The damage caused by climate change over this past year was at times so immense it was hard to comprehend. In Pakistan alone, extreme summer flooding killed thousands, displaced millions and caused over $40 billion in losses. Fall floods in Nigeria killed hundreds and displaced over 1 million people. Droughts in Europe, China and the U.S. dried out once-unstoppable rivers and slowed the flows of commerce on major arteries like the Mississippi and the Rhine.
In the face of these extremes, the human response was uneven at best. Consumption of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, rebounded in 2022. Countries like the U.K. and China seemed to back away from major climate pledges.
But all of this gloom came with more than a silver lining. In fact, it’s all too easy to overlook the steps toward a lower-carbon world that came about in between more attention-getting catastrophes.
As 2022 unfolded, a clear pathway of climate hope emerged. New policy breakthroughs have the potential to unlock enormous progress in the effort to slow and reverse warming temperatures. Below is a list of six encouraging developments from a very momentous year, as nation after nation elected more climate-oriented governments and enacted new efforts to curb greenhouse gas.
1. President Joe Biden’s big win changes everything
Just when it seemed that Washington was hopelessly gridlocked, in August the Biden administration and a narrow Democratic majority in Congress managed to pass the Inflation Reduction Act.
This new U.S. law, backed by some $374 billion in climate spending, is the country’s most aggressive piece of climate legislation ever. Its provisions ensure that for decades to come billions of dollars will roll toward the energy transition, making it easier to deploy renewable energy, build out green technologies and subsidize consumer adoption of everything from electric cars to heat pumps. Experts on energy modeling predict the law will eliminate 4 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
2. The EU taxes carbon dioxide at its border
The European Union started to make good on its pledge to cut emissions by 55% in 2030 (from 1990 levels). The bloc’s 27 members reached a historic deal to set up the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, an emissions levy on some imports that’s meant to protect Europe’s carbon-intensive industries that are forced to comply with the region’s increasingly strict rules. Once it take effect, there will be additional costs imposed on imported goods from countries without the EU’s restrictions on planet-warming pollution.
A separate milestone from 2022 saw the biggest overhaul of the EU carbon market that will extend it to road transport, shipping and heating. This expansion of the policy will also accelerate the pace at which companies — from energy producers to steelmakers — are required to reduce pollution. The accord provided certainty to companies and investors, sending European carbon prices to a record high for the year.
3. Birds, bees and biodiversity get a big break
Just two weeks before 2022 ended, negotiators at the COP15 United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal delivered a surprise win in the form of a pledge by 195 nations to protect and restore at least 30% of the Earth’s land and water by 2030. Rich nations also committed to pay an estimated $30 billion per year by 2030 to poorer nations in part through a new biodiversity fund.
4. Rich nations agree to fund loss and damage, energy transition
The biodiversity breakthrough came one month after another historic moment at a U.N.-backed conference. Delegates at COP27 in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh reached a last-minute agreement to create a loss-and-damage fund to help developing countries impacted by climate change, a decades-long demand by nations that have contributed the least to warming of the planet.
Abdul Majeed/AFP via Getty Images
Residents wade through a flood-hit area following heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan on Aug. 29, 2022.
Another form of climate funding, Just Energy Transition Partnerships, also went into wider use in 2022. The mechanism is meant to help emerging economies heavily dependent on coal move away from the most polluting fossil fuel in a way that doesn’t leave workers and communities behind. South Africa’s $8.5 billion JETP, announced in 2021, became a blueprint for these deals. Additional deals made in 2022 are set to mobilize $20 billion for Indonesia and $15.5 billion for Vietnam.
5. Changes in leaders, change in attitudes
Voters delivered big changes in leadership in several key countries. In Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won the presidency in part by promising to zero out deforestation of the Amazon. Pro-climate parties also won big in Australia’s elections.
