S1: It's time for Midday Edition on Kpbs. Today we are talking about solutions from the UN Climate Change Conference. I'm Jade Hindman. Here's to conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and make you think. World leaders met to discuss the most pressing issues around climate change.
S2: Last month we saw for the first time ever , temperatures average global temperatures above two degrees Celsius.
S1: We'll break down the consequence of that. And the takeaways from Cop 28. Then we'll bring the conversation to our shorelines , where sea level rise continues to wash away the coast. That's ahead on midday Edition. Welcome to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. 2023 was likely the hottest year on record. At the end of last year , the United Nations held its climate conference , Cop 28. Its aim to make progress in the global effort to reduce emissions and minimize the impacts of climate change , with fossil fuels being the main driver. Almost every country agreed to move away from fossil fuels. David Victor is here to tell us more about it. He is a professor of innovation and public policy at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. David , welcome back to Midday Edition.
S2: Jade , it's great to be back. Thank you.
S1: Great to have you. So we've talked to you previously about the UN climate conferences.
S2: And then it was much bigger. It was about twice the size of the Paris conference a few years ago , which really put the world on a new track for international cooperation on climate change , maybe 70,000 people there. This one was also different because it was held in a giant oil producing country , which put the issues in your introduction right front and center. How do you move away from fossil fuels ? How do we take these aspirational agreements , turn them into reality , those kinds of things. So in that sense , it was a it was a different conference because it made a little more real kinds of issues that everybody's been talking about.
S1: And of course , this year's climate conference resulted in an agreement to transition away from fossil fuels.
S2: Almost always , these annual events end up with some kind of agreement that goes to the final hour in this case. And when actually past the final deadline , it has aspirational language that makes it sound like we're we're really solving the climate problem. In reality , we're making a lot of progress , but we're not yet solving the climate problem. Emissions are still going up. They have to come down. This one. Most of the drama was around the exact language for moving away from fossil fuels. So it included language about transitioning away from fossil fuels over a long time horizon. I don't know how much the language actually in these agreements matters as much as getting everybody together , putting a focus on this and crucially , not having an event like this and and failure to agree. Because if there were a failure to agree , then I think a lot of people would lose faith in the process. And the process , you know , difficult as it is , is making progress.
S1:
S2: So they always walk away and then they come back and they finally agree. And so on. The really big issue that's going to be looming in the next few climate conferences. The next one is going to be in Baku , another big oil producing , uh , region of the world. And after that in Brazil , also big oil producer. The next few conferences over the next few years are going to really be focusing on what do we do about the parts of the world that are already experiencing climate change. As you said in your introduction , this is the hottest year on record. Last month we saw for the first time ever , temperatures average global temperatures above two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels , which is the goal originally set. So in some sense we're already failing to meet this goal. And that means we're in for a lot of climate change even though we're making progress. And that for developing countries , the poorest countries , they're already really exposed. And mechanisms need to be set up to help them. Those mechanisms were set up in theory at this conference that just happened in Dubai. But there's no money in the mechanism. And turning those mechanisms into reality. That's going to be the next really big topic. And it's going to be really difficult politically because it requires spending a lot of money. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. You know , we hear a lot about California's efforts to move away from fossil fuels.
S2: California is doing very well. It's cleaning up its electric power grid very rapidly. It's moving away from internal combustion engines , at least for light duty vehicles and light trucks , eventually for other other vehicles and so on. So we're making a lot of progress. The country as a as a whole is making some progress. We have new legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act from 2022. That's putting a lot of money into clean energy. What I'm hearing from a lot of other countries , though , is questions about what happens at the federal level , what happens if Biden loses and Trump is is is elected again ? Um , will our policies stay in place because they have a bipartisan support or will the policies fall apart ? And I think because of that uncertainty , more people are looking at the states like California , Massachusetts , other places for real signs of leadership in the United States. And there's a lot of leadership there.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hyndman. We're talking about the global effort to combat climate change. I'm speaking with David Victor , professor at UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. And David , you recently co-authored a paper exploring the link between trade and climate policy.
