted, “The succession of tests, extreme episodes and meteorological index records have prevailed and there are few voices or social groups that downplay the situation. The years of passivity by administrations and the private sector are behind us (...) An essential recommendation is the drastic reduction of coal, natural gas and oil - the so-called fossil fuels - in favor of wind and solar energy (...) the European Scientific Advisory Council sets 2040 as the deadline for the decarbonisation of the electricity sector. It is a race against the clock that requires a firm and resolute commitment to public policies. And the population understands this need for extraordinary measures against global warming”.
A Chinese state-owned coal-fired power plant is seen near a large floating solar farm project under construction in Huainan, Anhui province, China. Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images. |
In June, media attention to climate change or global warming contained several ecological and meteorological themed-stories as well. For instance, an appraisal of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography earned media coverage. For example, Washington Post reporter Amudalat Ajasa wrote, “despite rising awareness about global climate change and its devastating impacts, carbon dioxide levels keep treading [sic] in the wrong direction. This year’s annual increase of CO2 levels is one of the largest on record, representing an accumulation of the heat-trapped gases “not seen for millions of years,” scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday. The current amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now 50 percent higher than it was before the industrial era, the NOAA and Scripps scientists said in a report. The new figures offer more evidence that global climate efforts — including transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy — are falling short of what scientists say is needed to stem the warming of the planet”.
As June unfolded, ongoing Canadian wildfires and smoke drifting into the US garnered considerable media portrayals. For example, ABC News correspondents Ginger Zee, Stephanie Ebbs, Max Golembo, Kenton Gewecke, and Daniel Manzo reported, “Wildfires burning in Canada have prompted hazardous air pollution conditions in the U.S. this week, as smoke moves South and lingers over much of the Northeast. While wildfires in California and other western states have prompted air quality warnings in the past, seeing them on the other side of the country has prompted questions about how much of a role climate change is playing in the event”. Meanwhile, Guardian journalist Dharna Noor noted, “Canada’s ongoing wildfire season is a harbinger of our climate future, experts and officials say. The fires are a “really clear sign of climate change”, said Mohammadreza Alizadeh, a researcher at McGill University in Montreal, who is also a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research shows that climate change has already exacerbated wildfires dramatically. A 2021 study supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association found that climate change has been the main driver of the increase in hot, dry fire weather in the western US. By 2090, global wildfires are expected to increase in intensity by up to 57% thanks to climate change, a United Nations report warned last year. Canada is on track to experience its most severe wildfire season on record, national officials said this week. It’s part of a trend experts say will intensify as climate change makes hotter, drier weather and longer fire seasons more common. The country has already seen 1,400% of the normal amount of land burned for this time of year. More than 400 blazes were burning across Canada on Wednesday, following an unprecedentedly intense beginning to the fire season. Hot and dry conditions are expected to persist through to the end of the season. Scientists have not linked this summer’s fires to climate change, but experts and officials say global warming will exacerbate Canadian wildfires in general. By the end of the century, climate change could double the acreage burned by wildfires each year, according to Canada’s natural resources agency. That could take a heavy toll on human safety, ecosystems and air quality, while threatening timber supply”.
Such coverage intersected with other extreme events happening in June. For example, New York Times journalists Raymond Zhong and Delger Erdenesanaa reported, “Between the dangerous heat baking Texas and the Southeast, and the wildfire smoke filling the skies throughout the Upper Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic, people across a huge part of the United States have been seeking relief from the outside world in recent days. The two threats this week aren’t connected directly. But a common factor is adding to their capacity to cause misery. Human-caused climate change is turning high temperatures that would once have been considered improbable into more commonplace occurrences. And it is intensifying the heat and dryness that fuel catastrophic wildfires, allowing them to burn longer and more ferociously, and to churn out more smoke. Climate change is “the elephant in the room” that is worsening wildfires and their effects on air quality, said John C. Lin, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah. As this year’s Canadian blazes have shown, climate-related disasters are becoming international affairs, not just local or regional ones, Dr. Lin said. The weather has always been a combination of mild norms and occasional extremes, but the burning of fossil fuels is loading the dice in favor of weather on the warmer end. On Wednesday afternoon, more than 50 million Americans were living under heat advisories from the National Weather Service. Almost all of Southern and Western Texas’ hottest seven-day periods have occurred in the past few decades, he said, a sign of how global warming is making heat waves like those that are familiar to Texans in summertime hotter than they would be otherwise”. Meanwhile, Associated Press correspondents Corey Williams and Mike Householder noted, “Smoky air from Canada’s wildfires shrouded broad swaths of the U.S. from Minnesota to New York and Kentucky on Wednesday, prompting warnings to stay inside and exacerbating health risks for people already suffering from industrial pollution. The impacts are particularly hard on poor and minority communities that are more likely to live near polluting plants and have higher rates of asthma. Detroit, a mostly Black city with a poverty rate of about 30%, had some of the worst air quality in the U.S. on Wednesday, prompting the Environmental Protection Agency to warn that “everyone should stay indoors.”… In Chicago, where about 29% of the population is Black, Juneor Brandon Johnson urged young people, older adults and residents with health issues to spend more time indoors. He pledged “swift action to ensure that vulnerable individuals have the resources they need to protect themselves and their families.” President Joe Biden visited the nation’s third-largest city on Wednesday to promote his renewable energy policies. Biden has described the Canadian wildfires as clear evidence of climate change”.
