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I'm a news editor and climate journalist for The Economist. My recent work can be found below.

The Economist •

How to get Asia to net zero

W electricity cut out earlier this month in her flat in Dhaka, Sabina Yeasmin’s first thought was for her 17-month-old daughter. Bangladesh’s capital fills with dengue-carrying mosquitoes at this time of year. With no working fan or air conditioner, Ms Yeasmin could not put her toddler under the stifling mosquito net. A diesel shortage had put the backup generator out of commission. Even the price of candles had quadrupled. Ms Yeasmin could barely keep from crying.

The power cut that plunged he
The Economist •

Is climate change making hurricanes worse?

H crashed into Florida’s coast on September 28th. It is thought to be tied as the fifth-strongest recorded hurricane to have made landfall on the contiguous United States, with winds approaching 150mph (240kph). It left Cuba in darkness after knocking out its power grid; now some 2m Floridians are without power. Two people died in Cuba; casualties in Florida are as yet unconfirmed. Just a few days earlier Typhoon Noru had slammed into the Philippines after intensifying unusually fast: it killed
The Economist •

The increase in simultaneous heatwaves

T record-breaking temperatures of more than 40°C were forecast in Britain. Schools closed and hospitals cancelled routine appointments. Trains ran less frequently for fear the tracks would buckle. The Royal Air Force had to rearrange flights from its biggest air base after the runway melted. In mainland Europe, things were bleaker still. After weeks of drought, a heatwave sparked wildfires in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain. Parts of America are slogging through one of their hottest summers e
The Economist •

How does Bangladesh cope with extreme floods?

E , people in South Asia anxiously await the start of the monsoon season. More than 70% of the region’s annual rainfall arrives between June and October. Unusual rains almost always spell disaster. If the downpour is too little or too late, drought sets in. If there is too much rain, huge tracts of land disappear under the deluge. For parts of Bangladesh and India, this year has already proved catastrophic. Uncommonly heavy rain in May and June caused rivers to burst their banks. By June 22nd, s
The Economist •

Climate change is harder on less educated people

W was “nine or ten”, his relatives put him into a bucket and lowered him into a well. From the murky bottom, he filled the bucket and passed it back up so the family’s cows could drink. No one thought this odd. Among his people, the Samburu of northern Kenya, “a five-year-old is regarded as old enough” to help look after cows, he says; herding them, guarding them and making sure the precious beasts have enough grass and water.

Mr Lolokuru is now in his 50s and still owns cows with his two broth
The Economist •

Why this Atlantic hurricane season is predicted to be unusually stormy

T hurricane season runs from June 1st until November 30th—the months during which tropical storms are most likely to form and wreak havoc on their roughly westerly course through the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. In the past few years it has been common for the first storms to appear before the season officially opens; this year none has, and none looks likely to form in the Atlantic in coming days, though the remnants of a Pacific storm currently passing over Mexico
The Economist •

The increasing frequency of fatal wet-bulb temperatures

W heatwave hits India’s northern plains, some 20m people are killed by persistent “wet-bulb” temperatures of more than 35°C (95°F). That is the plot of “The Ministry For the Future”, Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel about climate change. The scenario is fiction but similar temperatures have been briefly recorded in the real world. And as the globe warms they will become more common.

The wet-bulb temperature is that which would be recorded by a thermometer wrapped in a moist towel. Water evaporating
The Economist •

How can India cope with heatwaves?

T of May in Delhi is a riot of colour. Red and yellow blossoms line the streets. But this year, no one is stopping to see the flowers. Almost everyone who can be is inside, parked in front of an air-conditioner or fan. For weeks India has been in the grip of a punishing heatwave. On 30th April, temperatures in the capital reached 43.5°C for the third day in a row. The heat has come unusually early, with the hottest March since records began in 1901. It is affecting a large area, including coasta
The Economist •

A new IPCC report says the window to meet UN climate targets is vanishing

T for limiting global warming to relatively safe levels is rapidly closing, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( ). On April 4th the body released a new report, of nearly 3,000 pages. It appeared after two weeks of wrangling by representatives from 195 governments over how best to present the “state of the union” of climate science. Its conclusion is hardly cheering. To meet the goals of the Paris agreement, to limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-
The Economist •

Mumbai plans for net-zero 20 years before the rest of India

O as commuters stream ed out of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, a gothic revival masterpiece in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, they were confronted with temperatures approaching 40°C, nearly 7°C above normal for the time of year. The city is in the midst of a debilitating heatwave, its 13th in the past five decades, nearly half of which occurred in the past 15 years. Mumbai’s average temperature has increased by over 1°C in that period (see chart).

Had those commuters crossed the street from
The Economist •

“It is happening much more quickly and more extremely”—A grim new report on climate change

A NEW REPORT shows that climate change is already causing widespread, tangible damage, and argues that adaptation is now as important as mitigation. A once-promising candidate for the French presidency sees her campaign sputter. And why America needs to shore up the postal service’s finances.

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The Economist •

New IPCC report: over 3bn people face rising climate-change threat

THE “ASSESSMENT REPORTS” from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used to assess scientific extrapolations, the output of models and similar investigations into likely and frightening futures. The latest, sixth, assessment report, which comes eight years after the previous one, reflects how much has happened of late. It reads, for the first time, like something written from within the thick of things, an assessment of an ever more troubling present.

