Category Archives: Miamisearise.com

3.1 Degrees

As the second week of COP29 continues, it’s worth considering that the Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty that was adopted in Paris, France during COP21 in late 2015 when 196 of the world’s nations agreed to a primary goal that seeks to limit global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius” above pre-industrial levels, while also setting what was called an ambitious goal to limit the actual increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius versus pre-industrial levels. It is these goals, especially the 1.5 degrees mark, that the nations of the world have since been focused on achieving so as to mitigate and avoid the most catastrophic and costly impacts of our climate crisis should temperatures rise above that mark by century end.

How are we doing since those goals were established?

Well, nine years after the Paris Agreement’s goals were published, society is currently on track to have temperatures increase between 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. Based on existing technologies, a rapid, seismic adjustment is needed by the nations of the world, especially the largest polluters such as China and the United States, if we are to have any chance of achieving the goals from Paris in 2015.

At COP29, which started this week in Baku, Azerbaijan, the world’s nations will review their progress and plans towards meeting the Paris Agreement goals and debate the updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NCDs) that I wrote about in my last post, revised plans that are due to be published in early 2025. The NDCs seek to determine how the world’s nations, by country and collectively, are progressing (or regressing) towards the Paris Agreement goals and it is my view that the outcome from this year’s COP on this topic will be one of the most important issue delegates address in Baku.

Just in time for COP29, the United Nations Environment Programme has published its most recent Emissions Gap Report, its 15th in an ongoing series in which the world’s leading climate scientists review ongoing trends and possible solutions with the Paris Agreement’s goals in mind. Given our current trajectory versus mankind’s stated goals from 2015, this year’s report is fittingly entitled “No more hot air … please!” As the report aptly summarizes, when it comes to transitioning our society to renewable energy and reducing the world’s greenhouse gas pollution there is a “massive gap between rhetoric and reality.”

This year’s report includes the illustration above that depicts where the world’s temperature is headed under various scenarios beginning with what is expected to happen if current policies continue (there is, for example, an estimated 100% chance that we will exceed the 1.5-degree aspirational goal from the Paris Agreement, a 97% chance of reaching or surpassing 2 degrees, and a 37% chance of reaching/exceeding 3 degrees). This table, and the first line within it that depicts a continuation of our current worldwide approach, helps explain the report’s conclusion that there is a “massive gap between rhetoric and reality.” Without dramatically increasing our shift away from polluting products and processes to renewables, it’s clear that we will exceed our current temperature goals and in doing so place our society and planet in dire danger.

You can find the most recent Emissions Gap Report from the UN here.

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What’s the Plan? Miami-Dade Back Bay Study Update

If our community ever has a chance at saving some of South Florida from rising seas and increasingly destructive storm surge caused by our climate crisis then maybe, just maybe, historians a hundred years from now will look back at the initial ground work comprised in what’s known as the Miami-Dade Back Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) Feasibility Study, or it’s more common name “the Back Bay Study.”

The importance of this initial work and how it will evolve in the decades to come is why I’ve been attending the various public planning meetings hosted by the federal government’s U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) Jacksonville, Florida and Norfolk, Virginia offices, along with Miami-Dade County’s Office of Resilience, including last Wednesday’s session held at the Town of Cutler Bay’s Town Hall in south Miami-Dade. The evening served as an in-person update on the status of the plan’s six pilot projects that the USACE is proposing be installed in and around Miami-Dade, including next steps as the plan seeks refinement before seeking Congressional approval much less seed money to fund the initial pilot programs. This week’s session in Cutler Bay followed the most recent significant step in the USACE process this last August when Lieutenant General Scott A. Spellmon, USACE Commanding General and 55th U.S. Army Chief of Engineers, signed what’s called the Chief’s Report for the Miami-Dade Back Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study at USACE Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The signing of the Report in August moved the $11.2 million federally funded study to the next phase of consideration for Congressional authorization and funding. The purpose of the study itself is to identify, evaluate, and recommend a set of prospective solutions for managing coastal storm surge risks to infrastructure, public health, and safety. The most recent iteration of the Chief’s Report recommends a nature-based solutions (NBS) pilot program and programmatic nonstructural studies for Congressional authorization which, together, are intended to help some of Miami-Dade County test a variety of solutions in hopes of protecting our region by reducing damage caused from future storm surge in a world where sea levels will be higher. I say “some of Miami-Dade” because the Village of Key Biscayne, the island community adjacent to the City of Miami that’s part of Miami-Dade County, is not included in the Back Bay Study but, instead, has a separate plan of its own.