A veil of haze from Canadian wildfires obscuring the majestic Chicago skyline, as seen from the city’s Bronzeville neighborhood on June 27. Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP. |
These extreme events contributed to several stories that widened the aperture of considerations of how these episodes are fueled by human-induced climate change. For example, CNN journalist Rachel Ramirez reported, “Droughts, storms, wildfires and heat waves: Extreme weather around the world is becoming more intense and more frequent. The toll is huge and mounting, with lives lost, homes destroyed, livelihoods stolen and economies upended. The extreme events are happening against the backdrop of a very fast-warming climate. The world is already 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in preindustrial times, and the next five years are predicted to be the hottest on record. People often want to know if an extreme weather event happened because of climate change, said Friederike Otto, climate scientist and co-lead of the World Weather Attribution initiative. But it is not a simple question. “You can’t answer this with yes or no,” she told journalists at a briefing last week. It is because climate change alters the likelihood and intensity of extreme events, she said. Otto and other scientists are using a scientific technique to transform our understanding of how this dynamic plays out. And, more often than not, they are finding the clear fingerprints of climate change on extreme weather events. Called “attribution,” the method involves analyzing real world observations as well as climate models to establish whether a particular extreme event could have happened in a world without global heating. While attribution studies are not done for every extreme weather event, they help bring home the realities of the direct and immediate damage the climate crisis is doing to people’s lives, which scientists say will only get worse if the world continues to pump out planet-warming pollution. “We’re always going to have extreme weather, but if we keep driving in this direction, we’re gonna have a lot of extreme weather,” said Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From intense heat and record-breaking drought, to severe storms fueled by hotter air and oceans, here are 10 disasters showing the devastating impacts of the human-caused climate crisis”.
Other parts of the planet also faced ecological and meteorological-themed climate challenges in June. For instance, heat in the Middle East – centered in southeast Iran – earned media representations. For example, New York Times journalists Vivian Yee and Leily Nikounazar reported, “Summer has come to Sistan and Baluchistan province, an impoverished fragment of chapped earth and shimmering heat in Iran’s southeast corner, and all people there can talk about is how to get water. For weeks now, taps in cities like Zahedan have yielded nothing but a salty, weakening trickle. In the villages that water pipes have never reached, the few residents who remain say people can barely find enough water to do the laundry or bathe themselves, let alone fish, farm or sustain livestock. “Sometimes, just to wash the dishes, we have to wait for so long,” said Setareh, 27, a university student in Zahedan, the provincial capital. “Everything from cooking to other chores is an ordeal for us.” Drought has stalked Iran for centuries, but the threat intensified in recent years as political priorities trumped sound water management, experts say. Climate change has only made things worse in an area that typically gets no rainfall for seven months out of the year, and where temperatures can soar to 124 degrees in July… Iranian groundwater and wetlands are irreversibly depleted, water experts say. Because of climate change, Iran can expect hotter temperatures and longer dry spells, as well as a greater risk of destructive floods. Yet the country continues to spend precious water on agriculture, which does little to expand the economy but keeps people working in rural Iran, where many government supporters live. It is also developing already-thirsty areas that will only demand more water”.
