Equilibrium/Sustainability — Gates: Developing nations must be allowed to build

Emerging economies now account for the biggest share of global greenhouse gas emissions but they should not be expected to put the brakes on domestic growth, according to Bill Gates.

“Low- and middle-income countries are building aggressively to achieve the standard of living their people aspire to — and they should be,” the co-founder of Microsoft wrote in a memo Tuesday.

“Many countries in Europe and North America filled the atmosphere with carbon to achieve prosperity,” Gates continued. “It is both unrealistic and unfair to expect everyone else to forgo a more comfortable life because that carbon turned out to change the climate.” 

More than 70 countries around the world — including major polluters like the U.S. and the EU — have pledged to reach net-zero, Gates acknowledged.  

Yet three-quarters of the global population resides in emerging economies — which now account for two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions, according to Gates.  

Arguing that climate solutions therefore need to be global, rather than national, Gates stressed the importance of driving down the cost of new clean technologies and deploying them quickly.  

“As long as clean cement costs twice as much as traditionally manufactured cement, for example, the vast majority of buyers simply won’t choose it,” he stated.  

While he credited both the public and private sectors for significant investments in green technologies, Gates expressed doubts that the market alone will keep pace with the change needed over the next few decades. 

“We need a plan to speed the process up,“ he said. 

That plan, he explained, will require more research, development and demonstration, as well as the advancement of a fair process for scaling up and investments in helping people adapt to climate change.  

“I am optimistic about what people are capable of in a crisis, and in the long run, I wouldn’t bet against us,” Gates said. 

Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Sharon Udasin and Saul Elbein. 

Today, we’ll see just how widespread “forever chemicals” are in U.S. waterways, followed by a look at the double threat of floods and fire in the Southwest. Then we’ll turn to Europe, where a gas price cap is under debate.

Most US waterways plagued by ‘forever chemicals’

More than 83 percent of U.S. waterways recently sampled in a nationwide survey were contaminated by cancer-linked “forever chemicals,” a new analysis revealed. 

Most waterways affected: Out of 114 rivers and creeks assessed across the country, 95 waterways showed detectable levels of these toxic compounds, according to the analysis, conducted by the Waterkeeper Alliance.  

• Nearly all these waterways were contaminated by at least one type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — of which there are thousands.  
  
• Multiple PFAS compounds were present in most of the samples.  

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg: In some spots, contamination levels were thousands to hundreds of thousands of times higher than what experts have deemed safe for drinking water, the researchers warned.  

“When we began testing waterways for PFAS earlier this year, we knew that our country had a significant PFAS problem, but these findings confirm that was an understatement,” Marc Yaggi, CEO of Waterkeeper Alliance, said in a statement.  

What are PFAS, again? Known for their presence in jet fuel, firefighting foam and industrial discharge, PFAS are also key ingredients in a variety of household products.  

• Living up to their “forever chemical” epithet, these compounds tend to linger in both the human body and the environment.  
  
• They have been linked to many illnesses, such as thyroid disease, kidney cancer and testicular cancer.  

How did the study occur? Work on the ground occurred via 113 local Waterkeeper branches, which took samples in 34 states and in the District of Columbia this past May through July.  

The groups took a total of 228 samples from 114 rivers and creeks in these territories and ran laboratory analyses for 55 types of PFAS.  

What were some key findings? The most frequent types of PFAS detected were PFOA and PFOS — for which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently tightened its health advisory limits.  

• PFOS was detected above the EPA’s interim health advisory level of
  0.02 parts per trillion at 159 of the 228 sampling sites. 
  
• One part per trillion is equal to about one droplet in an Olympic-size swimming pool.  
  
• The highest level of PFOS detected was 1,364.7 parts per trillion, found in a sample from Piscataway Creek, Md. 

To see what else the analysis found, please click here for the full story.

Fires, floods threaten Southwest drinking water 

This summer, a combination of wildfire and monsoons put the small city of Las Vegas, N.M., on the verge of running out of water. 

• That crisis — caused by mud and debris washing down from the blackened areas left by wildfire — was averted just three weeks before water supplies ran out.  
  
• But as Saul and our colleague Rachel Frazin explore in the latest installment of The Hill’s Dried Up series, the near-miss underscores the danger that combined forest fires and floods pose to the towns and cities of the Southwest. 

Anatomy of the problem: The New Mexico wildfire — a U.S. Forest Service-planned burn that got out of control — raged through local forests.  

Subsequent flooding then carried sediment, metals and chemicals down the nearby Gallinas River, making the water too contaminated for the area’s treatment system, according to Maria Gilvarry, Las Vegas utilities director.  

Changing climate patterns: The Southwest region has always been defined by a cyclical weather pattern of drought and monsoon. 

• But climate change is making each event more intense and variable. 
  
• That is creating both drier, longer droughts and more intense rains that can ravage landscapes.  

Fire and water working together: Yet in the aftermath of a wildfire, those rains often fail to return water to the areas that need it most.   

High-intensity flames can eliminate both the canopies that normally trap heavy rains and the root systems that help hold the earth in place.  

Investing in forests: Fears of wildfire-induced water contamination have led Western cities including Phoenix, Albuquerque and Denver to invest heavily in “fuel treatments” to reduce the severity of wildfires in the watersheds that supply urban faucets. 