Pilot Project Communities

The Back Bay Study is just that: a study. It is a test to try and learn what does and does not, perhaps, work. It is simply a pilot plan to experiment with a variety of storm surge resiliency steps, some manmade and others nature-based to learn whether they help. So to be clear, this is not a comprehensive solution but, I suppose, a start. Those six pilot projects will conceivably be expanded based on the initial test results and countless other factors. The six initial focus areas of the study include:

1. Biscayne Canal

2. Cutler Bay

3. Little River

4. Miami River

5. North Beach

6. South Beach

Sea Level Targets & Calculation Methodology

For their planning purposes the USACE is using a hydraulic model developed by the Hydrologic Engineering Center, called the River Analysis System (HEC-RAS). The HEC-RAS is used to develop a 50-year analysis of water surface profiles based on data from the USACE’s High Sea Level Curve projected out to 2095. The USACE calculates what’s called a 0.5% annual exceedance probability (AEP) stillwater evaluation from their South Atlantic Coastal Study (SACS), which is based on astronomical tide, storm surge, wave overtopping, and the USACE high sea level change scenario to the year 2095. Their process currently estimates seas could rise by about 4.5 feet and that target is what the initial plan takes into consideration.

Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST)

The magnitude of this problem and project is just immense. Beyond the planning, engineering, and physical work there are, for example, countless critical questions related to social vulnerability that must be answered such as what neighborhoods are vulnerable to storm surge and should be prioritized? Or what socioeconomic factors should help identify Environmental Justice communities? The USACE intends to use their Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) to initially identify Environmental Justice Communities within Miami-Dade County.

You can find the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool here.

Summary of The 2024 Chief’s Report

Here’s a brief summary of the key current components that the 2024 Chief’s Report calls for:

1. A Nature Based Solutions Pilot Program estimated to cost about $180,000,000. Those funds, if/when approved, would be deployed throughout Miami-Dade in the initial six focus areas noted above. That money would then be used to identify, design, construct, and monitor a diverse mix of projects including mangrove installations, mosquito ditches, wetland restoration, human-made island enhancements, living shorelines, dune reinforcement, and hybrid coral reef structures as but a few examples.

2. A Programmatic Nonstructural Study that would cost about $6,000,000 is designed to create a plan to review nonstructural steps to protect complex critical infrastructure facilities (such as hospitals) and large multi-family residential buildings.

3. The Chief’s Report also includes a proposed hope for the voluntary elevation of up to 2,052 residential buildings within the six study areas. I suspect that folks all along Florida’s coast will one day face difficult decisions about whether to raise their homes or sell their property, perhaps through eminent domain type processes, as their access or use becomes impaired. For this reason I was curious about the USACE’s experience with having people raise their homes and during the public Q&A that followed this week’s meeting I asked them about it. I asked about the USACE’s experience having citizens raise their homes, how many homes have been raised in other areas as a result of their work, the process itself, and how all of this was received by people. The answer is a bit concerning in that they explained that, “only about 25 homes around the country have been raised. We have communities around different parts of the US in various planning stages where elevating structures will be part of the plan but as of today our experience is pretty limited.”

4. It is also hoped that floodproofing could take place on a voluntary basis in up to 403 nonresidential commercial buildings.