S2: So the emissions anywhere affect the climate everywhere. And also because we trade goods and services in the global economy. So if one country does a lot to control emissions and that's expensive and another country doesn't , then they get a they get a big competitive advantage. And so most of the thinking around solving the climate problem involves serious action inside countries , like what we're doing here in California , but then also over time putting up measures at the border so that so that if products come from countries that have high pollution , that those products are taxed in one way or another. The Europeans have put that kind of border measure in place. It's having a big impact on industries , the high pollution industries that are where whose products are being sold into Europe , the United States is likely to do something like this. And that part of of global trade and global trade policy is going to become a significant aspect of global cooperation on climate change. Overall.
S1: Oceans were also a focus of this year's conference.
S2: And the Scripps Institution of Oceanography , which is the anchor for the University of California delegation to this climate conference , it co-sponsors a pavilion called the Oceans Pavilion , put a lot of attention to the oceans. Sea level rise is one part of this. It's it's sea level rise plus storm surges that affects coastal areas. We see that happening here in San Diego already. The oceans are important for a lot of other reasons. Uh , some of the most severe impacts of climate change are happening in the oceans. Like coral reefs. The oceans could also end up being part of the solution to climate change , where we could affect the chemistry of the oceans and , in effect , pull carbon dioxide , the leading cause of long term climate change , pull that out of the atmosphere and put some of that in the oceans. And there was a lot of focus on those kinds of carbon removal strategies at the Dubai Climate Conference.
S1: And you you raised this point earlier , but we've heard about this goal to limit warming to 1.5°C. That's a little under three degrees Fahrenheit.
S2: I don't think it's been realistic for a long time. The original goal was to stop at two degrees Celsius or well below two degrees , which is what the Paris Agreement says. We're going to blow through two degrees. We've already to some degree blown through 1.5 degrees. Overall , we're actually making a lot of progress. 15 years ago , the world was on track for maybe 4 or 5°C of warming compared to to pre-industrial levels. Now we're on track for maybe two and a half degrees. So that's that's a that's a really significant progress. But it still means we're going to miss these these global targets. And that's one of the reasons why diplomacy around climate change , which used to focus almost entirely on how to control emissions and stop global warming , is increasingly going to need to focus on how do we deal with the effects of climate change , how do we help societies become more resilient to those those effects and the effects are all over the place. They're sea level rise. They're they're they're wildfires. They're impacts on natural ecosystems , coral reefs , the list goes on and on and on in every country is a little bit different. And so each needs its own solution.
S1: I want to talk about zero emission vehicles. I mean , part of President Biden's 2021 infrastructure bill really meant to reshape infrastructure for electric vehicles in the US.
S2: There's been a lot of news coverage around how there's been a slowdown in electric vehicle , in the growth of electric vehicle sales that was to be expected. We pushed a lot of electric vehicles out in the road. We're still trying to figure out the charging infrastructure , all kinds of other things. We do a lot of research on that at UC San Diego , but the overall picture is the costs are coming down , the vehicles are becoming more capable , many more manufacturers are making these vehicles. And so they're really committing to this. So I think on the light duty vehicle side and light duty trucks , we're actually making a lot of progress. The really big questions in transportation now have to do with what do we do with heavy trucks. Do we electrify those ? Do we switch to alternative liquid fuels , hydrogen and something like that ? What do we do about airplanes and aircraft can't really do long distance , uh , battery powered aircrafts. You need some alternative kind of alternative solutions. And that's the frontier for research and some new testing of new technologies out in the field.
S1:
S2: And so the mining process is can be cleaned up. And there's a lot of mines right now that are switching , for example , to renewable electricity as the source of energy. So that reduces emissions. Mining itself affects the landscape. So overall these vehicles are not perfectly clean. There are trade offs in this like there are trade offs in all other parts of of life. The overall picture , though , is that this is a much cleaner way of of providing transportation. There's emissions associated with lithium mining and cobalt , although we're mostly moving cobalt out of out of batteries , copper , we're going to huge demands for copper wiring and so on. And all of these products ultimately need to be mined. And then over time , recycled to a greater degree. And that's going to have an impact on the environment overall. But the big picture is that shifting to electricity is a much cleaner way of running a transportation system.