• These upland forests are so important that Christina Burri of Denver Water calls them “critical infrastructure.”  
  
• The city and its public and private partners have invested $66 million in forest maintenance since 2010 — and thinks the project pays for itself. 

“It’s just more costly to be reactive,” Burri said.  

Taking a gamble: But these treatments are expensive, forcing some cities to confront agonizing decisions. 

• In New Mexico, with limited resources to deploy, officials “gambled” by only doing large-scale fuel reductions in the watershed that supplies Albuquerque, New Mexico state forester Laura McCarthy said.  
  
• Officials protected Albuquerque’s water supply by treating the forests of the Rio Grande watershed — and hoped that the Gallinas River, which they didn’t treat, wouldn’t burn. 

In that region, McCarthy said, “we failed.” 

To read the rest of the story, please click here. 

EU proposes gas price cap ahead of winter 

The European Commission announced a proposal on Tuesday that would seek to cap soaring gas prices without jeopardizing industries and businesses, The Associated Press reported.  

Meeting in the middle: Ahead of a key summit on Thursday, EU leaders have been working to ensure that high prices and supply shortages don’t spark unrest across the bloc, according to the AP.  

• The European Commission needs to keep all 27 members united against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who cut off pipeline gas to the region amid his war in Ukraine.  
  
• The proposal aims to reconcile differences between those who want to institute a common price cap and those who think doing so would keep out supplies and harm business.  

What’s in the proposal? The plans include measures to encourage companies to pool their demand and purchase gas together and negotiate better prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Other elements involve rules as to how gas could be shared across borders and ways to limit volatility in energy markets, according to the Journal.   

More specifically? The proposal would apply to the bloc’s benchmark gas contract, the Dutch Title Transfer Facility, according to the Journal.  

• This would be a temporary step as officials work to arrange a more permanent benchmark for liquefied natural gas. 
  
• Several conditions would need to be met, including assurances that gas flow to EU nations is not interrupted.  

Acting in unity: “Russia’s war on Ukraine has severe consequences on global and European energy markets,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, according to The Guardian.  

• “We act in unity and have prepared well for the winter ahead, filling our gas storages, saving energy, and finding new suppliers,” von der Leyen continued.  
  
• “Now we can tackle excessive and volatile prices with more security,” she added.
  
  

A WWII shipwreck is still polluting the North Sea 

An 80-year-old World War II shipwreck is still leaking hazardous pollutants — such as explosives and heavy metals — into the sediment of the North Sea, a new study has found.

This ongoing contamination is influencing the marine microbiology and the geochemistry of the ocean floor where the ship rests, according to the study, published in Frontiers in Marine Science on Tuesday. 

Just one of many: Yet this vessel is just one of thousands of ship and aircraft wrecks, warfare agents and millions of tons of conventional munition lingering in the depths of the North Sea, the study authors warned.  

And while these wrecks contain dangerous substances, there is a lack of information as to their exact locations and how they might affect the environment, the researchers observed.

Probing history: As part of the North Sea Wrecks Project, researchers from Belgium’s Ghent University explored how the V-1302 John Mahn shipwreck is affecting the surrounding microbiome and seabed.  

• The V-1302 John Mahn was a German fishing trawler that was repurposed during World War II to work as a patrol boat.  
  
• In 1942, however, the ship was attacked by the British Royal Air Force and quickly sank. 

What did they find? Among the toxins the researchers identified were heavy metals — such as nickel and copper — as well as arsenic and explosive compounds.  

• The highest metal concentrations were in samples closest to the ship’s coal bunker.  
  
• Also close to the ship were high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — chemicals that occur naturally in coal, crude oil and gasoline.   

Forgotten past: “People often forget that below the sea surface, we, humans, have already made quite an impact on the local animals, microbes, and plants living there and are still making an impact, lead author Josefien Van Landuyt said in a statement.

These artificial vessels, Van Landuyt added, are “leaching chemicals, fossil fuels, heavy metals from — sometimes century old — wrecks we don’t even remember are there.” 

To read the full story, please click here.  

Tuesday Troubles

New Jersey takes on big oil, Treasury investigates effects of climate change on insurance and Michiganders face blackouts amid early season storm.  

NJ files lawsuit against five oil and gas companies 

• New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against five oil and gas companies and a petroleum trade group, alleging that they made false claims to deceive the public about the effects of climate change, Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced on Tuesday. The state is accusing the defendants of “systematically concealing and denying their knowledge that fossil fuel consumption could have a catastrophic impact on the climate.”   

Treasury considers probe into climate impacts on insurance 

• The Treasury Department is weighing whether climate change-driven weather extremes are increasing property and casualty insurance costs, our colleague Rachel Frazin reported. “The recent impacts in Florida from Hurricane Ian demonstrate the critical nature of this work and the need for an increased understanding of insurance market vulnerabilities in the United States,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.  

Michigan storm stirs up powerful waves in Great Lakes 

• An early season storm in Michigan has brought with it powerful winds and waves in the Great Lakes region and more than a foot of snow in some areas, according to The New York Times. More than 28,000 customers lacked power on Tuesday afternoon, the Times reported, citing the website Poweroutage.us.
  
  

Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you tomorrow.