Meanwhile, in India and Pakistan, Cyclone Biparjoy’s landfall generated media stories with ties to a changing climate. For example, BBC journalists Arunoday Mukharji in Mandvi and Meryl Sebastian in Kochi reported, “A number of train services have been suspended in Gujarat, while the ports of Kandla and Mundra - two of India's largest - have stopped operations, authorities said. Fishing has been suspended along the Gujarat coast, while fishermen in Pakistan's coastal region have also been warned to stay ashore. The Gujarat government has also set up control rooms to monitor the safety of Asiatic lions in the Gir forest and coastal areas, BBC Gujarati reported. The Gir forest is the only natural habitat of the Asiatic lion. Eighteen national disaster relief teams and 12 state disaster relief teams have been deployed in key areas of Gujarat for relief work. They will focus on ensuring that essential services remain unaffected or at least restored soon, depending on how strong the cyclone is. The India Meteorological Department expects Biparjoy to "fall in intensity" as it moves inland. Cyclones, also known as hurricanes in the North Atlantic and typhoons in the north-west Pacific, are a regular and deadly phenomenon in the Indian Ocean. Rising surface temperatures across the Arabian Sea in recent years due to climate change have made the surrounding regions even more vulnerable to devastating storms”.
Also, a heat wave in northern India grabbed several journalists’ and editors’ attention. For example, Associated Press correspondents Rajesh Kumar Singh, Piyush Nagpal and Sibi Arasu reported, “A scorching heat wave in two of India’s most populous states has overwhelmed hospitals, filled a morgue to capacity and disrupted power, forcing staff to use books to cool patients, as officials investigate a death toll that has reached nearly 170. In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, 119 people have died from heat-related illnesses over the last several days while neighboring Bihar state reported 47 fatalities, according to local news reports and health officials. “So many people are dying from the heat that we are not getting a minute’s time to rest. On Sunday, I carried 26 dead bodies,” Jitendra Kumar Yadav, a hearse driver in Deoria town, 110 kilometers (68 miles) from Ballia, told The Associated Press. Other residents said they were scared of going outside after midmorning…Climate experts say that heat waves will continue and India needs to prepare better to deal with their consequences. A study by World Weather Attribution, an academic group that examines the source of extreme heat, found that a searing heat wave in May that struck parts of South Asia was made at least 30 times more likely by climate change”.
In June, many cultural stories relating to climate change or global warming were also detected. To illustrate, workers at Amazon walked out in early June again protesting the company’s failure to substantially address climate goals. For example, ABC News correspondent Max Zahn reported, “Nearly 2,000 Amazon workers plan to walk out on Wednesday as the company weathers layoffs and a mandate that corporate employees return to the office. "Employees need a say in decisions that affect our lives," said a petition from worker groups Amazon Employees for Climate Justice and Amazon's Remote Advocacy. After the walkout, Amazon told ABC News the company estimates 300 workers participated in the protest. The employee activism follows a series of layoffs in recent months. In early January, Amazon announced plans to eliminate just over 18,000 roles, including impending layoffs announced in November. In all, the company has slashed 27,000 jobs since last fall. At the outset of this month the company mandated corporate employees return to the office at least three days per week. The employee petition cited the return-to-work policy and Amazon's ongoing climate impact as evidence that company leadership is ‘taking us in the wrong direction’.”
Meanwhile, in June there was further fallout in relation to the promises not kept regarding carbon neutrality in the 2022 Men’s World Cup in Qatar. For example, Independent reporter John Revill wrote, “Football's world governing body FIFA made false and misleading statements about the reduced environmental impact of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a Swiss regulator said on Wednesday. The Swiss Fairness Commission, the self-regulatory body of the advertising and communications industry, made its determination after investigating five claims that Zurich-based FIFA marketed the tournament as being carbon neutral. The commission, which issues recommendations, but no state-enforceable judgements, advised FIFA from making unsubstantiated claims in future. It said complainants usually implement its recommendations voluntarily. FIFA did not respond to a request for comment. Complainants from Switzerland, France, Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands said FIFA made false statements in its communications about carbon neutrality at the World Cup, the commission said… Raphael Mahaim, from the group Lawyers for the Climate, said he was delighted with the ruling which he said exposed FIFA’s greenwashing. "FIFA said it was taking the climate change seriously, and taking the credit for this, and this wasn’t true," he said”.
Figure 3. Examples of newspaper front pages with climate change stories in June.
