Nobody is used to this heat

Today’s newsletter looks at why extreme heat in Africa doesn’t get enough attention (and how the continent is taking a big swing to rule the global offsets market). For unlimited access to climate and energy news, and to receive Bloomberg Green magazine, subscribe. 

By Yinka Ibukun

While the planet broke multiple records for average worldwide temperatures last week, a heat wave gripped northern Africa. 

The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.

“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”

North Africa, the Sahara desert and the Sahel, a semi-arid belt north of the Sudanian savanna, are some of the most vulnerable areas because they have larger land masses relative to the rest of the continent, meaning they tend to heat up faster. Scientists have attributed the unprecedented temperatures to a combination of human-induced climate change and the return of El Niño, a natural phenomenon that alters weather patterns. 

The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off. 

“People talk of climate change as if it’s a thing of the future,” said Gaye. “Climate change is already here and we see its implications in people, livelihoods, economies and even in cultures.”

While studies on heat impacts on health are limited in Africa, research published last year found that children younger than 5 years old  are particularly vulnerable to the hotter weather as they are less able that adults to self-regulate their bodies’ temperatures. The authors estimated that heat-related child mortality was rising in sub-Saharan Africa due to climate change.  Other researchers have named the elderly, pregnant women and people who work outdoors, as groups at risk of heat strokes or heat-related infectious diseases.

Elsewhere on the continent, the crisis is also being felt. In the Horn of Africa, at least 43,000 people died in Somalia alone last year as a result of the worst drought in four decades. A study found that global warming is changing rain patterns and bringing more heat to Somalia and some of its neighbors, for longer stretches of time. Further south, unusually destructive cyclones in 2019 claimed more than a thousand lives in Mozambique and Zimbabwe alone. 

“If we continue business-as-usual, the heat is not just going to get worse, it will get much worse,” said Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla, research chair in climate change science at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. “We are going to see more frequent, longer and more intense heat waves.”

uch of the continent, responsible for just 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions generated from burning fossil fuels, is ill-prepared for a hotter world. Meanwhile, Group of 20 nations, with air conditioning and access to functioning healthcare facilities, account for 80% of the world’s emissions. 

Hundreds of millions of Africans lack electricity to even power a fan. One in three people in Africa is affected by water scarcity, according to the World Health Organization, so hydration can’t be taken for granted. Even shade is harder to come by due to widespread deforestation and land degradation. And only 40% of people on the continent are covered by early warning systems for extreme weather.

“More funds have to be allocated to climate adaptation and they need to be made more easily accessible to the most vulnerable countries,” Sylla said.

The UN climate talks later this year aspire to come up with a plan for richer nations to pay for loss and damages. But they’ve collectively fallen short of their commitment to spend $100 billion each year on projects in developing nations to cut emissions and to help them adapt. 

“That’s where the issue of climate justice comes in,” said Gaye. “It’s not just that people are uncomfortable, climate change is killing them.” 

Read and share this story on Bloomberg.com.  

By Antony Sguazzin and Ray Ndlovu

As home to the world’s second-biggest rainforest, the largest tropical peatlands and swathes of mangroves, governments across the African continent appear to be in a good position to benefit from the growing global trade in emissions offsets.

Right now, however, they barely do. And that’s something they want to change.

During a conference last week in southern Africa, Malawi and Zambia confirmed they will follow Zimbabwe’s lead and demand that a share of revenue from carbon offset projects on their territory go to state coffers. Zimbabwe in May roiled the industry by announcing overnight that 50% of all revenue from programs in the country will go to the state.

“This is climate financing that should and must enhance the developing countries’ capabilities to achieve their economic growth objectives in a sustainable manner,” Mangaliso Ndlovu, Zimbabwe’s environment minister, said on the closing day of the conference on July 7 in the Zimbabwean resort town of Victoria Falls, site of the world’s biggest waterfall. “It is not an opportunity for the few to make mega profits, dropping a pittance to African countries and communities. This is clearly unacceptable and unsustainable.”

The conference aimed to showcase Victoria Falls Stock Exchange as a center for carbon credit trading and, more importantly, to get the continent to speak with one voice in a bid to boost its bargaining power.

That sentiment won support. 

“African countries must be in the driving seat of this business,” Michael Usi, Malawi’s environment minister, said. “We must have one common platform where we can argue our case.”

A single carbon credit is equal to a ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent either removed from the atmosphere or prevented from entering it in the first place. They can be bought by polluters to offset their emissions of greenhouse gases. 

The plan, ultimately, is to get the newly established carbon offset industry regulators on the continent to adopt similar policies and to establish cross-border carbon registries.

Africa’s share of the global carbon credits market is significant. RippleNami Inc., a California-based data company that presented at the conference, put it at 13%. Kenya, as the biggest source on the continent, accounts for almost a quarter of production. Zimbabwe ranks third, Zambia fifth and Malawi eighth. 

