🌍 CAT Newsletter 221 - 2024-05-26
CAT 221 - 2024-05-26
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 221 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
🙋 Get involved
Our funded mini grant project "How to become a Climate-Conscious Product Manager" case studies and CAT conference is now looking for case studies - practical examples to bring the theory to life and inspire action. Share your story if you've taken any actions towards making your digital product and/or organization more climate conscious and more sustainable (successfully or not), we'd love to hear from you. Submit your case study here, and we'll review for potential inclusion the next version of the Playbook: https://forms.gle/R4vEgtRLcZD3TxjW7
🧠 Knowledge base deepdive
Greener Infra: Want to make more sustainable choices when it comes to your IT infrastructure? Log into the CAT knowledge base with your CAT Slack account to learn about ways of reducing impact, and explore resources on greener cloud providers, provisioning, programming languages & more. And help a fellow CAT green their stack by adding your recommendations.
📅 CAT events
Tue, May 28 - London [in person]: Code Green London May Meetup (Community Organised Event)
Check our channels with the #local prefix on Slack for more local events and conversations.
🍩 Community networking
Get to know other CATs and make some friends in the community. Every 2 weeks, we match 2-3 CATs so you can connect over a quick 30-minute call. Simply join #cat-roulette, pick your region and wait for a message from Donut about your match! Our next round of matches will go out on Fri, June 7. More info
Media, events, and news
😺 CAT recommendations
🌱 A cutting from Branch issue 8
Care for life, care for the chips: the future is re-used, recycled and permacomputing
"The movement started with technology - a lot of artists or creators that are working on this intersection of permaculture, working with plants and mycelia, for example. The goal is to create this idea that computation is just a part of the ecosystem, to make people aware that computing and devices and everything that we own is….created by us, but it's been powered and built with natural resources."
▶️ CAT videos
10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.
Planet A: Europe's ludicrous hydrogen bet
Europe's betting big on hydrogen – despite a lot of drawbacks. Is the continent's hydrogen strategy overblown? And if so… why?
🎤 Podcasts
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
Outrage and Optimism: 247. The Pope's Hope? Biden's Tariffs and Jeremy Clarkson's About-Turn
On this week's show….
Christiana's Corner: Dive into the riveting insights from Christiana as she unpacks the recent CBS interview with the Pope where he declared "Climate change at this moment is a road to death." Discover why she believes stubborn optimism is our strongest ally in turbulent times.
Paul's Perspective: Join Paul as he shines a spotlight on the pressing issue of green tariffs. Get ready for a deep dive into how these tariffs can revolutionize our approach to sustainability.
Tom's Take: Brace yourself for a captivating argument from Tom as he advocates for the redemption of none other than Jeremy Clarkson. It seems his newfound role as a farmer has transformed his outlook on climate change…
Catalyst with Shayle Khan: Delta's chief sustainability officer on the early days of buying sustainable aviation fuels
Airlines are lining up to buy as much sustainable aviation fuel as they can, despite it costing two to three times more than conventional jet fuel, according to BloombergNEF.
United Airlines has secured 2.9 billion gallons of SAF, and others like Delta, Air France-KLM, and Southwest have secured around 1 billion gallons each. And yet to meaningfully decarbonize aviation, the SAF market needs to grow thousands of times larger than it is today. BNEF estimates that global production capacity will grow 10-fold by 2030, but by then supply will still only meet 5% of jet fuel demand. So how are airlines thinking about scaling up their procurement of SAF?
Environment Variables Year Two Roundup
Join us for a special episode of Environment Variables as we celebrate over a year two years of bringing you the best insights on Green Software! In this episode, we explore the key insights and voices that have contributed to the weaving of sustainability through our conversations this year. Tune in for a refresher on the most interesting discussions on the progress, challenges, and future of green software development
Green IO #39 - European Regulations in Tech: some insider perspectives with Kim Van Sparrentak and Max Schulze
🔎 Major regulations have been built up in Europe these past years impacting the Tech sectors. How have they been built? What does it take to pass these kinds of bills in the unique European Union political system? And what are the consequences for the people working in the digital industry?