5. And there is also the hope that up to 27 critical infrastructure facilities can also be floodproofed.

As noted, the Miami-Dade Back Bay study is currently focused on six pilot areas within our county. When I asked, for example, about Key Biscayne the USACE explained that that island community is undergoing its own, separate, planning within their office. And when I asked about Monroe County, the USACE’s folks explained that some of their engineers had, in fact, been in the Florida Keys just this past week performing preliminary site visits but that the focus in that county, for now, was Hurricane Evacuation (meaning the required elevation of the road [US1] and bridges so as to allow folks to evacuate the island chain before a catastrophic hurricane were to arrive). None of these disconnected initial plans will, of course, make all of South Florida resilient to rising seas and to have any chance of saving as much of the region as possible the day will, in my view, soon need to come to have a combined, consolidated, and gosh knows unbelievably costly comprehensive plan, but for now we are nowhere near that sort of thinking today.

You can find the complete 2024 Chief’s Report here.

What’s next for the Back Bay Study?

What’s Next? Well, this is a long-term study and much of what happens will depend on what Congress says, does, and funds. As of today, the targeted near-term milestones include the following:

1. Alternative Milestone Meeting on January 17, 2025

2. Tentatively Selected Plan Meeting on February 26, 2026

3. Public Release of Draft Report on April 22, 2026

4. Agency Decision Milestone Meeting on August 20, 2026

5. Final Report Submittal on April 3, 2027

6. Signed Chief’s Report on August 2, 2027

Of course, all of those meetings and milestones depend on how the study process progresses and, ultimately, whether Congress decides to fund the Back Bay Study work any further and when. As I said, we are in the very initial stages of planning and all of this is understandably an incredibly complex long-term project that will progress in countless ways based on funding, what’s installed, how the pilot projects perform, how our society grapples with addressing the core causes of climate change (fossil fuel and greenhouse gas use), and how the scientific data and engineering evolve in the future.

For now, I’d encourage everyone to become involved in the discussion, attend future meetings, and to actively voice their ideas or concerns along the way. To learn more about the USACE Miami-Dade Back Bay Study you can visit here.

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COP29 Baku, Azerbaijan: The Elephant in the Room (Pun Intended)

Today is the first day of the United Nation’s 29th Climate Summit known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP29 for short. This year’s event is being held in Baku, Azerbaijan and some 40,0000 delegates (less than 1/2 of the record attendance at COP28 in Dubai last year) from 197  nations are expected to discuss and debate the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that was first constructed in 1992 to create a global stage to address our climate crisis and discuss what mankind must collectively do together to solve this complex problem.

As in recent years, money will be atop everyone’s mind as the world discusses how to pay for the transition away from fossil fuels and to renewable energy that society is undertaking, but even more so during what some are calling the “Finance COP.” Priorities this year will include:

1. The New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG)

In 2009 the developed nations of the world agreed to set a goal of providing $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing nations reduce emissions and to pay for the resilience projects that they need to protect themselves from the resulting damage our warming world causes, such as sea level rise. The phrase that United Nations’ members use for that goal is create what’s called a “New Collective Quantified Goal,” or NCQG for short.

That goal was not met until 2022 and it’s now clear that the annual amount, the $100 billion, is far too little money to address our growing climate crisis in developing nations. Estimates of how much money is needed each year vary greatly, as do the ways experts calculate such costs, but by any measure it’s a sizable amount and likely somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion per year. At COP29 negotiators will debate increasing the amount needed each year, the timeframe, distribution of funds, and review the formula to calculate the amount that’s needed annually.

2. The Loss and Damage Fund

And, speaking of finance topics, during last year’s COP28 meeting in Dubai member nations were able to agree to terms for a Loss & Damage fund for the first time in history, including having the World Bank overseeing the fund and creating an oversight Board that will guide how the Fund operates. The idea of the Loss & Damage Fund is that it intends to help vulnerable nations, countries that often produce little carbon emissions that are causing the climate crisis but are subjected to the impacts of our climate crisis, address their physical and social infrastructure needs so that they can have access to money for adaptation and resiliency projects. At this year’s COP, the nations of the world will need to consider increasing the amount of money that they are willing to commit to the Fund and related topics.

You can learn more about the Loss & Damage Fund in a post I wrote while in Egypt for COP27 in 2022 entitled Life Over Death here or a post I wrote from Dubai last year entitled Math & Science here.