But it could be a lot more. Peatlands in the Congo Basin alone hold the equivalent of three years of global annual emissions and the continent has abundant space to develop reforestation and other credit-generating projects. With the global industry forecast to grow to as much as $1 trillion within 15 years as anti-emissions legislation tightens, according to estimates from BloombergNEF, there is a big prize to play for. 

Click here to continue reading a full version of this story on Bloomberg.com.  

As climate change continues to worsen extreme weather, the need for more responsive insurance policies is growing. Cue parametric insurance. Most types of insurance policies, like auto and homeowner insurance, kick into action when a customer calls to submit a claim. Parametric flips that model: Claims are automatically paid out when certain parameters are met, whether that’s the policyholder dying or, in the case of climate insurance, when an extreme weather disaster meets certain conditions. 

Europe isn’t ready for climate change. More than 60,000 people died as a result of record-breaking temperatures on the continent last summer, raising concerns about a lack of preparation for extreme heat.

Prisons are especially struggling with heat. Texas has recently been among the hottest places on Earth, and while residents across the region struggled to stay cool, extreme temperatures took a severe toll on incarcerated people in the state.

Paris has some peculiar climate solutions. Les Alchimistes, a startup based in the city, will collect food scraps for composting by electric vehicles, e-bikes and even horse.

By Brian K. Sullivan

A massive heat wave will build in the southern US and expand into the Pacific Northwest this week, with temperatures in the Southwest rising to as much as 120F (49C) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

“The Southwest US is going to be seeing very hot temperatures the entire week,” says Andrew Orrison, a forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center. “This is going to be a pretty significant heatwave that is going to expand in coverage and magnitude.”

High temperatures are also expected across northern Mexico.

Orrison says the heat will move into the Pacific Northwest as it expands over the course of the week. Temperatures in Portland, Oregon, are expected to approach 90F (32C) by the end of the week. In addition to the high temperatures, red flag fire warnings have been posted across parts of Oregon and Washington.

Excessive heat watches and warnings are in place over parts of California, Nevada and Arizona, where widespread temperatures above 100F are forecast, and heat advisories have been posted in counties across New Mexico, Texas and Florida. San Antonio is forecast to reach 102F Monday and stay there through the week, while Dallas will be that hot starting on Wednesday. Houston will reach 98F, but the humidity will make it feel even hotter, the weather service said.

The weather service warned residents in parts of California, Arizona and along the Colorado River of “dangerously hot afternoons with little overnight relief expected.” The high temperatures are forecast to bear down through next week.

Prolonged exposure to heat has a detrimental impact on human health, in particular for women and seniors. Globally, more than 5 million people die each year because of excessive temperatures. High temperatures also tax energy supply as people turn to air conditioning to stay cool and save lives. The weather service urges people in hot locales to stay in air-conditioned spaces or find places to cool down.

In other weather news:

India: India is facing the prospect of further torrential rainfall across swathes of the country over the coming days, increasing the risk of widespread damage after the wettest New Delhi day in four decades left millions wading through knee-deep water on Sunday.

New York: Deadly flooding swept through the lower Hudson River Valley north of New York City Monday, as a slow-moving weather front makes its way through the US Northeast. As much as 8.1 inches (20.6 cm) of rain fell at the US Military Academy at West Point through 6 a.m., following a flash flood emergency over the weekend. At least one person died, according to the Associated Press, with social media showing many roads were flooded or blocked by debris. 

If you ever wanted to get information about China’s factories and their impact on the environment, you’ve probably relied on data compiled by Ma Jun, a Chinese environmentalist. On the latest episode of Zero, he talks to Akshat Rathi about the power of data, the changes in environmentalism in China, and the role the rest of the world must play in asking questions about where their goods come from. Listen to the full episode and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Google to stay on top of new episodes.

The prospect of drilling for more Alaskan oil is guaranteed to draw protest and outrage — even when geopolitics argue for energy self-sufficiency. Yet the biggest ally in the fight to preserve the environment there is the land itself, Bloomberg Opinion’s Liam Denning found when he visited the North Slope. Consider this, he writes: A greenfield offshore prospect leased today might not pump a barrel until the early 2050s. Meanwhile, a project in the Gulf of Mexico takes perhaps a decade; shale prospects, a handful of years or even months. For big industrial projects, such lags can be poison, according to Denning.

The Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit returns to Singapore July 26 for a day of community building and solutions-driven discussions on innovations and best practices in sustainable business and finance. Speakers include Singapore Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu, and top leaders from AIA, Nissan and many more. Register here for a virtual pass or to request to join us in Singapore.

Bloomberg Building a Green Economy for All: At this critical moment in history, societies are seeking to challenge the status quo in order to achieve decarbonization. What emerging power technology will be the most disruptive, and which power sources are accessible, affordable and can achieve scale? Executives from Octopus Energy Generation, Sustainable Energy for All, and Andretti Autosport will be discussing this and more on July 28 in London and virtually. Learn more here.

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