In November, meanwhile, Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and reset the relationship that had been suspended by a diplomatic standoff over Taiwan. Cooperation between the top two economies (and emitters of greenhouse gas) has been essential in cementing previous climate breakthroughs like the 2015 Paris Agreement. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was in both nations’ interest to tackle climate change in a cooperative manner.
6. Taking methane matters more seriously
The world has been slow to understand the dangers of methane, a particularly powerful heat-trapping gas. But ever since last year’s COP26 in Glasgow, nations have been signing up to a global pledge to cut those emissions, which can come from oil and gas wells, coal seams, landfills and livestock.
In the lead-up to COP27 in Egypt, for instance, new nations such as Australia joined the pledge and brought the total number of countries signed up to over 150. In the U.S., meanwhile, the Biden administration pushed forward stronger rules that would require energy companies to do more to stifle methane leaks.
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64% of Americans are now exposed to extreme heat. Here’s why that’s worrying
Eli Mordechai // Shutterstock
The infamous Dust Bowl years of the 1930s saw unprecedented extreme heat waves decimate the Midwest and the Great Plains. Temperatures climbed to well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in states used to a relatively cool climate. Over the span of six years, roughly 5,000 people died from heat-related causes, and intense drought made agricultural efforts nearly impossible.
The Dust Bowl heat waves were something of an anomaly at the time, as there was little climate science at that time to explain the event. However, climate scientists today have reflected on the event as one of the first human-influenced climate events, triggered by coal-reliant industrialization, and as a harbinger of climate change.
Today, record-breaking heat waves have emerged with alarming frequency and more intensity than ever before. People in cities used to temperate or cool summers across the U.S. have been contending with temperatures more suited to Death Valley. Meanwhile, heat waves are becoming even more intense in already-hot locales, including the Sun Belt. Despite this, Americans are moving to Southern states at high rates, increasing the number of people who will be exposed to extreme heat.
To investigate how extreme heat is impacting cities across the country, OhmConnect compiled a list of how heat waves in major U.S. cities have changed over time, with data from sources including the Environmental Protection Agency, the World Health Organization, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Globalchange.gov, and other scientific research. The data available is from 1961 to 2021 across 50 large metropolitan areas.
Eli Mordechai // Shutterstock
The infamous Dust Bowl years of the 1930s saw unprecedented extreme heat waves decimate the Midwest and the Great Plains. Temperatures climbed to well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in states used to a relatively cool climate. Over the span of six years, roughly 5,000 people died from heat-related causes, and intense drought made agricultural efforts nearly impossible.
The Dust Bowl heat waves were something of an anomaly at the time, as there was little climate science at that time to explain the event. However, climate scientists today have reflected on the event as one of the first human-influenced climate events, triggered by coal-reliant industrialization, and as a harbinger of climate change.
Today, record-breaking heat waves have emerged with alarming frequency and more intensity than ever before. People in cities used to temperate or cool summers across the U.S. have been contending with temperatures more suited to Death Valley. Meanwhile, heat waves are becoming even more intense in already-hot locales, including the Sun Belt. Despite this, Americans are moving to Southern states at high rates, increasing the number of people who will be exposed to extreme heat.
To investigate how extreme heat is impacting cities across the country, OhmConnect compiled a list of how heat waves in major U.S. cities have changed over time, with data from sources including the Environmental Protection Agency, the World Health Organization, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Globalchange.gov, and other scientific research. The data available is from 1961 to 2021 across 50 large metropolitan areas.
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64% of Americans are now exposed to extreme heat. Here’s why that’s worrying
Gary Hershorn // Getty Images
U.S. cities are experiencing more heat waves every year. In the 1960s, cities endured an average of two heat waves per year. That number has grown to an average of six each year during the 2010s and 2020s, according to the EPA. Cities are particularly vulnerable to more heat waves because of factors like urban heat islands, an effect that makes urban areas hotter than surrounding rural regions. Many factors contribute to urban heat islands: darker surfaces like asphalt and roof shingles—which absorb rather than reflect heat—less shade from trees, and fewer plants emitting cooling moisture from their leaves.
