What is a Kelp farm, and how is it helping save our planet?

With the second month of 2021 off to a start and the recent inauguration of President Biden, it feels as if 2021 has truly  begun. With this comes a new year for the climate change fight. 2021 will be an essential year for climate action, so it is important to be aware of what the biggest and most urgent issues are, and what we can do to make them happen. But it is also important, I think, to take a moment to look back at 2020 and all that people have accomplished, despite the many barriers.

So without further ado, here are the top 3 climate successes of 2020, and the top 3 most important climate issues to follow in 2021 :)
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First off, the good stuff: what we accomplished in 2020
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The growth of the electric car industry  

2020 has been a huge year for the electric car industry. For the first time, people have begun to commit to working towards a world where electric cars are the new normal. The UK announced plans to end the sale of new gas and diesel cars by 2030, and also committed to giving  £500 million (roughly $685 million in US dollars) to funding design and manufacturing of electric cars. California made a similar commitment to ban sale of new gas and diesel cars by 2035, and hopefully other states and countries will begin to follow suit. The industry has also responded to the surge of interest in electric cars - Volkswagen has said that they plan to spend $86 billion on the development of electric vehicles in the next 5 years, and General Motors announced that they will aim to sell ONLY zero-emission cars and trucks by 2035. If the industry continues to move as wholeheartedly in this direction as it has been, we may see the end of gas-fueled cars, and therefore, the end of our country's number one source of planet-warming pollution.

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​The new Great American Outdoors Act
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If you're a fan of our National parks, this one will be especially inspiring for you. In July, congress approved the largest grant  since the 1950s for upkeep of the national park system, in addition to granting billions of dollars for repair projects in federal forests, wildlife refuges, and grasslands. Over five years, it will send $6.65 billion to maintenance projects in the National parks, along with giving 2.6 billion for repair projects for the U.S. Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Indian Education. The act also includes further plans to set up a continuous flow of money for purchasing and conserving new state land, which means (you guessed it) the possibility for new state parks and growth of our current ones. So if, like me, you plan to explore a  few new National Parks in the coming years, you are in luck! 


The election of President Biden 

During his presidency, Trump rolled back many environmental regulations, especially those relating to regulation of the oil and gas industry, the most major source of global warming in the US. Had his presidency continued another 4 years, this deadbeat attitude towards climate change surely would have continued. Because climate experts have stated that the next few years will prove essential for turning around climate change, leaving no room for that kind of inadequacy. Biden has made a commitment to prioritize climate change during his presidency  and while it will be important to hold him to this and continue advocating for governmental action, this attitude gives hope much hope for the climate change fight. Biden has pledged to undo these rollbacks during his presidency, and on top of that, has already re-entered the Paris Climate agreement that was made in 2015. This in itself is a major win for climate activism, as it will allow us to move forward with climate change action as a unified, global, front, enabling larger scale projects and agreements.

So while 2020 was a deeply difficult year for the world in many ways, it also proved to us that it is possible to make real, major, changes in the way that we treat climate change. So, to give us renewed energy for all that climate advocates hope to achieve in 2021, take a moment to celebrate all that was accomplished in 2020 on behalf of our planet.

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Now, the biggest climate issues to keep an eye on during 2021
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The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this November 

In November of this year, world leaders will meet in Glasgow, Scotland, for a climate meeting similar to the groundbreaking Paris Climate Conference in 2015. This is important because, while the Paris Climate Coalition was a major step in the right direction  many countries have not been able to uphold the commitments they made to cutting carbon emissions in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. While there have been a lot of wide-scale goals made about managing greenhouse gas emissions, currently we are greatly lacking in specific plans for how the world will accomplish these goals. The Glasgow meeting will provide an opportunity for  our leaders to create a better game plan to accomplish the goals previously set in 2015. How far they will be willing to go will be decided, in part, by the attitude expressed in the media in the months leading up to the meeting in November. This means it is important to stay informed about the policies that researchers suggest regarding carbon emission, and to put pressure on our politicians to show maximum support for them this year. ​

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Arctic ice melt

The melting of the polar ice caps poses a threat not only to arctic wildlife, but also to the ecosystem on a planetary level. Less ice reflecting the sun’s rays back into space means that much of this heat is instead absorbed by the ocean, which accelerates ice melt, alters ocean currents, weakens the jet streams, and changes wind patterns. These effects travel through the entire global ecosystem, causing greater droughts, heat, floods and storms. While the melting of arctic ice is not new information by any means, the urgency in 2021 has reached new levels.  2020 was the first year on record that Arctic sea ice had not begun to freeze over by the start of November, and total Arctic sea ice coverage reached the second lowest value in 42 years (since the beginning of record) last September. The only way to stop it is to rapidly decrease or stop carbon emissions. Attention to arctic preservation has been gaining more attention recently, with Bank of America announcing that it will no longer fund oil and gas drilling in the arctic. But this year will need to see an increase in policies regarding both general CO2 emissions and Arctic preservation in order to slow arctic melting as quickly as possible.

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Corporate involvement in CO2 emissions

During the previous Paris climate collation, the countries who attended made a goal to limit global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius through reduction of CO2 emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we need to reduce total emissions by 50% by the end of 2030 in order to hit this target. However, the top 1oo corporations are responsible for more than 7o% of greenhouse gas emission, so the involvement of major corporations is a very important factor in achieving this. Luckily, there is new momentum behind creating legislation to get businesses to actively transition to creating low-to-none carbon emissions over the next decade. Many hope to make it mandatory for businesses and investors to release reports on their CO2 emissions and other numbers that reflect the environmental effect of their company, something that has previously not been required. However, while several companies, including Apple and Google, have made statements committing to working towards becoming carbon neutral, there are still many other companies that need to follow suit.  Low-carbon business models will only be able to succeed if companies are rewarded (through investor support or government policies) for positive climate policies.

This means that it will be extremely important to increase public awareness about the importance of major corporation's sustainability, in order to uphold the major corporations to the statements they have made and continue applying pressure for more businesses to get on board. Biden has said he’ll issue an executive order that requires publicly traded companies to disclose their emissions and how they may influence climate change, meaning that major corporations will be forced to become more proactive about their treatment of climate change, greenhouse gas emission, and ocean pollution, and the U.K. also announced a similar order recently. However, it will be important to make sure that our leaders follow through, and to encourage other countries to follow in their footsteps. Creating new laws and regulations will be a key focus for both the Glasgow conference and the Biden Administration this year, so making it clear that the public cares about this legislation is a major way we can contribute in the coming months.


Further reading:

To Cut Emissions to Zero, U.S. Needs to Make Big Changes in Next 10 Years
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What's on the Horizon for the Climate Desk

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​Sources
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/07/congress-pumps-billions-into-restoring-national-parks/
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-takes-historic-step-towards-net-zero-with-end-of-sale-of-new-petrol-and-diesel-cars-by-2030​​
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-top-five-climate-stories-of-20201/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/business/general-motors-electric-cars.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55498657​
https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgkell/2020/08/17/will-2021-be-the-transition-year-for-climate-action/?sh=6ae1621c4d79

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