As drought dries up the Yangtze river, China loses hydropower | Grist
A historic drought in the southwest of China is drying up rivers,
intensifying forest fires, damaging crops, and severely curtailing
electricity in a region highly dependent on hydropower.
The Yangtze River, the third largest in the world, has dropped to
half its average water levels, affecting shipping routes, limiting drinking water supplies https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/19/china/china-drought-alert-climate-intl/index.html, causing rolling blackouts, and even exposing long-submerged Buddhist statues https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/receding-water-levels-chinas-yangtze-reveal-ancient-buddhist-statues-2022-08-20/. Some 66 rivers across 34 counties in Chongqing were dried up as of last week, Reuters reported https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/receding-water-levels-chinas-yangtze-reveal-ancient-buddhist-statues-2022-08-20/#:~:text=As%20many%20as%2066%20rivers,dubbed%20the%20%E2%80%9CSpanish%20Stonehenge%E2%80%9D..
Also last week, the province of Sichuan, which gets more than 80
percent of its energy from hydropower, cut or limited electricity to
thousands of factories in an effort to “leave power for the people.” https://apnews.com/article/china-droughts-agriculture-climate-and-environment-647a2b13e8c14dc89b6a0161437d507a Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, is just a quarter of its normal size https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/19/china-issues-first-national-drought-alert-battles-to-save-crops for this time of year.
#world #environment #drought #climate crisis #global warming
grist.org/drought/as-drought-d…
The temperature rise, which has reached 1.25 C and counting will continue unless we stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere. The only way to achieve this is to end the use of coal, oil and natural gas theconversation.com/ending-the… #environment #world #cdnpoli $fossil_fuels #climate #global warming
Studies Reject ‘Opportunistic Arguments’ for More Canadian Oil:
And the argument that the world needs more Canadian oil and gas, is torpedoed by the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 2022 World Energy Outlook.
The
IEA’s latest findings are particularly bad news for those claiming that
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led to a sharp reduction of gas
exports to Europe, calls for more freshly dug up Canadian fossil fuels.
Examining
energy disruptions rippling around the world, the fallout from Russia’s
war included, the IEA does “anticipate a global reshuffling of
production from existing oil and gas fields over the next few years to
meet urgent energy needs,” Donner and Harrison say.
What it does not anticipate is the need for any new oil and gas fields. The war in Ukraine, “coupled with the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, and the falling costs of renewables, will hasten the transition away from oil and gas,” the two authors write.
“It is telling that when the Chancellor of Germany, the country most dependent on Russian gas, visited Canada this year, he sought green hydrogen exports, not LNG.”