S1: And you mentioned the challenge of air travel.
S2: And on top of that , there's a lot of new science that suggests that aircraft affect the climate not only by the pollution , the carbon dioxide they put up in the atmosphere , but also by affecting the chemistry of the atmosphere and the cloudiness , the contrails that you see , those beautiful white clouds that sometimes persist behind aircraft flying and else to those contrails in some parts of the world , actually cause a lot more warming than the carbon dioxide. And so aircraft are really interesting area where there's strong motivation to do something about the problem. We don't really know exactly what to do. We can't just simply change out the fuels. We need to figure out how to avoid contrails. And that's an area of active research. And now some airlines and some aircraft manufacturers are testing new schemes in the atmosphere to try and figure out how to how to reduce those , those emissions.
S1: You mentioned airplanes , but many people who attend this Cop 28 , they fly in for the conference.
S2: Um , and one of the things we've done this year at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography is we are piloting a program where we estimate those emissions. We estimate the harm to the global climate from those emissions , which is an area of science where we're very active. And then we turn all that into a dollar amount. And that tells us something about the kind of money that needs to be spent , um , to help rectify some of those harms. And we're , uh , on a volunteer basis right now. And eventually we're going to make this a core part of our program where we're collecting those funds and we're giving to get good organizations like Surfrider and helping them do more. Work to offset the effects of climate change , which is is going to be incredibly important.
S1: And we've spoken with you about some strategies that are at least being explored to combat climate change. You mentioned some earlier of those is the idea of carbon capture.
S2: And all the individual technologies have been known about for a long time. But turning this into commercial reality , into big industrial projects , requires putting all those pieces together into real projects that work , that make money. What we're seeing over the last couple of years , in part because of new legislation here in the United States , is that more carbon capture projects are going forward. So these are projects that , for example , take the carbon dioxide that comes when you when you mine that natural gas or take carbon dioxide from power plants , capture it , put it safely underground. That's now advancing. There are a number of projects in Europe and Australia , some other places that are advancing. So that kind of in what's called often industrial carbon capture is now moving forward a few projects at a time. And those projects are going to show what's feasible , how to lower costs in the future. But in addition to that , there's carbon capture , where you actually pull the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere directly. And those projects , some of those projects are now advancing. They're still very , very small. But that's a very interesting technology because it could offer us the opportunity to stop and then reverse climate change from the gases that are already accumulated in the atmosphere.
S1:
S2: And so we need to devise solutions that take advantage of the skills in different countries. Some of these things are really expensive , like carbon capture , like building new nuclear plants and so on. So the countries that have those resources should be doing that. Other countries can , can do different things. And that's part of the reason why international cooperation is it's very important. One of the interesting things about carbon capture , removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere , is that you could do it in a few places , and that would benefit the entire world's climate , because those gases would no longer be up in the atmosphere. And I think that's the business model that's going to emerge in that industry.
S1: This year's conference took place with multiple conflicts happening around the world.
S2: We have Russia invading Ukraine cause enormous stress in the in the global oil industry , and then also the supply of natural gas into Western Europe. And now those markets are more or less stabilized. The Europeans have doubled down on strategies to move away from fossil fuels. We have a war in the Middle East where the oil markets haven't really noticed that very much , because the markets have been functioning reasonably well. The area where I think it's created some real stress for , for attempts to stop climate change is that this has reminded countries that we have to pay attention not only to climate change , but to energy security and to affordability of energy , and put all that together in a single package. And that's really put extra emphasis on making sure that what we do on climate change also helps countries become more confident than the reliability and affordability of their energy systems.
S1: One thing that I've noticed with these conferences is the urgency behind these efforts.
