Hey team, and welcome back to one5c. How’s everyone doing this morning? A little rested? A little calmer? A lot more ready to jump back in? Good. Me, too. There will be plenty of opportunities for advocacy in the coming months (and years), but it’s also go-time for a whole other reason. November and December are the sustainable living Olympics. Waste and overconsumption run rampant around the holidays, which is why I like to think of this time of year as training camp. When the temptation to overbuy, to overindulge, to say “oh eff it, it’s the holidays” is at its peak is when we can build up the kind of muscle memory that will carry us into the new year riding a wave of lower-impact living.
So, we’ll be checking in a lot in the coming weeks with ways to reshape our end-of-year festivities—without sucking the spirit out of the season. Is there something about your holiday traditions we can help with? Reply to this email or shoot a question to one5c@one5c.com, and we’ll do our best to figure it out. —Corinne
WHAT WE’RE INTO THIS WEEK
By Corinne Iozzio & Sara Kiley Watson
Consume this
The food-wasting-est time of the year
Reducing food waste ranks in the top two things everyday people can do to pull back from the climate crisis, and the last two months of the year are an opportunity to be methane-blocking heroes. Food waste research group ReFED estimates that 316 million pounds of grub will hit the bin during Thanksgiving festivities. That’s about a pound per person, and animal products are the biggest offender; 58% of what goes uneaten comes from turkey and milk alone. If you’re considering decentering the gobbler this holiday, our foodie friends over at Cool Beans are serving up recipes for festive, filling, and delicious sides all November long. First course is stuffing—specifically stuffed acorn squash—and a quick and easy meat-free gravy that you can make in minutes with ingredients that are very likely already in your pantry.
Cause for optimism
Don’t discount inertia
At this point most of us have seen what the emissions projections for the next presidency look like, but there’s something experts also don’t want anyone to forget: Investment in renewables and electrification isn’t likely to—poof!—vanish when there’s already money on the table. “The shift to clean energy is unstoppable and our country is not turning back,” said former EPA administrator and current White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy. “Our coalition is bigger, more bipartisan, better organized, and fully prepared to deliver climate solutions, boost local economies, and drive climate ambition.” Drivers will continue to try (and buy) EVs and existing momentum for domestic wind, solar, and battery manufacturing could be hard to stop. Of course that doesn’t mean anyone’s got license to sit in cruise control, because emissions have to drop way more steeply than what today’s business-as-usual looks like.
Planet home
Cloned ferrets are making (very cute) babies
For the first time in the U.S., a clone from an endangered species produced offspring. Antonia, a black-footed ferret made from genetic material collected in 1988 from another named Willa, gave birth to three kits, two of which have survived and are now doing well at the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Virginia. This is a big deal, not only because these little rascals are almost unfathomably cute, but because they serve as an important reminder of the impact that pulling species back from the brink can have. The pair of kits represent the possibility of restoring genetic diversity to modern wild populations, thus making them more resilient against disease and environmental change. More broadly, strengthening the biodiversity of wildlands can come with big climate benefits: Thriving and healthy ecosystems tend to have a greater ability to sock away carbon.
What’s that
An exciting refresher on cap and trade
[copy] A group of 25 governors committed to quadrupling the number of buildings using heat pumps in their states, tapping funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to help foot the bill for the efficient HVAC retrofits. Who’s gonna install them all? Partial answer: President Biden has revived the Climate Corps—an initiative that didn’t make the final version of the IRA—to train young people for jobs in energy (including heat pumps) and climate resilience. Details are a little squishy, but the program aims to enroll 20,000 people in its first year.
MIC-DROP CLIMATE STAT
15.6 million
The emissions, in metric tons, produced by 25,993 private jet flights in 2023, according to new analysis in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. That’s equivalent to the annual footprint of more than 3.7 million gas-powered cars, 41 natural gas-fired plants, or 2 million homes’ energy use. Is there anything a coach-class flier can do about this?
Accountability check
A BRIEF GUIDE TO COP29
By Tyler Santora
COP29, the 29th annual installment of the U.N.’s climate conference, kicks off today. Until Nov. 22, leaders from across the world (with some notable exceptions) will meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, to clock in on global progress toward the goals set in the Paris Agreement, and set the climate agenda for the next year and beyond. These discussions come as countries are staring down a February deadline to release their action plans to curb heating after last year’s “stocktake”—which is essentially a report card of the world’s progress.
Much of what happens at COPs is wonky bureaucratic bargaining, and it can be hard to cut through the geopolitics of it all—particularly when the U.S. election has sent negotiators’ heads spinning. So, we’ve made these cliff’s notes on three of the major focus areas of COP29, including some recommended reading if you want to dig further.
Finding the money
COP29 earned the nickname “the finance COP” because money is its No. 1 focus. The 2015 Paris Agreement tasks wealthy nations that contribute the most to global emissions with providing funding for mitigation and adaptation to poorer countries that have contributed the least to human-caused warming but are some of the most affected by it. Previously, wealthy countries agreed to collectively contribute $100 billion per year—although they failed to meet that goal in 2020 and 2021, and projections put the actual price tag for helping developing countries with energy transition and climate adaptation at at least $1 trillion per year. COP29 will be a debate as to what that number should be, who will contribute to it, and where that money will go, like, for example, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage from climate-related disasters.
Go deeper: Carbon Brief’s overview of finance issues at COP29 digs into key terms, figures, and the major players.
Where’s the energy transition?
At COP28, countries agreed to “phase down” (note: not “phase out”) fossil-fuel use and triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030. But the COP29 agenda does not directly refer to any such energy transition. The omission has raised fears of a backslide on any progress toward ending the era of fossil fuels—especially given that the COP29 host country, Azerbaijan, is pretty oily. Its president even called the nation’s gas and oil reserves “a gift from God” at a climate conference in April. Its government has also jailed a prominent economist who has spoken out against the country’s use of fossil fuels. Other countries will step up to lead the energy transition conversation, but to what degree remains to be seen.
Go deeper: Climate Home News’ primer explores what making good on promises made in Dubai last year could look like.
What do we do about carbon credits?
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement creates a U.N. carbon market, which is a system of credits that nations can trade, allowing them to offset emissions by investing in green projects. The policy has long been discussed at annual climate conferences without resolution. There’s hope that this could be the year countries at long last agree on how to implement it, as the Azerbaijani leadership has named it a priority. To do so, the parties will have to reach an agreement on the systems and tools that will make it work—like how to measure whether the projects being funded by the credits are actually reducing emissions.
Go deeper: Carbon Market Watch’s explainer explores what it would take to make Article 6 work.