Wealth disparity and climate change

Good climate news as COP-30 is about to start in Brazil.

What about climate energy? According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, the clean tech revolution is “exponential, disruptive, and now.”

By the end of the decade, 14 countries will source all their power from renewable sources and seven countries are already doing so—Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, Costa Rica, Kenya, Bhutan, and Paraguay. Wind and solar are cheaper to build than fossil fuel plants almost anywhere on the planet, and China makes more money from its clean energy exports than the U.S. does from its fossil fuel exports.
 
Clean technology has become dramatically more affordable, while global investment has multiplied almost ten times and solar output has increased twelvefold. Today, 1 in 5 cars sold worldwide are electric, up from 1 in 25 in 2020. “The energy system is being transformed by the exponential forces of renewables, electrification, and efficiency,” the RMI report says. And land use is changing too: heading into COP30, Brazil’s deforestation rates have hit an 11-year low.

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However the world is in trouble still:

We now live on a “planet on the brink” as global warming accelerates, according to the 2025 State of the Climate report. The authors evaluated 34 of the planet’s vital signs, including carbon pollution, ocean temperature, air temperature, and extent of sea ice, and found 22 to be at record levels. 
 
2024 was the warmest year on record and 2025 is going to surpass it: a signal of “an escalation of climate upheaval.” The authors found global efforts to curb carbon emissions extremely insufficient to avoid dangerous impacts, and wrote that this marks “the beginning of a grim new chapter for life on Earth.”
 
“We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet’s vital signs are flashing red. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer future threats but are here now,” the report states. “This unfolding emergency stems from failed foresight, political inaction, unsustainable economic systems, and misinformation. Almost every corner of the biosphere is reeling from intensifying heat, storms, floods, droughts, or fires. The window to prevent the worst outcomes is rapidly closing.”

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The US doesn't send a delegation to the COP30 negotiations, however.

Although the COP negotiations are technically between countries, many representatives from city, state, province, or other regional governments will be in Belem, too. This is why our voices and our votes matter at every level: because they can help catalyze change in the places where we live.
 
For example, in the U.S., California generated 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources last year. The city of Chicago, whose climate impacts analysis I led in 2008, is powering all of its more than 400 municipal buildings with clean energy. In Detroit, nearly 1,400 urban farms “not only address food insecurity but also serve as a model for sustainable land use in post-industrial cities,” as this article explains.

Cities around the world, from Belfast to Budapest, are incorporating climate into planning for healthier and more resilient neighbourhoods. States and provinces from Australia to Brazil are setting their own emission reduction goals, and their plans to meet them. They’re building green schools in West Kalimantan, Indonesia and setting up “climate desks” in every local government council in Cross River State, Nigeria.
 
For all the negative tipping points we seem to be surpassing in the natural world, there are also scores of positive tipping points that can be triggered by actions we take. As Matt Simon writes here, “People can influence communities, communities can influence cities, and cities can influence nations. These critical junctures, then, can spread like a contagion—in a good way.” 

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Thanks Katharine Hayhoe!

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Then there are the obvious signs of wealth!

Borrowed from another blog...Southwest Daily images

"No one really lives here full-time.  Most buyers are wealthy young people from up north who fly in for occasional long weekends.  The cheapest unit in the final tower starts at $3.5 million.  Kalea Bay is an advertisement for the problem of income inequality in this country."

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His next post was about a golf course being built nearby. After all, what's a millionaire to do on the weekend in Florida (or North Carolina?) Many millionaires live in the mountains in  their "cabins." They just aren't as visible being behind trees most of the year!

Meanwhile I talk with friends about food insecurity/insufficiency in our area (Black Mountain and Swannanoa NC). SNAP may be reinstated, or maybe not... according to some media announcements. We can only hope.

See my earlier post about all the local efforts to provide alternatives for those who could no longer purchase their family's groceries each week. 

Grateful living is important in the world because in our constant pursuit of more and better we can easily lose sight of the riches that lay right in front of us and within us.

Guri Mehta