Finally, several scientific findings and developments sparked media stories during the month of June. Among them, in early June an Earth Commission study in the journal Nature entitled ‘Safe and Just Earth System Boundaries’ garnered significant media attention. For example, Associated Press journalist Seth Borenstein reported, “Earth has pushed past seven out of eight scientifically established safety limits and into “the danger zone,” not just for an overheating planet that’s losing its natural areas, but for the well-being of people living on it, according to a new study. The study looks not just at guardrails for the planetary ecosystem but for the first time it includes measures of “justice,” which is mostly about preventing harm for countries, ethnicities and genders. The study by the international scientist group Earth Commission published in Wednesday’s journal Nature looks at climate, air pollution, phosphorus and nitrogen contamination of water from fertilizer overuse, groundwater supplies, fresh surface water, the unbuilt natural environment and the overall natural and human-built environment. Only air pollution wasn’t quite at the danger point globally. The study found “hotspots” of problem areas throughout Eastern Europe, South Asia, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, parts of Africa and much of Brazil, Mexico, China and some of the U.S. West — much of it from climate change. About two-thirds of Earth don’t meet the criteria for freshwater safety, scientists said as an example. “We are in a danger zone for most of the Earth system boundaries,” said study co-author Kristie Ebi, a professor of climate and public health at the University of Washington. If planet Earth just got an annual checkup, similar to a person’s physical, “our doctor would say that the Earth is really quite sick right now and it is sick in terms of many different areas or systems and this sickness is also affecting the people living on Earth,” Earth Commission co-chair Joyeeta Gupta, a professor of environment at the University of Amsterdam, said at a press conference.”
Moving further into the month of June, an International Energy Agency (IEA) report got attention in several stories. For example, Wall Street Journal correspondent Will Horner reported, “Rising demand for crude oil is set to slow to a trickle within five years and peak before the end of the decade, as electric-vehicle uptake surges and developed nations rapidly transition to cleaner sources of energy, according to a prominent energy forecaster. The International Energy Agency, a group funded by some of the world’s largest oil consumers, expects demand for transport fuels derived from oil such as gasoline will be the first to peak before starting a steady decline—hastened by a sharp uptick in EVs and a long-lasting shift to remote working spurred on by the Covid-19 pandemic. Rapidly growing Asian economies will continue to prop up the global appetite for oil in the coming years, and demand for jet fuel, naphtha and other oil products with industrial uses will continue to tick higher, the IEA said in a report released Wednesday. But even in China, which has long been the powerhouse of global oil demand, the appetite for crude will slow markedly before the end of the decade. India will surpass China as the main driver of oil growth as soon as 2027, the IEA said. The forecast, which the IEA made in an annual report that considers oil demand as far away as 2028, isn’t the first time the Paris-based group has laid out a timeline predicting a zenith for oil. But it envisages a far more rapid shift away from fossil fuels than previously expected—a shift that has been sharply accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The shift to a clean-energy economy is picking up pace, with a peak in global oil demand in sight before the end of this decade,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director. The forecasts are based on sharply diverging energy trends between the developed economies of North America and Europe and rapidly growing developing nations, predominantly those in Asia. Demand for oil in the advanced economies that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is likely to peak as soon as this year thanks to vast government spending aimed at reconfiguring economies away from fossil fuels, the IEA said. Demand from those economies is expected to decline to 44.3 million barrels a day by 2028 from its peak of 46.2 million barrels a day in 2023. Demand in non-OECD nations will climb by more than 7% between now and 2028, to 61.4 million barrels a day. The oil-market outlook appears sharply different in the near term as Asian economies ramp up demand following the easing of pandemic-era lockdown measures and major producers constrain output… Some of the IEA’s forecasts have missed the mark in the past. Its prediction that Russian output would be sharply harmed by sanctions following the war in Ukraine has largely not been borne out. It has also called for no new investments in fossil fuels to meet climate targets, a call criticized by the oil-and-gas industry as unrealistic. It isn’t the only group that foresees waning demand for oil, however. OPEC has also laid out longer-term forecasts that see oil demand peaking in wealthier nations this decade but remaining more robust in the rest of the world for longer. In October, the IEA had put a timeline for peak oil demand further out, predicting it would happen in the 2030s”.
Also in June, a report on the State of the Climate in Europe in 2022 – produced jointly by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union – indicated that the European region warmed by 2.3ºC, twice the world average. This report earned media attention. For example, La Vanguardia journalist Antonio Cerrillo wrote, “The heat waves would have caused an excess of more than 16,000 deaths (…) The old continent recorded the hottest summer in history in 2022, confirms this new summary. In addition, several countries, including Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, experienced the warmest year in their history (...) "The high temperatures exacerbated the serious and widespread conditions of drought, fueled violent wildfires that left the second largest area burned on record, and caused thousands of excess heat-related deaths," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas”.
Thanks for your interest in our Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) work monitoring media coverage of these intersecting dimensions and themes associated with climate change and global warming.
- report prepared by Max Boykoff, Rogelio Fernández-Reyes, Jennifer Katzung, Ami Nacu-Schmidt and Olivia Pearman