The release of the first tranche of
The Economist •

China now has nearly half of the world’s offshore wind capacity

T is up in China. Last year the country connected 17 gigawatts (GW) of offshore-wind capacity to its electricity grid, according to its National Energy Agency, meaning it can now produce up to 26 GW of its power in this way. Such scale and speed is unprecedented: between 2015 and 2020 the rest of the world, collectively, added just over 14GW, according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency. In 2019, with 8GW of capacity, Britain was the world’s largest offshore-wind producer. Ch
The Economist •

What happened at COP26?

M a day after it was meant to finish, COP26 finally came to an end, with 197 parties agreeing to the newly-dubbed “Glasgow Climate Pact”. There were several notable achievements. Countries committed themselves to further accelerating their decarbonisation plans and, specifically, to strengthening their emissions-reduction targets for 2030 by next year, rather than in 2025 as per the five-year schedule set out under the Paris agreement. Developed countries were “urged” to increase funding for ada
The Economist •

What really goes on during COP climate negotiations?

T of the world’s media is focused on 26, the United Nations climate summit currently being held in Glasgow. Barely a week into the two-week jamboree, pledges to phase out coal power, ease access for developing countries to climate financing and cut methane emissions have made headlines. (The Economist is reporting on the latest announcements, news and arguments from here.) But the most important negotiations are still to come. And they will take place not in the public eye, but behind closed doo
acast •

To a Lesser Degree: Under pressure | To a Lesser Degree from The Economist on Acast

The COP26 conference is taking place amid an energy crisis. How will political pressures on the negotiators from activists, public opinion, and a troubled energy market influence the outcome?

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed tells us why the negotiations are so important to the poor world. We go to The Netherlands, where green activists have turned to the courts and we look at America’s tricky energy politics.

Hosted by Vijay Vaitheeswaran, The Economist’s global energy and climate i
The Economist •

What to look out for at COP26

W bombast, Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, told the UN General Assembly in September that COP26 would be “the turning point for humanity”. The UN’s annual climate summit, delayed by a year because of covid-19, will be held in Glasgow during the first two weeks of November. Mr Johnson’s speech called to mind the words of Christiana Figueres, then the head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, at the opening of COP21 in Paris in 2015: “Never before has a responsibi
The Economist •

Where is climate change being felt most acutely?

CLIMATE CATASTROPHES have come thick and fast in recent months. In June an unprecedented heatwave blasted the Pacific northwest, creating the conditions for devastating wildfires. In July extreme floods in central China killed more than 30 people. In August deadly fires have been blazing across Turkey and Greece. Against this backdrop the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the UN-backed body that assesses scientific opinion on the issue—released its latest report on Monday. Publish
The Economist •

“They say human influence is completely unequivocal in causing climate change”—the IPCC’s damning report

THE UN CLIMATE body’s latest doorstopper report is unequivocal: climate change is human-caused, and already here—and 1.5°C of warming is looking ever harder to avoid. In Bolivia, debate still rages as to whether a 2019 election was rigged, or a coup; the people want pandemic relief, not paralysed politics. And investigating the received wisdom of the “difficult second novel”. Runtime: 21 min

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The Economist •

How are wildfires fought?

THE TACTICS used to fight wildfires are much the same the world over, and have changed little in the past several decades. How do firefighters tackle these blazes? And what could they do differently?

Fires can be sparked by lightning, though more often they have a human cause, such as downed power lines, carelessly discarded cigarettes, campfires or arson. The first sign is usually smoke, spotted by a member of the public or via cameras set up in high-risk, remote areas. Response teams in land
The Economist •

Why is a heatwave broiling parts of America and Canada?

LYTTON IS A pretty temperate place. Average daily highs for June are around 16.4°C (61.5°F). But on June 28th the village reported a high of 47.9°C (118.2°F)—beating its own record from the previous day of 46.6°C (115.9°F) which, at the time, was 1.6°C hotter than any temperature recorded anywhere in Canada, ever. (It was also the highest temperature ever recorded at a latitude above 50° North.) Lytton is not alone. Canada’s west coast and much of America’s Pacific north-west are baking in a hea
The Economist •

“It would take absolutely everything from all countries in the world, starting now”—net zero emissions

THE INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY has published a report explaining what needs to happen if the world is to get to net zero emissions by 2050. It points to a transition away from fossil fuels on an epic scale. Today Somaliland celebrates its 30th anniversary. It has been a quiet success story in a sea of instability. But what it craves is international recognition as a state. And soaring share prices are normally cause for cheer—unless your computers can’t keep up. Runtime: 21min

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The Economist •

The use of renewable energy is accelerating

GLOBAL ENERGY demand tumbled by 4% in 2020, as flights were grounded, factories idled and commuters locked down at home. One part of the world’s electricity markets, however, continued to grow. Renewable-energy generation grew at its fastest rate in two decades, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), an intergovernmental forecaster. New renewable-energy capacity grew by 45% last year, adding an extra 280GW to the world supply—more than the entire energy-generation ca
The Economist •

The West’s armies are getting more serious about climate change

WESTERN DEFENCE ministries are talking up their willingness to take on a new enemy: climate change. In March Lloyd Austin, America’s defence secretary, wrote that “the changing climate is altering the global security and operating environments, impacting our missions, plans and installations.” The Pentagon set up a “Climate Working Group” after an executive order from President Joe Biden that climate considerations should be considered a greater foreign-policy and national-security priority.

Am
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