S2: Climate change was one of those things that was going to happen in the future. We could see it in the data and then the models , but it wasn't real. One of the things that's changed in the last 10 or 15 years is the number of crises around the world that are climate related wildfires in Australia , wildfires here in the United States , storm surges , incredible floods in Pakistan , and the list goes on and on and on. And so what we're seeing now is a palpable connection between the physical effects of climate change and then all this diplomacy. It's resulted in more and stronger motivation to do something about the climate problem. But I think one of the big challenges is that even if you act in a serious way on controlling emissions , it takes a long time for the new technologies to come into the industry. It takes a long time for the climate system to respond. And so there's a tremendous amount of inertia in that system. And that's one of the reasons why , even though we're making progress , the world is still in for some pretty significant climate change. And those problems , climate problems are probably going to get worse , even as we make more serious efforts to control emissions. Yeah , it's quite plausible 2024 is going to be even hotter than 2023. We don't really know. 2023 is an El Nino year. So one of the reasons we've seen this big surge in temperatures since the middle of 2023 is because of the onset of El Nino. So El Nino is a warming phenomenon that's adding to the warming that's already in in the climate system that's continuing. And so if that continues long into 2024 , then 2024 will be even hotter than 2023.
S1: And finally , as a professor , what do you say to your students ? Into may be discouraged about the lack of action to fight climate change. I mean , there's some urgency , but climate change is happening fast.
S2: Climate change is happening fast , and so some of the students should be working more on how to help societies become more resilient. That's one thing I tell them. Another thing I tell them is we're actually making progress and we're making progress because a new theory of how to solve these kinds of problems is focused on places like California going out and leading and demonstrating how you clean up an energy system. That theory is really working , and it's and it's having an impact. And the last thing I tell them is , is that leadership by itself doesn't solve the climate problem. Ultimately , good ideas and places like California need to spread globally. And so one of the roles of academic research and one of the roles of our students as they go out into the into the rest of the real world , is to help take those leadership ideas and turn them into followership and spread all around the world , these new technologies. And that's how we're going to stop the climate change problem.
S1: David Victor is a professor of innovation and public policy at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. David , as always , thank you so much for joining us.
S2: What a pleasure. Thank you. Jade.
S1: Coming up , climate change solutions. From a student perspective.
S3: I definitely believe there could be a lot more engagement , and world leaders need to listen to the youth and not just listen , but actually implement the things that their voice is demanding.
S1: More on that when Kpbs Midday Edition returns. Welcome back to Kpbs midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. We just heard from David Victor about his takeaways from the United Nations Cop 28 conference , which took place last November and December in Dubai. Scripps Institution of Oceanography also sent several attendees to the conference. Taylor McGee among them. Taylor is a PhD candidate in oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California , San Diego , and she joins me now to share some of her insights. Taylor , welcome to Midday Edition. Hi.
S3: Hi. Yes , thank you so much for having me.
S1: Glad to have you here.
S3: Personally , I'm interested more in climate policy and climate justice. So while I spent a lot of time with the Ocean Pavilion with the rest of the Scripps and UC San Diego delegation , I also spent a lot of time in negotiation rooms to deepen my understanding of the multilateral processes and in climate justice spaces , listening to the experiences of the international community that has been harmed by both the extraction of fossil fuels and the ramifications of burning fossil fuels through climate change. And so mainly , I think the answer is really simple , but the reality is quite complicated. We need to eliminate our use of fossil fuels. We need to stop extracting it from our land , and we need to stop burning it for our energy demands. But at the same time , much of our world is dependent on it , and many developing nations have priorities to meet their sustainable development goals , which may actually conflict with the need to reduce the use of fossil fuels. So to me , that actually means that the nations that are considered developed , that have historically extracted and thus have polluted the most and have gained the majority of the wealth from all of this , needs to be the first to transition away from fossil fuels immediately , because we have the means and capacity to do so , and because it is our moral imperative.
S1: And that's a good point you make there. I'm glad you raised it.
