July 16, 2023

🌍 CAT Newsletter #179 - 2023-07-09

CAT 179 - 2023-07-16

Hey CATs,

Welcome to issue 179 of the climateAction.tech (CAT) Newsletter - your weekly summary of what's happening inside the CAT community, and in the wider world of climate and tech. New to CAT or looking to re-discover the community? Try out our onboarding checklist.

Remember you can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time - the link is at the bottom.

Stay safe & healthy 😌 💚 🐱

CAT Community News

#️⃣ Slack highlights

• #greener-infra: Aïda shared a video & article about how Meta are planning to lessen the impact of AI by improving performance and efficiency of data centers, software, and hardware. Share your thoughts

• #greener-webdev: Caroline shared some digital carbon footprint stats in this post and asked what folks think about the numbers and what we should be focussing on.

• #climate-justice: Ariel shared a webinar series where you can learn more about the US Environmental and Climate Justice Grant Program.

We’ve also been cleaning up our channels this week! #cycling has been deleted and you can use #mobility. #gigs has been deleted and you can use #freelance instead. #investing and #funding have been combined and renamed to #finance. And #spatial-spectral is now called #built-envrionment.

📆 CAT events

On Wednesday Björn organised a #local-austria meetup in Vienna! Around 12 attendees joined for discussions and even a little code demo! Head to the #local-austria channel to chat or help organise the next one. If you’re somewhere else on the globe and want to organise a CAT co-owned meetup, let folks in your #local channel know and tag @Sandra.

Upcoming events

👋 Thu, Jul 20 · CAT Coffee (western-friendly): Networking

In August we’ll be taking a break with our events.

🍩 Community networking

Our next #cat-roulette matches are going out on Fri, July 21!

⚠️ This will be the match before we take a summer break. Channel host Brett will share more in the #cat-roulette channel.

✋ Looking for volunteers

📚 Host a summer book club • 5h (one-off)
If you want to not just read ‘How to blow up a pipeline’ this summer but help host a one-off CAT book club event, let us know in this thread.

📆 CAT Submitted Events

Want an event listed here? Use this event listing form to submit the details so we can add it in the newsletter.

Tue Jul 18 2023 - Green tech fireside chat with Dale Vince

Join us for an informal fireside chat with the pioneering Dale Vince, Green Industrialist and Founder of Ecotricity. As this is a hybrid event you can choose to join in person (Bristol, UK) or online. All welcome!

Fri Jul 21 2023 - How much of the internet is covered by credible Net Zero targets? - Virtual Event

Wikirate and Green Web Foundation are teaming up on a project over the summer to create a open dataset to understand how much of the internet is covered by Net Zero targets. Learn to research companies, and contribute to a shared open data resource of sustainability information.

Check #external-events in the CAT slack for more.

🎬 CAT videos

CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.

Hugging Face - The carbon footprint of Transformers

Have you ever wondered what the carbon footprint of training a Transformers model is? And how you can reduce it? Then don't look further than this short video, featuring fellow CAT, and Hugging Face Climate Lead Sasha Luccioni. See also, her post in Ars Technica this year, about the mounting human and environmental costs of generative AI.

🎤 Podcasts

Environment Variables - The Week in Green Software: Data Center LCA with Stani Borisová

This episode of The Week in Green Software,features guest Stani Borisová; Expert Life Cycle Management at IVL and former researcher at RISE Sweden, covering how to make the waste heat from datacentres a useful resource (especially for meal worms), and how 40% of the servers deployed in Europe use two/thirds of the energy, but only offer 7% of the computing power.

Zero: How Canada figured out a carbon tax and gave the money back

Canada is a leading producer of oil and gas. It’s also one of the few G7 members with a carbon tax. As Minister of Environment and Climate Change in 2015, Catherine McKenna was charged with getting Canadians on board with that policy. One of the most important tactics was calling it “a price on pollution.” Carbon taxes are having a moment after the Paris Climate Finance Summit and Cath joins Akshat this week to talk about the political practicalities of passing a carbon tax.

Catalyst with Shayle Khan: The early days of transoceanic hydrogen transport

There’s a crowded field of technologies competing to move hydrogen across the oceans. Which one will come out on top? In this episode, Shayle talks to Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs’ Center on Global Energy Policy, about what will replace the oil tankers crossing the seas, in the coming decades.

The Carbon Copy: A groundbreaking long-duration battery nears industrial scale

Form Energy makes an iron-air battery capable of delivering electricity for 100 hours. The startup is now preparing for high-volume manufacturing. This week we talked with CEO Mateo Jaramillo about Form Energy’s transition from an R&D and engineering company to a high-volume manufacturer. Is it a sign of what’s to come for the U.S. industrial base?

The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs

📰 News Highlights

Grist: Extreme heat prompts first-ever Amazon delivery driver strike

Heat waves can delay flights and melt airplane tarmac, but Amazon won’t let them hinder Prime deliveries. Extreme heat and unsafe working conditions under the merchant giant have now spurred drivers to unionize. In Southern California, 84 delivery drivers joined the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and negotiated the first union contract among any Amazon workers in the country. And since June 24, these workers have been on an indefinite strike.

The Guardian: EU passes nature restoration law in knife-edge vote

The EU has narrowly passed a key law to protect nature – a core pillar of the Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s European Green Deal – after months of fiery debate and an opposition campaign scientists criticised as misleading. The nature restoration law will place recovery measures on 20% of the EU’s land and sea by 2030, rising to cover all degraded ecosystems by 2050.