🎙️ This episode 39 welcomes Kim Van Sparrentak, a Member of the European Parliament involved in legislation related to tech and sustainability, and Max Schulze, the founder and chairman of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance, one of the main lobby groups for more responsible technology. Together with Gael Duez, they share their perspective on the European regulations in Tech.
Datacentre Dynamics Zero Downtime: Episode 55 - The half-life of nuclear data centers with Chris Lohse, Idaho National Laboratory
Nuclear power may have its detractors, but amid a growing capacity crunch data center operators are becoming increasingly interested in whether atoms can provide the electrons needed to power tomorrow's high-density facilities.
In this episode, Chris Lohse of the Idaho National Laboratory, talks about the recent innovations around nuclear power, the highs and lows of recent years, and what the future might hold for nuclear-powered data centers.
Carbon Copy: AI's main constraint: Energy, not chips
As hyperscalers scramble to build new data centers, experts agree that energy is a major bottleneck — but the technologies exist to serve new loads cleanly.
So, are growing concerns over AI's power demand justified? How are they contributing to America's growing hunger for electricity? And what technologies and grid management techniques can address it?
Volts: Envisioning a more democratic, bottom-up energy system
In this episode, California electricity guru Lorenzo Kristov shares his vision of a just, democratic, "bottom-up" grid based in distributed local energy. Kristov was a principal at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which runs California's electricity grid, for more than 18 years. He left in 2017 to become an independent consultant, analyst, and all-around electricity guru.
Drilled Media: The Coordinated Attack on Shareholder Activism
The backlash against ESG is continuing, with a string of lawsuits aimed at shutting down shareholder activism. We don't often talk about shareholder activism in the vein of protecting protest, but it's absolutely part of the story. Andrew Behar, CEO of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, joins us to explain what's going on, and why anyone who cares about basic rights needs to be tuning into the ESG fight.
Simplifying: How Safe Landing is challenging the status quo for a greener future in aviation
In this episode of our ‘Sustainability in the Air’ podcast, Finlay Asher, co-founder of Safe Landing, speaks with SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam. Safe Landing is a global community of aviation workers who are working within the sector to reduce the climate impact of aviation.
Asher believes that groups like Safe Landing empower people and offer a unique platform for sustainability advocacy. Within companies there are limited opportunities for championing such concerns, as employees may fear negative career consequences for expressing views that conflict with company strategy. As a result, this discourages them from speaking up even when the issues are critical to the industry’s safety and sustainability, he adds.
(why link to this in a climateAction.tech newseletter? Aviation makes up more than a third of many tech firms reported emissions each year)
📅 Submitted events
Want an event listed here? Use this event listing form to submit the details so we can add it in the newsletter.
Wed May 29 2024 - Green Software Ireland Launch
This meetup will be the jumping off point for our new community. We can discuss the ideas and goals of green software, what it means to us, what we want from a community like this and ideas for future events.
Thu May 30 2024 - Introduction to Digital Sustainability Workshop
This in-person workshop in Brighton on 30 May will pilot a Digital Sustainability Strategy card game. All welcome and free to participate, but places are limited. We'll explore the use of creativity and play to increase awareness and share best practice around sustainable ICT.
Fri May 31 2024 - ClimateCon! Boulder 2024
ClimateCon! is a launchpad that brings people together – in person and online – to boost collective action on climate change.
Wed Jun 05 2024 - Trend study on Green Coding
The Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH (dena) with support of Green Coding Solutions is doing a trend study on Green Coding to understand current levers for energy reduction and hurdles for implementation.