S3: Um , there is definitely a level of urgency coming from those extracted nations coming from the developing nations of what needs to be done. But there's more complicated risks on the developed side. And I do think it comes down to a matter of prioritization and a matter of urgency. So what I have seen with climate action in the local and national levels is that climate action and the urgency to transition away from fossil fuels just isn't prioritized in the way that it needs to be. And I do believe it's possible because that's where collective action can really come in. That's where us as individuals in this country can really come in. We can put pressure on our leadership , and that's whether that's that. Your company or institutional leadership , whether that's your city council , whether that's your governor or your Congress member , to prioritize climate action and fund efforts for mitigation and a just transition. We actually just had a huge federal bill called the Inflation Reduction Act that allocates millions of dollars towards mitigation efforts. And it's really up to us how that's implemented in our communities.
S1: Oceans were also a major focus at this year's conference , where you left more optimistic about the discussions around the world seas and the challenges they face in the wake of our changing climate.
S3: I am a little more optimistic , in a sense , that the word oceans was actually included in some of the agreements this year , and just talking to some of the leadership who have been around and have been to multiple cops within my institution. Um , it really was kind of a glimmer of hope that oceans will be more considered. We continue the dialogue on the need for ocean science and observations in ocean climate solutions. Um , and I believe I saw that this year at the Ocean Pavilion at Cop , and I saw that in so many of our conversations.
S1:
S3: I did have two really cool opportunities to talk with a negotiator from Chile and a negotiator from the European Union , and it really was a different kind of conversation , um , both with the European Union negotiator and the Chilean negotiator , as the priorities for each country are different , as one is developing and the other group is developed , the understanding of the urgency between the two , um , was really interesting and somewhat encouraging yet. Encouraging , just depending on the topics that come up. And I think the one thing that really was highlighted for me was the complexity of it all , that it's it's not simple. It is very complicated. And there's a lot of different considerations that are going on in the strategies and decisions between these countries.
S1:
S3: The question should be how ? How has the youth been able to impact these world leaders and , um , politicians at these conferences ? My belief is that they're not influenced enough by the youth , as the youth have a really important role to play. You know , we will be the ones to bear the brunt of the actions and inactions of the generations before us. There's actually a youth constituency called Young Go within the UNF , triple C , and their goal is to promote and empower youth participation in climate action and engagement with decision makers at these conferences. Uh , the one thing that did change this year is the parties agreed to appoint a youth climate champion that would facilitate the engagement of youth and climate action in the U and F triple C process. But I definitely believe there could be a lot more engagement. And world leaders need to listen to the youth and not just listen , but actually implement the things that their voice is demanding that needs to happen.
S1:
S3: Scientists have long been ringing the bell of what needs to be done. We have given so many reports , these IPCC reports that come out that just really lay out the dire consequences of inaction. And I think the world leaders have heard it all. It's just a matter of what are we deciding to do moving forward with that information. And I believe , you know , even with the inclusion of oceans in the documentation now , um , there is there is an opportunity for more breadth and our decision to consider the science and other avenues that maybe we haven't before in our decision making. But I do believe that the majority of what we need to know has been known. And it's just a matter of what are we doing with that information to change where we are going to be and where we will end up. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. And you know , when we first started this interview , you said that the solutions to climate change are obvious yet complex.
S3: And one nuance of Cop this year that I kind of took away is it's necessary to have them involved in the conversations , because we are very dependent on them globally. Um , developed nations are dependent on them. Developing nations are dependent on them. But at the same time , they cannot be the loudest voice. And there's a lot of different drivers connected to the oil and gas industry. One thing that I think is not really talked about , especially in our country , is the use of oil and gas for our military before Cop this year. For me. Um , demilitarization wasn't really considered a major climate solution , as I consider it now. I always believe that our military budget should be reduced to fund programs and institutions that support and improve the livelihoods of Americans , such as education , health care , adaptation , um , and so many other programs. But after Cop , because of the conversations I got to be engaged with and because of all the stories I've heard , I now believe it needs to be reduced not only to fund these programs , but to also stop feeding into the military industrial complex , because that further destroys the environment and unethically extracts resources from other nations. It disregards human life , it murders and imprisons environmental defenders internationally , and it emits more carbon dioxide than a handful of developed nations. And so reducing our military budget is just one of many climate solutions. But for the United States , I believe it might be the most important.
