Welcome to this latest edition of From a Climate Correspondent, the last of 2020. If you'd like to support us, check out our Patreon page, or invite us for a coffee over at KOFI page. Thanks for reading!
Many of us will remember 2020 as the year in which the pandemic left the pages of our favourite science fiction books to enter the real world. Covid-19 has been the defining story of this year and possibly of the decade: it touched all aspects of our daily lives, transformed our politics, exposed the weaknesses of our healthcare systems and posed unprecedented challenges to science.
But in the background of the raging pandemic, another slower, quieter, equally frightening crisis continued to mount. Throughout the year, climate change kept breaking new records, irreparably altering ecosystems and ways of life, and ultimately working with Covid-19 to change the world as we know it.
Over the past 12 months, our letters have captured some of the small and big stories of our warming planet, and we hope you enjoyed the journey with us as much as we enjoyed writing for you. We’ll take a break for the last weeks of the year, and we hope to meet you all in 2021 with renewed energy.
Meanwhile, here are six of our favourite dispatches to wave goodbye to a tumultuous year.
The unique mountain landscape threatened by climate change - by Diego Arguedas Ortiz in Pérez Zeledón, Costa Rica
“There is a special kind of sadness in writing about these mountains and knowing how vulnerable they are. We often go to nature to heal and to renew, yet the very places we seek for comfort often end up reminding us of what’s at stake.”
In our last story of 2020, Diego Arguedas Ortiz contemplates the environmental threats to one of Costa Rica's rarest ecosystems, the mountain páramo.
Africa closed to climate science deniers - By Mat Hope in London, United Kingdom
“Unlike a decade before, when the climate and energy debate was ripe for the GWPF’s misinformation interventions, energy experts on the continent were not going to take the group’s falsehoods at face value.”
Mat Hope, our Africa editor, lays out how a report taking aim at organisation that give international aid and financing to renewable energy projects was rejected by African energy experts.
The Amazon’s secret carbon garden - By Jocelyn Timperley in San José, Costa Rica
“They found that dark earth areas continue to have a set of species that differ from the surrounding landscape, contributing to a more diverse ecosystem.”
Jocelyn Timperley, our Latin America editor, wrote about the historic use of “dark earth” agroforestry patches by indigenous peoples of the Amazon, and how these continue to influence the biodiversity of the Amazon today.
After the lockdown, imagine a cleaner India - By Lou Del Bello in Delhi, India
“As we enter the second week of national Coronavirus lockdown in India, temperatures are on the rise. But while around this time Delhiites start dreading the hot spells that will keep them indoors for weeks on end, this year things are different.”
Our South Asia editor Lou Del Bello wrote this thoughtful piece about the collision of lockdown, poverty and air pollution in Delhi.
How lockdown in Nigeria relies on fossil fuel generators - By Justice Nwafor in Ibadan, Nigeria
“My hands clasped to a silver steel rail and my face smacked with tiredness, I stand on the balcony of my apartment and agonise in silence. It’s 2pm and there is no end in sight to the loud noise from electricity generating sets at adjoining apartments.”
Justice Nwafor’s story about the heavy reliance on generators in lockdown in Nigeria showed a different side to the interaction between emissions and the pandemic. Experts have advised that embracing clean energy is the way out of this puzzle, he concludes, but the initial one-off cost of solar panels is an impediment.
Hope against the odds - By India Bourke in Hong Kong
“The vast and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests have bled into daily life in countless ways since I arrived in June, so it only feels right that they seep into this letter too - not least since the echoes with the climate movement are increasingly on my mind.”
This essay from India Bourke, our Asia-Pacific editor, discusses the links she saw between climate action and the Hong Kong protests: “in their shared currents of fellow-feeling, in the effort to stand up for future generations, and in the pursuit of hope against the odds”.
Our favourite stories
Oil-backed trade group is lobbying the Trump administration to push plastics across Africa - Emma Howard, Unearthed
The American Chemistry Council, a trade group that lists some of the world’s largest polluters as members, recently founded a $1bn initiative that pledges to create “a world free of plastic waste”. It has also been lobbying against changes to an international agreement that puts new limits on plastic waste entering low- and middle-income countries, this story reveals.
Indigenous best Amazon stewards, but only when property rights assured: Study - Sue Branford, Mongabay
It’s a perspective which is often on the fringes of climate action - neither denied nor embraced as a solution. But there is mounting evidence of how powerful indigenous land rights can really be in protecting forests. Sue Branford’s story also highlights another part of this important story - the importance of acknowledging the Amazon as a forest long influenced by humanity.
The world is on lockdown. So where are all the carbon emissions coming from? - Shannon Osaka, Grist
Here, Grist unpacks the mystery of the invisible emissions during the great lockdown. Skies are clear, the streets are empty and global emissions have gone down by just a 5.5%. Where is the rest coming from? Entertaining and essential read to understand why putting the brakes on global pollution is not as straightforward as it seems.
Who we are
From A Climate Correspondent is a weekly newsletter run by four journalists exploring the climate crisis from around the globe. We regularly also feature guest writers.
Lou Del Bello is an energy and climate journalist based in Delhi, India.
Jocelyn Timperley is a climate journalist based in San José, Costa Rica.
India Bourke is an environment journalist based in London, UK.
Mat Hope is investigative journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya.
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