In today’s edition:

🌳 Clamping down on deforestation

💡 Nuclear fusion breakthrough

🌎 COP15 and biodiversity

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💼 Big Business (1-minute read)

EU to prevent companies selling deforestation-linked products

What happened: The European Union has become the first trading bloc to agree on what is being termed a “historic” law to prevent companies from selling several commodities (e.g. palm oil, beef, soy, coffee, cocoa, timber and rubber) linked to deforestation and forest degradation.

Details: The law will require companies to produce a due diligence statement showing their supply chains do not contribute to the destruction of forests, AND the rights of indigenous people were respected - or they could face hefty fines (up to 4% of a company’s turnover)

Potential impact: The EU is the world’s second-largest importer of agricultural goods after China, so reducing the bloc’s deforestation footprint could have massive significance. Expect companies to focus more on tech promoting supply chain transparency.

Investor group campaign to help companies protect nature

Fresh off the press from the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), a group of investors have announced “Nature Action 100” — a global initiative to tackle nature loss and biodiversity decline through investor-company engagement. Investors from 100 private companies with the most significant dependencies on nature will come together next year, co-led by Ceres and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, to engage with company executives to ensure funding for actions to protect and restore nature.

Importance: Over half of the world’s GDP ($44 trillion of economic value) is either moderately or highly reliant on nature’s services. If nature and biodiversity continue to decline rapidly, billions of dollars in assets could be at risk over the next 5-10 years.

Electric car costs draw level with petrol and diesel

Rising fuel prices coupled with cheaper recharging means that the total costs involved with owning and running a standard family-sized electric car are lower than petrol or diesel in almost every European country. While battery vehicles remain more expensive than traditional engine models, they have lower running costs. The automotive industry considers the point at which electric cars become as cheap as petrol models to own, run and service (the “total cost of ownership”) a critical moment that could support a widespread switch to battery vehicles.

🤖 Future of Tech (1-minute read)

Can nuclear tech provide a zero-carbon alternative to fossil fuels?

History: Since the 1950s, physicists have tried to replicate the fusion reactions that power the sun, but no group has been able to produce more energy from the process than it consumes (due to the technology required in the process being so energy intensive) — an outcome known as "net gain energy".

Potential Breakthrough: US scientists have potentially just succeeded to reach the "net gain energy" milestone. However, cost-effectively sustaining the process over long periods remains challenging. Over the last 12 months, Nuclear Fusion companies from around the world have raised over $2bn in investment yet have only just achieved an overall positive energy output.

Potential: Although fusion power stations are likely decades away, the tech has huge potential. Fusion reactions emit no carbon and produce no long-lived radioactive waste, while a small cup of hydrogen fuel could power a house for hundreds of years.

ChatGPT - Good or Bad for the Climate?

ChatWhat? OpenAI is one of the world’s most ambitious artificial intelligence labs globally, and they have taken the world by storm after the release of their new chatbot ChatGPT — which has already been used by more than a million people — many experts believe these new chatbots are poised to reinvent or even replace internet search engines like Google and Bing.

What can it do? This iteration has gained so much traction for its human-like, detailed answers to inquiries serving up information in tight sentences rather than long lists of blue links- and even write college-level essays when given a prompt

The Green angle: Conversational AI is incredibly intensive - According to a recent study, OpenAI's produced metric 552 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per hour (roughly equivalent to driving a car 1.3 million miles). HOWEVER, they can have a positive impact from reducing paper usage to providing legal and financial education to disadvantaged communities.

💡 Deep Dive (1-minute read)

Explainer — COP15

If you’re reading this and thinking, “haven’t we just had a COP27?” then don’t be confused; the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) is about biodiversity, not the climate, and is focused on setting targets for nature. The final agreement (negotiated in Montreal over the next 2 weeks) will cover various issues, from pesticides to plastics.

These are some key targets to look out for on the final agreement, which is due to be completed on 19 December (although everything can change in the last hours of negotiations):

1. Protecting Earth: Over 100 countries have shown support for a proposal to conserve 30% of land and ocean by 2030. The UK, France, Costa Rica and Canada have thrown their weight behind the proposal. Still, it faces challenges from indigenous communities, warning it could justify land grabs and human rights violations.

2. Pesticides: A target to reduce pesticides (which decimate insects that provide vital ecosystem services) by at least two-thirds is on the table, with the EU already aiming for a 50% reduction by the end of the decade. A global target will likely face pushback from agricultural producers relying on agrochemicals to maximise crop yields.

3. Invasive species: The spread of alien animals and plants to areas they shouldn’t be, resulting in native ecosystems being destroyed, is an expensive problem. A draft target to boost invasive species elimination efforts and reduce spread by half is expected in Montreal.

Why’s COP15 important? The world negotiates biodiversity targets only once a decade, so it’s essential ambitious targets are agreed upon. The fate of humans is inextricably linked with nature, with over half of the global GDP dependent on a healthy, functioning natural world. As the earth experiences a sixth mass extinction (per scientists), the way we farm, pollute, drive and consume over the next 10 years will have a lasting effect.

💭 Little Bytes

Quote:  “Bank executives and their boards need to step up and take responsibility for the impact their activities are having on the ecosystems of the world’s oceans, forests and wildlife.” — ShareAction director of financial sector standards Peter Uhlenbruch

Stat: Investments of $26bn from public and private sources across 18 countries have brought 14 million hectares of degraded landscapes under restoration — Restoration Barometer report

Watch: Carbon-neutral spaceship that can take you to the edge of space

🗞 In other news…

• UK Government faces criticism after approving the first deep coal mine in the Britain for over 30 years

• A freely available, online mangrove mapping tool is is providing a boost to conservation along coastlines

• Octopus Energy has paid its customers more than £1 million to cut their consumption for four hours during times of peak demand recently.

• Green Finance Institute debuts new nature investment toolkit

Written by Colin and Ollie - Drop us a message!