🌍 CAT Newsletter #200 - 2023-12-17 - 200 OK
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 200 (wow, already!) 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
This is the last newsletter of the year! We'll be back in January with issue 201 on Jan 7th, the first Sunday of 2024. Until then, here's one last round of community news & actions for you:
💗 Donate before the end of 2023, and get a thank you shout-out in the first issue of 2024
On the web, you might know that 404 means "not found", but look closer, and you'll there's a whole host of special numbers and status codes out there. 200 means "OK", and 201 means "resource created", which gave us the idea for what might be the nerdiest fundraiser we've ever tried.
In 2024, we'd like to support more events, both virtual and in person, and start funding small projects by CATS, that help people take climate action at work. So here's the deal - if you make a donation on Open Collective between now and the end of 2023, we'll set aside a special 201 RESOURCE CREATED section to thank you in the next newsletter, for …well… creating a resource to support other CATs in 2024.
Sound good?
You can join other CATs by making fast, convenient donation via Open Collective.
🎉 Celebrate with other CATs
With the end of 2023 fast approaching, it's time to celebrate! 🥳 Here are three places where you can celebrate the achievements of your fellow CATs and share what you were up to in 2023 or what you're planning in 2024:
- Share with just CATs on Slack in our ✨ new temporary #2-paws-and-plans channel
- Share publicly by adding a slide to our presentation archive of member projects, actions, and wins
- Share publicly by commenting on our year in review LinkedIn post
You can read more about our CAT year in review on our blog.
✏️ From our blog: Resources for Climate-Conscious Product Management
If you work in Product Management, you might look at all the guidance for AI, and for designers, and for developers, and given the dearth of useful content out there for PMs ask yourself "What about me?" Well, we're pdlease to share that CAT member Francois Burra thought the same, and put a playbook with 33 climate-friendly best practices for product managers. you can follow the post to read more, download the guide from the public page, but if you're a member of CAT, there's exclusive direct access to download the guide in the slack.
🌱 A cutting from Branch
Branch issue 7: Obtrusive Relationships
"What does the trouble look like when it comes, and what happens afterwards? Voss and Verhoeven reflect on the life and aftermath of a botanical project, where plants, electronics and reflections on institutional life transformed into pests, rot and lockdowns."
🎬 CAT Videos
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.
Planet A - Why the world is fighting over this super magnet
Ever heard of Neodymium? It's one of the most essential elements that nobody talks about. Without it, our EV wouldn't drive, our phones wouldn't work and our wind turbines wouldn't generate energy. This is a story of a rare earth metal that has many countries scrambling.
🐈 Tell us what you'd like to see more of
Our member survey is open! Please spend 5-7 minutes and share your thoughts about CAT.
Have a good break and see you next year!
🎤 Podcasts
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
Zero: Is COP28 the beginning of the end for the fossil fuel era?
COP28 comes to a close. 200 countries came together, 100,000 people flew in, and what did they produce? A piece of text. But sometimes that piece of text can have real world consequences. In this week's episode Akshat speaks with producer Oscar Boyd about what is in the final COP28 text and the significance of agreeing to transition off of fossil fuels.
Carbon copy: Making sense of advanced nuclear's stumbles
While global renewables have tripled in just over a decade, net global nuclear capacity has barely budged upward. The reality is that we may need to see capacity double — or even triple — by 2050 to keep us on a net-zero path, on top of tripling global wind and solar capacity. So this week, we'll revisit the stories shaping nuclear power in 2023. What's behind the recent troubles for nuclear startups? And can global nuclear capacity actually triple by 2050?
Environment Variables - Greening the Front End
Chris Adams is joined by Ines Akrap from Cognizant to talk all-things sustainable web design. Together, they delve into the nuances of designing energy-efficient websites and the challenges of green coding in frontend development. Ines shares valuable insights from her experiences at the Linux Energy Foundation Summit and the SDIA Green Coding Summit. The episode also explores common mistakes in optimizing sites for carbon efficiency
The Exponential View Podcast: 🔮 AI climate impact & imminent risks
This week, I spoke with Sasha Luccioni, an AI researcher and climate lead at Hugging Face, whose recent paper Watts Driving the Cost of AI Deployment? offers the first systematic comparison of the ongoing inference costs of various categories of machine learning systems. I wanted to speak with her about the energy cost of AI training and deployment, but also to go into the question of real AI risks, which was the topic of her TED Talk a couple of months ago.
Greenio: #29 Cosmology and Technology with Maxime Blondeau
Discussing with Maxime Blondeau results in such a journey where I discover how anthropology, geography, and cosmology can help us understand better digital technologies and more specifically: 🤯 Why Digital Tech is not the first mind revolution humanity has gone through
📰 News Highlights
Carbon Brief: COP28: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Dubai
Nearly every country in the world has agreed to "transition away from fossil fuels" – the main driver of climate change – at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai. It is the first time such an agreement has been reached in 28 years of international climate negotiations. However, many countries walked away from the talks frustrated at the lack of a clear call for a fossil-fuel "phase-out" this decade – and at a "litany of loopholes" in the text. Note: If reading around 30,000 words is a bit much, science communicator Professor Katherine Hayhoe has a nice accessble summary thread on Twitter, and has been posting similar ones all through the conference.