Tue Oct 08 2024 - The Global Nature Positive Summit 2024
Global Nature Positive Summit aims to boost private sector investment to protect and repair our environment. With a focus on solutions to climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
📰 News Highlights
Links to discuss each story in the CAT salck
Carbon Brief: South Africa election 2024: What the manifestos say on energy and climate
Nearly 28 million South African registered voters will go to the polls on 29 May to elect more than 800 representatives to the national assembly and provincial legislatures. In the interactive grid below, Carbon Brief tracks the commitments made by South Africa's leading political party, the ANC, and its closest challengers, the DA and EFF, in their latest election manifestos. The grid covers a range of issues connected to climate change.
Latitude Media: Landfills leak methane at alarming rates, new research shows
Nearly a fifth of U.S. methane emissions come from landfills. Advocates are calling on the EPA to crack down on this source of climate pollution. A recent study by Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit that operates methane-detecting satellites, found methane emissions from landfills are 40 percent higher than previously estimated.
Ecosia: European elections have never mattered more
Ecosia - Europe's largets search engine on the coming European Elections: From June 6th-9th 2024, European elections will determine the set-up of the European Parliament, which in turn will steer policy-making for the next five years — and this includes the climate. Sadly, polls show that most young people don't intend to vote. That's a pity, because it's young people who tend to vote with the climate in mind, and this time around, in some countries, the voting age has gone down to 16 years — meaning the influence could be bigger than ever. It's no exaggeration to say that these are the most important EU elections ever for the climate. We have so much to win, and so much to lose.
Sustainable Brands: LEGO Employee Pay Now Linked to Meeting Climate Goals
LEGO Group has become the most recent corporate giant to tie its compensation packages to progress toward its climate goals — specifically, reducing its operational carbon emissions. But LEGO's move is unique in that it's applying the new performance-management program not just to its senior leadership — the toymaker will now incentivize and reward its entire global, salaried workforce for contributing to its carbon-reduction targets
Carbon Brief: EU election 2024: What the manifestos say on energy and climate change
The new European Parliament, the new Commission and member states must also agree in the coming months on an emissions target for 2040, a stepping stone on the bloc's wider path to "climate neutrality" by 2050.
These decisions will be influenced by which parties triumph in the parliamentary elections.
In the interactive grid below, Carbon Brief tracks the commitments made by each of the main European Parliament groupings in their election manifestos, across a range of issues related to climate and energy.
Data center Dynamics: Microsoft and G42 to build geothermal-powered data center in Kenya
A data center run entirely on geothermal energy will be built in Kenya as part of a $1 billion investment by Microsoft and Dubai-based AI firm G42.
The companies and the Kenyan government have signed a letter of intent confirming the investment, which will comprise a number of measures designed to boost Kenya's digital economy.
Nearly a fifth of U.S. methane emissions come from landfills. Advocates are calling on the EPA to crack down on this source of climate pollution.
Green Screen Network: Announcing the new Catalyst Fund awardees tackling climate justice and digital rights
We are overjoyed to share the long-awaited cohort of awardees from the recent Catalyst Fund open call. The Green Screen Catalyst Fund is one of the first explicit attempts to invest in and support practitioners at the intersection of climate justice and digital rights.
As Michael Brennan and Hanan Elmasu wrote in Branch Magazine: Our approach as funders is to catalyze groups and individuals who have previously worked alone, or struggled to fit into siloed thematic philanthropic portfolios that saw neither the interdependence of technology and environment, nor the direct implications of technology on the planet and people.
This funding round attempts to do just that.
Greenbiz: Microsoft launches initiative to counter 30% rise in Scope 3 emissions since 2020
Microsoft's Scope 3 accounts for about 96 percent of its total emissions. Of that, three-quarters are related to purchased goods, Nakagawa told GreenBiz in an interview. The company launched a company-wide initiative to reverse that trend, Nakagawa said. That strategy includes more than 80 "discrete and significant measures," including a new requirement that requires "high volume" suppliers — those with which it most frequently does business — to use carbon-free energy by 2030. It previously required them to reduce absolute emissions a minimum of 55 percent by that timeframe.
