DeBriefed is a weekly newsletter from Carbon Brief, a UK based website that publishes the work of journalists and academics. The focus is on the effects of climate change and the science that ought to dictate energy policies. Each edition of DeBriefed provides information that ought to concern all of us, particularly since climate change deniers are soon to control the American and Canadian governments.

The following is from an October 2024 edition.

Extreme Weather

• Storms left hundreds of Americans dead in 2024 and caused property damage worth more than C$250 billion. Record-breaking sea temperatures across the Gulf of Mexico are a key driver of the intense hurricanes that devastated southeast North America. Intense hurricanes are now about 2.5 times more frequent because of human-caused climate change. 

• Elsewhere, unprecedented flooding in Niger killed 339 people and displaced more than 1.1 million, Radio France Internationale said, adding that “neighbouring Mali [saw] over 40 people killed and thousands displaced”. Floods and landslides in Bosnia killed at least 22 people, Le Monde reported. Finally, in Bangladesh, five people died and more than 100,000 were stranded by floods, Reuters said.

Oil Rush

• BP will abandon its ambitious target to cut oil and gas production by 40% by 2030, the Times reported. The newspaper added that BP faces pressure from investors to increase fossil fuel production and stop investing in wind projects. (Any new fossil fuel projects globally are incompatible with keeping global warming at 1.5C.)

• India will invite foreign oil majors to explore both onshore and offshore [opportunities] as the country races to extract as much oil as possible while there remains a market, according to the Financial Times.

Around the World

• No shows: Bank of America, BlackRock, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions will skip COP29, the Financial Times said.

• The UN has developed a compulsory mechanism that aims to prevent carbon credit project developers from breaching human rights or causing environmental damage with their activities, Climate Home News reported. The mechanism will be ignored by most countries.

• Wildlife populations have dropped by a catastrophic average rate of 73% over the past 50 years, according to a World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) report covered by the Washington Post.

• The World Meteorological Organization found that 2023 was the driest year in more than three decades for the world’s rivers, the Associated Press said. At the same time, the Financial Times reported, rising temperatures helped drive extreme rainfall events in September 2024.

Statement from Julia Levin, Associate Director, National Climate

Fossil fuel lobbyists are once again swarming the international climate negotiations, including within Canada’s official delegation. According to Environmental Defence’s analysis of the UN’s Provisional List of Registered Participants at COP29, 28 people with ties to the fossil fuel sector were given Party badges by Canada.