CNN: China is set to shatter its wind and solar target five years early, new report finds

China is on track to double its wind and solar energy capacity and hit its 2030 clean energy targets five years early, a new report has found. Solar capacity in China is now greater than the rest of the world combined. Its onshore and offshore wind capacity has doubled since 2017, and is roughly equal to the combined total of the other top seven countries, according to the study from the non profit Global Energy Monitor.

Rocky Mountain Institute: Renewable energy deployment surge puts global power system on track for the IEA’s ambitious net-zero pathway

Rapid growth in solar, wind and battery deployment means that by 2030 the global electricity system can deliver ambitious net-zero pathways, according to new research by RMI done in partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund. Uruguay, Denmark, Lithuania, Namibia, Netherlands, Palestine, Jordan, and Chile have all already grown solar and wind generation at rapid speeds, demonstrating that a rapid transition can be achieved across many different contexts, research from Systems Change Lab shows.

Datacentre Dynamics: Meta report shows the company causes far more emissions than it can cover with renewable energy

Facebook owner Meta has been growing too fast to achieve its goal of being net zero in 2030, according to a report it has issued. Meta admits its growth over the last five years has vastly exceeded its ability to cancel the emissions: “Our business growth accelerated at a faster pace than we can scale decarbonization." The company says: “Early in this decade, we do not expect decarbonization and business growth to be in harmony.” Including factors such as staff returning to offices after the pandemic, Meta’s emissions increasing 46 percent in 2022.

The Guardian: US Republicans oppose climate funding as millions suffer in extreme weather

Nearly 90 million Americans are facing heat alerts this week, yet GOP members are wrangling over spending to reduce emissions. Swaths of the US are baking under record-breaking heat, yet some lawmakers are still attempting to block any spending to fight the climate crisis, advocates say.

Reuters: Cerberus heatwave threatens new record temperatures for Europe

The European Space Agency (ESA), whose satellites monitor land and sea temperatures, said July could be a torrid month. "Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland are all facing a major heatwave with temperatures expected to climb to 48 Celsius on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia – potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe," it said.

💼 Jobs

Remember only jobs listing salary ranges are listed here - to get your job listed, you need to list a salary range. Folks can still look in the #jobs channel.

Climate Arc - DevOps / API Developer - GBP 50k - 70k - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

Climate Arc is building an open data platform to help shifting global finance towards responsible companies. We're currently looking for someone to help building foundational elements of our platform, including DevOps, automation, monitoring and well as develop API layer exposing our data assets externally.

ICCT - Associate Researcher, Aviation, Berlin - 64K EUR - Permanent - Flexible

The ICCT seeks a highly motivated and committed Associate Researcher for the Aviation Program in Berlin, Germany. This position will support research to identify, refine, and promote policies to reduce the environmental impacts of commercial aviation.

TransitionZero - Software Engineer - £45,000 to £65,000 per annum (depending on experience level) - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

We are seeking a talented junior or mid-level software engineer with a passion for sustainability, skills and experience writing back-end data services with Python, and a knowledge of Python development to build data handling scripts, API routes, data models, schemas, migrations, and containerised jobs and services. You will be working on The Future Energy Outlook, an open-source data and modelling platform that aims to make energy systems analysis auditable, accountable, and reproducible, and TransitionZero's new flagship product.

Vayda - Fractional Engineering Lead - $100-200/hr depending on experience - Contract - Flexible - remote ok

Hi everyone! We are hiring our first Eng Leader on a fractional basis to drive development of a data-centric product in the regenerative agriculture and climate space, building off of the company's direct knowledge and experience in regenerative farm operations. The company is a Series A startup backed directly by institutional investors (lead: Ontario Teachers Pension Plan).

David Energy - Customer Support Lead - $90,000 - $120,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

David Energy is a new kind of power company. One that’s better for customers and for the planet. We’re on a mission to transform the electrical grid with 24/7 clean, renewable energy – and give customers greater transparency and control while we do it. We are seeking a passionate and strategic Customer Support Lead to own our support experience for our residential customers. If you enjoy working on complex problems, excel at creating delightful experiences, and have a knack for elegant solutions and scalable processes, we’d love to connect with you.

Cercula - Software Developer - Up to £55,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

Cercula is an award-winning construction tech & sustainability startup, working towards the decarbonisation of the construction industry. In short, we take a list of materials for a construction project, match each one in our database of materials carbon data, and produce a report on the building's whole-life carbon impact. We're looking for experienced developers to work on our API and databases, at the core of Cercula's business, as well as on our user-facing front-end and AWS deployment. Our stack is primarily TypeScript and Postgres on AWS (including serverless). If you are interested in social and climate change, and want to contribute to solving major environmental problems by decarbonising a high-impact industry, please reach out!

Elemental Excelerator - Portfolio Innovation Manager - $73,000 - $119,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

Elemental is looking for a highly collaborative, organized, and experienced individual to work with our Portfolio Team, assisting with the recruitment, diligence, and management of Elemental’s energy portfolio companies. For this position, we are looking for an individual who can design projects, manage deliverables and reporting, provide thought partnership on portfolio company strategy, and work with the Directors of Innovation across sectors and organization functions.

Elemental Excelerator - Creative Intern - $25 per hour - Internship - Totally remote

In this role, you will support the team on photo and creative asset organization, in addition to helping to brainstorm new ways to share the Elemental story! This is a highly creative and flexible team within the organization that will ultimately be expected to deliver creative assets for our organization.

Supercritical - Multiple - Multiple salaries ranging from £40k - £150k+ - Permanent

We're a climate tech company, helping software/service-based businesses to measure their carbon footprints, and remove their emissions from the atmosphere with carbon removal. We've just raised a €13m Series A with Lightspeed and have a truly amazing team working on our mission.