Gary Hershorn // Getty Images
U.S. cities are experiencing more heat waves every year. In the 1960s, cities endured an average of two heat waves per year. That number has grown to an average of six each year during the 2010s and 2020s, according to the EPA. Cities are particularly vulnerable to more heat waves because of factors like urban heat islands, an effect that makes urban areas hotter than surrounding rural regions. Many factors contribute to urban heat islands: darker surfaces like asphalt and roof shingles—which absorb rather than reflect heat—less shade from trees, and fewer plants emitting cooling moisture from their leaves.
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64% of Americans are now exposed to extreme heat. Here’s why that’s worrying
Margarita Young // Shutterstock
In addition to heat waves becoming more frequent, heat wave seasons have also become longer. In the 1960s, heat wave seasons lasted an average of 24 days a year. In the 2020s, that number has risen to more than 70 days a year. The expansion of heat wave seasons can be dangerous, since it widens the window for extreme temperatures during unusual times of the year. This can lead to situations in which people are not prepared, leaving them vulnerable.
The increased frequency of heat waves and length of heat wave seasons has inspired some cities to take action. In 2021, the mayor of Miami-Dade County appointed a chief heat officer, the first in the nation. This position is intended to strategize ways of keeping people safe from increasingly intense heat events in a city that is experiencing some of the worst heat waves in the country.
Margarita Young // Shutterstock
In addition to heat waves becoming more frequent, heat wave seasons have also become longer. In the 1960s, heat wave seasons lasted an average of 24 days a year. In the 2020s, that number has risen to more than 70 days a year. The expansion of heat wave seasons can be dangerous, since it widens the window for extreme temperatures during unusual times of the year. This can lead to situations in which people are not prepared, leaving them vulnerable.
The increased frequency of heat waves and length of heat wave seasons has inspired some cities to take action. In 2021, the mayor of Miami-Dade County appointed a chief heat officer, the first in the nation. This position is intended to strategize ways of keeping people safe from increasingly intense heat events in a city that is experiencing some of the worst heat waves in the country.
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64% of Americans are now exposed to extreme heat. Here’s why that’s worrying
Spencer Platt // Getty Images
Longer heat waves have grave consequences for people's health and safety, particularly for those who are unhoused or who don't have access to air conditioning. Living for prolonged periods at very high temperatures without being able to cool off can increase the risk of heat-related illness and even death. To make matters worse, record-breaking heat during the nighttime has been reported across the country, removing the usual respite from heat offered by the sun going down, and adding to the danger already caused by several days of extreme temperatures.
Spencer Platt // Getty Images
Longer heat waves have grave consequences for people's health and safety, particularly for those who are unhoused or who don't have access to air conditioning. Living for prolonged periods at very high temperatures without being able to cool off can increase the risk of heat-related illness and even death. To make matters worse, record-breaking heat during the nighttime has been reported across the country, removing the usual respite from heat offered by the sun going down, and adding to the danger already caused by several days of extreme temperatures.
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64% of Americans are now exposed to extreme heat. Here’s why that’s worrying
Yau Ming Low // Shutterstock
The intensity of heat waves has steadily climbed over the past six decades. Both in regions accustomed to some amount of extreme temperatures, like the South, as well as in areas which have not previously experienced high temperatures, heat waves have become hotter and more deadly.
In 2021, the Pacific Northwest, a region known for its moderate weather, saw a blistering heat wave that peaked between 116 and 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The event caught many people unprepared, and hundreds of deaths were reported in Oregon and Washington, particularly among people who did not have access to air conditioning. Other cities in California and other parts of the Western U.S. experienced extreme heat waves in September 2022, making it the hottest September on record for the West.