S1: I've been speaking with Taylor McKee. She is a PhD candidate at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Taylor , thank you so much for your insight.
S3: Thank you so much.
S1: Coming up , the conversation continues with sea level rise and its impact on our coast.
S4: You know , our beaches are shrinking because they're unable to migrate inland naturally with the movement of the ocean.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. Welcome back to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. As we talk about climate change and its immediate impacts , California's coastline is slowly disappearing. Recently , parts of the Ocean Beach Pier were washed away by the high surf , causing its closure. Looking at the big picture , sea levels along the coast are expected to rise some three feet by the end of the century and possibly much higher , leaving coastal communities at risk of losing beaches and much more. In her book California Against the Sea Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline , Rosanna Shaw takes a look at the past , present and uncertain future of California's 1200 mile coastline and makes the case that the impacts from a rising ocean are not a problem for the future , but one that needs to be prioritized today. Shaw is an environment reporter with the Los Angeles Times and spoke with me about her book last fall. Here's that conversation. So you begin your book in Imperial Beach in early 2019.
S4: It was a king tide. It was a high swell. And just all of these compounding factors led to the ocean breaking over the seawall , sweeping over the estuary and the roads. And it was just a really powerful glimpse into what will be the future for not just Imperial Beach , but so many other communities up and down the coast of California and in coastal communities around the world. And , you know , the mayor at the time searched DNA , had teamed up with researchers at Scripps , and they've been playing with all these ways of possibly forecasting the potential of , you know , when the waves and the ocean might break over. And it was really cool. It was the first time that they had really nailed the forecast. And you can actually start to see swells coming in the Pacific Ocean with a little bit of a heads up. So there was enough time for the city to ring the alarm bell , so to speak , help residents actually pack sandbags and board up their homes and doors. And so there was like a preparation that was really remarkable. But again , it was just this really powerful window into what the rest of the future will look like for folks. And we so often think about sea level rise as this disaster that is far off into the future. And we think , you know , we look at the projections , we're projecting six feet , possibly seven feet of sea level rise by the end of the century for California. But the future is now. I mean , you can get more than a foot of sea level rise just by some of these compounding factors. And that's what scientists have been telling me. We can't wait until the sea rises X amount. Just throw in a couple other factors that are also increasing in frequency , and we are very close to going over this threshold that will cause flooding in our communities today. Right.
S1: Right. And yet in your book , you call the ocean the silent hero in this burning world.
S4: And , you know , to put it super simply , warm water expands , right ? And cold water takes up less volume. So the more the ocean absorbs all our excess heat from our excess emissions , the ocean will swell and the ocean is rising and moving in at an increasing rate that is starting to chip away , carve away , and sometimes totally flood the communities and the built in landscapes as we know it today. Along , you know , our coast. It's hard to because there is still a disconnect between us on land and what's happening in the ocean. I think we respond more emotionally when we see wildfires , but heat waves and all of these warming catastrophes are also happening underwater. Another thing I think often are marine heatwaves. That's increasing in frequency as well underwater. And so again , as the ocean starts to boil , that is going to lead to pretty devastating consequences and disasters on land for all of us living on the coast.
S1:
S4: The state of California , all our agencies recently committed to preparing coastal communities for at least three and a half. Sea of sea level rise by 2050. But again , this idea that we shouldn't wait until three feet of sea level rise to start acting , because right now , easily we can get a couple feet of sea level rise from a high tide , plus a storm , plus a high wave event. And just , you know , looking at the storms from this past winter , if you have back to back rain events like what we had , as the rivers start flooding and our roads start swelling with water and it's all trying to rush into the ocean , but the ocean is also pushing in and we have groundwater rising up. The water has nowhere to go. So I think we are built environments are have reached this capacity that any little thing over that capacity can cause flooding. So that's been a tricky thing kind of in the sea level rise world , especially for me as a climate communicator of sorts , you know , how do you help people see that a disaster that feels so far off into the future is actually something that is happening more and more frequently today.