3. Reviewing & Revising Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s)

In Paris in 2015, countries around the world agreed to update their climate commitments, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), every five years and the next milestone for current data is in early 2025. Baku will be the last major meeting of the world’s nations before the new commitments are due to be published and, thus, COP29 is an ideal place to discuss and debate their plans and to ensure they are bold enough to align with the world’s agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as called for in the Paris Agreement. Is each country on track to meet its needed goals? Is society collectively on track? What adjustments need to be made to meet the goal?

4. Firm Commitments & Action Instead of Promises

“We made an agreement in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels. The problem? We aren’t doing that. We’re not implementing. The implications for everybody, and life on this planet, is gigantic.”
John Kerry, Former US Secretary of State & US Climate Envoy

Last year’s conference ended a half day later than its scheduled conclusion as negotiators furiously tried to have countries agree to a final agreement that called for a formal transition that would ultimately “phase out” fossil fuels. Over half of the countries were in unison on that goal, that wording, but alas delegates disappointingly failed to agree to include any reference to either a “phase out” or a “phase down” of fossil fuels. You can read about those final overtime hours and the resulting agreement in a post I wrote entitled COP Out? The Dubai Document here.

Although the conference concluded without a phase out or down formal agreement, many nations made all sorts of commitments on a range of important steps including promises to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, improve food resiliency, increased renewable energy production, reduce carbon in transportation, reduce methane pollution, and so forth. This year in Baku it will be important to witness whether the world’s nations affirm their COP28 promises by turning them into actionable plans with published specific steps they intend to take, detailed timeframes, and anticipated measurable goals so their progress can actually be transparently monitored. It’s one thing to make a pie in the sky promise and a vastly different one to take real steps to make the type of change we need to see before we run out of time. COP29 will be an important window into the world’s real dedication, by country, over making and accelerating the transition to renewables.

5. The United States of America 2024 Presidential Election

When I began writing this post, I intended to only include the four priorities noted above but the topsy turvy nature of global climate politics now demands that I include a fifth: how will the recently concluded 2024 U.S. election impact COP29?  America’s soon to again be new President has campaigned on a promise to have the United States exit the Paris Agreement, as well as to unwind any number of sustainable policies designed to help address our country’s transition to renewables and perhaps dramatically increase oil production while embracing antiquated technologies such as natural gas and carbon dioxide emitting vehicles.

You will recall that following his election in 2016 he did, in fact, have America exit the Paris Agreement, a decision that was then reversed by President Biden after his election in 2020 when America rightfully returned to being a participant. Any loss of time towards reducing America’s greenhouse gas production, much less embracing a global leadership position on the topic that will define a generation’s time on earth, should concern every citizen in our country and that’s especially true considering that 2024 is very likely soon to be designated the hottest year on record, as well as the first to trend above the 1.5 degrees Celsius aspirational goal in the Paris Agreement.

During COP29 America’s forthcoming Administration’s plans will certainly be the talk of the conference, including their impact on the NDCs’ updated planning mentioned above. That’s especially so given that the United States is currently the world’s second largest producer of carbon pollution. While the point of this post is to outline key issues at this year’s COP, I will say that playing politics is counterproductive to progressing the transition that our country and world need if we are to ever solve our climate crisis yet it appears clear that, once again, America sadly plans to do just that by going backwards in time by prolonging the transition, diminishing our country’s opportunity to lead the world’s transition, while increasing American taxpayers’ costs and the pain people and communities all over our country will suffer by siding with the polluters instead of our environment.

I think it’s fair to say that the nations of the world are intently watching the United States in light of last week’s election, likely saying “here we go again,” and asking themselves “how will our global society ever solve our climate crisis if America once again takes a dramatic steps backwards at such a critical time in the fight for our future?” The conference, discussions, debates, meetings, and all else that’s taking place in Baku mean little without a committed United States and that is likely to be the most important story in the world, and certainly at COP29, over the next two weeks.

#AlwaysBelieve, #BeInconvenient, #MyOceanPledge, #RatherBeInCourt, #SaveMiami, Baku, Climate Change, Delaney Reynolds, Eco Warrior, Global Warming, Miami, Miamisearise.com, Politics, Sea Level Rise, Sea Rise, The Sink or Swim Project
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