The Guardian: Alarm as German climate activists charged with 'forming a criminal organisation'
Five members of Letzte Generation, Germany's equivalent to Just Stop Oil, have been charged with "forming a criminal organisation", a move civil rights campaigners say could in effect criminalise future support for the climate campaign. The activists say all their protests were open, accountable and non-violent, and contested the use of such a draconian law against them.
"This is the first time in German history that a climate protest group that uses measures of peaceful civil disobedience is charged as a criminal organisation," Herrman said.
Nature: Why role-playing games can spur climate action
"I co-designed the deck-building card game Carbon City Zero with Paul Wake, a games researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, and the London-based climate charity Possible. Initially, players competed individually to build the first zero-carbon city. But after they fed back that the competitive aspect sent the wrong message, we made Carbon City Zero: World Edition, in which players must cooperate to fight the climate crisis."
Reuters: Exxon case against activist shareholder can proceed, US judge rules
A U.S. judge on Wednesday allowed a lawsuit filed by Exxon Mobil against two activist groups seeking to bar their climate resolution to go ahead against one of the groups. The oil company's lawsuit raised alarm among activists and proxy advisers who argued it would muzzle debate among shareholders and public companies. (Note: For more, see the Drilled Media episode linked above - The Coordinated Attack on Shareholder Activism).
Clean Technica: Ethiopia Shows Us Just How Fast The Transition To Electric Mobility Can Happen In Africa
Ethiopia had a plan to catalyse adoption of electric vehicles in Ethiopia with a 10 year target to see 148,000 electric cars and close to 50,000 electric buses on Ethiopia's roads by 2030. The Ministry of Transport and Logistics recently said that this target of over 100,000 electric vehicle has already been met in just the first 2 years of this plan.
"Another leapfrog event on the African continent is upon us, similar to what happened when most people went straight from not having phones of any kind straight into the mobile phone age, totally bypassing landlines"
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.
Open Energy Transition - Full-stack/Backend/Frontend Software Engineer - EUR 40-80K/year for full-stack/backend, 30-60K for frontend/UX - Permanent - Totally remote
Open Energy Transition is a non-profit energy tech company that uses and develops open-source software solutions and contributes to open data to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable, accessible and reliable energy. Our goal is to increase the pace and reduce the cost of energy system planning decisions through open collaboration and innovation. We are looking to hire 2 software engineers for two projects: a cloud compute solution for solving large energy models, and a solver benchmark website that compares various OSS/proprietary solvers on energy modelling benchmarks. The goal is to build robust, secure, and efficient open-source software to be used for energy and climate modelling and play a part in accelerating the climate transition.
Marble - Founder in Residence, Geothermal - Anywhere - 2.5-3K per month - Contract - Flexible - remote ok
Dive into the geothermal revolution and help unlock clean, sustainable energy for our planet. We're on the hunt for entrepreneurial engineers/scientists from geothermal, oil & gas, or similar sectors. If you're passionate about innovation and ready to explore cutting-edge approaches to power the net zero economy, we want you.
ExpectAI - Full Stack Engineer & Data Scientist - £35-45K, commensurate with experience - Permanent -
Join me in building ExpectAI's climate action platform that enables our customers to find and take profitable decarbonisation actions with confidence
PowerX.co - Senior Full Stack Software Engineer - $136,000 to $204,000 - Permanent -
PowerX is building energy management solutions for businesses, starting with restaurants. We believe that by equipping restaurants with the best tools to use less energy and save money, we can tackle climate change, one store at a time. PowerX is seeking a Senior Full Stack Software Engineer to play a foundational technical role in our product journey. In this role, you will be tasked with developing our product, which includes collaborating with other engineers, product owners, designers, and data team to architect, implement, and maintain new and existing features.
Support our work
You can support us financially on Open Collective.