Yau Ming Low // Shutterstock
The intensity of heat waves has steadily climbed over the past six decades. Both in regions accustomed to some amount of extreme temperatures, like the South, as well as in areas which have not previously experienced high temperatures, heat waves have become hotter and more deadly.
In 2021, the Pacific Northwest, a region known for its moderate weather, saw a blistering heat wave that peaked between 116 and 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The event caught many people unprepared, and hundreds of deaths were reported in Oregon and Washington, particularly among people who did not have access to air conditioning. Other cities in California and other parts of the Western U.S. experienced extreme heat waves in September 2022, making it the hottest September on record for the West.
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64% of Americans are now exposed to extreme heat. Here’s why that’s worrying
FocusStocker // Shutterstock
FocusStocker // Shutterstock
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64% of Americans are now exposed to extreme heat. Here’s why that’s worrying
THIERRY ZOCCOLAN // Getty Images
Extreme heat waves impact much more than people's ability to be outside without air conditioning. They also have serious environmental, agricultural, and energy-related ramifications. Heat waves harm crops, cause issues with plant growth, and make it difficult for livestock to survive. They also exacerbate drought, creating water shortages and conditions that are conducive to wildfires and other natural disasters.
Energy systems can also be strained by an increased need for high-energy utilities like air conditioning, with demand outstripping supply in some cases. In July 2022, Texans were instructed to conserve as much energy as possible to alleviate strain on the power grid as temperatures neared 110 F.
THIERRY ZOCCOLAN // Getty Images
Extreme heat waves impact much more than people's ability to be outside without air conditioning. They also have serious environmental, agricultural, and energy-related ramifications. Heat waves harm crops, cause issues with plant growth, and make it difficult for livestock to survive. They also exacerbate drought, creating water shortages and conditions that are conducive to wildfires and other natural disasters.
Energy systems can also be strained by an increased need for high-energy utilities like air conditioning, with demand outstripping supply in some cases. In July 2022, Texans were instructed to conserve as much energy as possible to alleviate strain on the power grid as temperatures neared 110 F.
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64% of Americans are now exposed to extreme heat. Here’s why that’s worrying
Tada Images // Shutterstock
As extreme heat events continue to become more frequent and severe, experts caution that being prepared for intense heat waves is one of the best ways to keep people safe. On an institutional level, the CDC recommends having early heat wave alerts in place on a city or county level to warn residents of impending extreme heat risks. This would also enable public cooling centers to open at appropriate times, a vital measure for those without air conditioning and people experiencing homelessness. Keeping hydrated and avoiding the outdoors during heat waves is especially important.
At the same time, measures can be taken to prevent the continued rise of temperatures, as well as to mediate the risks of straining energy systems. Increasing energy efficiency and forms of renewable energy would prevent power grids from being overwhelmed while limiting further emissions, which contribute to rising temperatures in the first place. Introducing more trees and vegetation to urban areas could also work to introduce shade, increase air quality and reduce the harm of emissions, and limit the impact of urban heat islands.
This story originally appeared on OhmConnect and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
Tada Images // Shutterstock
As extreme heat events continue to become more frequent and severe, experts caution that being prepared for intense heat waves is one of the best ways to keep people safe. On an institutional level, the CDC recommends having early heat wave alerts in place on a city or county level to warn residents of impending extreme heat risks. This would also enable public cooling centers to open at appropriate times, a vital measure for those without air conditioning and people experiencing homelessness. Keeping hydrated and avoiding the outdoors during heat waves is especially important.
At the same time, measures can be taken to prevent the continued rise of temperatures, as well as to mediate the risks of straining energy systems. Increasing energy efficiency and forms of renewable energy would prevent power grids from being overwhelmed while limiting further emissions, which contribute to rising temperatures in the first place. Introducing more trees and vegetation to urban areas could also work to introduce shade, increase air quality and reduce the harm of emissions, and limit the impact of urban heat islands.
This story originally appeared on OhmConnect and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