The Guardian: Paris mayor plans to triple SUV parking tariffs to cut air pollution
Paris intends to triple parking charges for large sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in order to push them out of the city and limit emissions and air pollution, the mayor has said. "It is a form of social justice," Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday of the plan to deliberately target the richest drivers to tackle the climate breakdown and air pollution.
CIBSE Journal: Smart homes, zero bills: Octopus Energy's scheme for housebuilders
Octopus Energy is offering a partnership with housebuilders that guarantees zero energy bills for occupiers using its Kraken technology platform. To sign up for the scheme, a house must be heated by an electric source, like a heat pump, be kitted out with solar PV and a battery, and have a broadband connection. These technologies are then optimised by Kraken, shaping the house's energy profile to complement the local electricirty grid.
Project Drawdown: Saving (for) the Planet: The Climate Power of Personal Banking
Project drawdown has published a new, comprehensive guide to assessing and reducing the climate impact of consumer banking. Its eye-opening analyses and actionable advice will help you ensure that your dollars (or whatever current you use) help build the future you want for yourself, your loved ones, and our planet. An easy present to yourself and others over the winter break.
MySociety: How we improved CAPE (Climate Action Plan Explorer) this year
CAPE is our data-packed website that makes it easier for everyone to track and improve local action on climate change, built in collaboration with Climate Emergency UK. If you're a council officer with climate duties; a researcher looking for climate data; an activist needing facts to back up your climate campaign; or simply an interested citizen, you'll find some truly invaluable facts and figures on CAPE. And if you haven't visited for a while, you're in for a surprise. Here's what we've added this year.
Climate Tech VC: High-flying fuels - The runway for sustainable aviation fuels
As we head towards the end of the year, many of us will be boarding a metal tube to hurtle hundreds of miles an hour towards home or wherever the tinsel and mistletoe may hang. Before taking off for the holidays, come cruise with us at 30,000 feet for a view on SAF chemistries, how they're made, and whether the market is riding business class or stuck in coach. Editor note: a thorough briefing on the current options for decarbonising aviation over the coming decade, and beyond.
CAAD (Climate Action against Disinformation) - COP, Look, Listen - The 'False Solutions' Lobby on Social Media
This Special Edition provides a window into the lobbying activity around false solutions online, in particular carbon capture and storage. Through various case studies, it shows how companies are trying to control the narrative via both paid-for and 'organic' content, and the tactical playbook used to reach a mainstream audience. (pdf link)
Green Software Foundation: Automated SCI Measurements with the Green Metrics Tool - A Use Case for Assessing Software Carbon Footprint
A case study in using the open source Green Metrics Tool for generating automated Software Carbon Intensity metrics, as part of a testing pipeline for digital service, showing real world examples of use on open source projects to learn from.
💼 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.
RouteZero - Full-stack software engineer - £30-35k - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
RouteZero is hiring a full-stack developer (Flutter and Typescript). We're decarbonising our customer's largest source of emissions: travel. We aim to prevent millions of tonnes of CO₂ entering the atmosphere by helping customers deploy the most effective carbon-cutting actions, from low-carbon travel booking to carbon budgets and social influence tools.
Elemental Excelerator - Portfolio Experience Analyst - $54,600 - $85,400 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
This role will be responsible for activating our community of engaged founders through the development of program communications, founder tools, newsletters, and general outreach, as well as supporting the organization and execution of portfolio-facing events and Elemental's accelerator program tracks. This is a dynamic position that works both cross-collaboratively within the organization to provide transparency across portfolio team initiatives, and directly with companies to help them scale and make a positive impact.
Elemental Excelerator - Policy Lab Senior Operations Manager - $86,500-$140,100/year - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Elemental is seeking a passionate self-starter to serve as a Policy Lab Senior Operations. This position will report to Elemental's Managing Director, Policy and support our work and systems to help Elemental's portfolio companies and key policy leaders scale climate solutions with deep community impact. The role will also work closely with our Senior Policy Advisor who leads our Policy Fellows program and with our Senior Manager of Portfolio Experience who supervises coaching and other supports for our portfolio companies. The role requires excellent collaboration skills, strong workflow management, strong execution and attention to detail, and ability to create and maintain systems that assess key trends and data to enable innovation and impact in our team's work.
Elemental Excelerator - Developer in Residence - The starting hourly rate for this opportunity is $150/hr. - Contract - Flexible - remote ok
Elemental is seeking a Developer in Residence to join our team and support our portfolio of climate tech entrepreneurs as they navigate the complexities of deploying a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) or early commercial climate tech project. In addition to bringing your expertise as a project developer to 1:1 and group work with our portfolio companies, you will serve as a thought partner to Elemental as we work to develop and build out more support offerings for our portfolio, including a roster of specialized project developers to support their journey.
Ford Foundation - Technology Fellow - 117k - 136k USD - Permanent - Onsite only
Ford Foundation's Natural Resources and Climate Change International (NRCC-I) team is hiring a Technology Fellow to join their team. The Tech Fellow will integrate into the NRCC team on a two-year contract, , and will also be a part of the broader Technology Fellowship Program, which was created to support integrated learning and action at the intersection of social justice and technology throughout the work of the foundation.