S1: Well , you know , California's coastal development took place during a very calm period for the Pacific Oceans atmosphere , and it led to a period of sea level suppression. Can you explain that a bit more and tell us how it is changing today ? Yeah.
S4: So the Pacific Decadal Oscillation , I know that sounds super wonky , but , you know , it's another climate like ocean atmosphere cycle. Kind of I kind of talk about it like El Nino. We know that with El Nino and La Nina , there are these cycles and ebbs and flows within a climate phenomenon. And so the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is something else like that. And one of the effects of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation in California is that the way the winds blow , they actually pull the warmer water offshore. And so the cooler water takes place along. It takes up space along the coast. And so during our peak development period in the post-World War II era , we actually had relatively calm sea level rise , and it felt quiet. There was not. The colder waters along the shoreline helped us think that the edge between land and sea was a lot further out than it actually should and could be. And so our population boomed. We built Pacific Coast Highway , we built entire communities along the coastline , and we started to fix this line in the sand that is now constantly being challenged by the rising ocean. And something that is truly humbling to me is that so many of us today still think of the coastline as static , right ? Like we think that this line in the sand , so to speak , is not supposed to move. But if you look at the processes of cliff erosion , which actually feeds the beach with fresh sand and , you know , our beaches are shrinking because they're unable to migrate inland naturally with the movement of the ocean. When we have Pacific Coast Highway or a seawall or a row of homes in the way of that migration , because we see the coast is static , we are creating these disasters that are in the way of the ocean. So even just the idea of a natural disaster is fascinating to me because we are the disaster. We have created this and we did this before we knew better. And now what we're living with today is this reality of , okay , the ocean is moving in , the coastline is supposed to move with it , and that means we're supposed to move with it as well. And what does that mean for all of the places that we have loved and cherished for years ? And what does that mean for all the critical infrastructure that we've built , that we rely on to live our day to day lives ? Yeah.
S1: You know , one fascinating aspect of your book is just how we've thought about this changing coast over the years.
S4: Thank you for bringing that up. I mean , the fun thing about writing a book , and as I remove myself from the day to day breaking news cycles as a news reporter is to start asking these like philosophical questions of like , why do we want to live on the beach ? Was that always a given , or is that something that was learned and going back through history ? I mean , there was a time when people were afraid of the Pacific Ocean , and I was reading these old stories of how we had to create the L.A. lifeguard and bring in surfers from Hawaii to show how surfing could be cool and really big wave spaces in the early 19 tens and 1920s , you know , Abbot Kinney and Huntington and the folks who really started to build these Southern California seaside communities that we know today. Really , it was a conscious marketing decision to help people reengage with the beach in a way that felt recreational. And then , you know , after the war , when Leisure and Recreation was something that we could enjoy again , just the idea of going to the beach and relaxing by the beach really just exploded as a cultural thing. In California , we have preserved and protected this coastline through , you know. A series of remarkable laws in the 1970s , most notably the California Coastal Act , where the voters of California made the philosophical stand that the beach should be protected for the broader public good. So , you know , in Los Angeles , where I am , we don't have a central park or a public square , but we have the beach , and it is such a just public gathering space , such a public good. And that is something that we truly cherish now. And it's so intrinsically part of the California identity. But yeah , it was so fascinating to find out that actually this was a learned love for the beach in California.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman , I'm speaking with Los Angeles Times environment reporter Rosanna Shaw about her new book , California Against the Sea Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline. And Rosanna , you know , one key moment in history you just mentioned is the California Coastal Act of 1976. How did that transform California's relationship with the coast.
S4: Before the California Coastal Act ? There was this , you know , boom in development and a rush to live on the shore , build on the shore. And just within a decade or two , people were seeing this transformation of turning sleepy little beach surf shacks into bigger and bigger homes. There was also this push to build more power plants , nuclear power plants , especially along the coastline , and a grassroots community along the Sonoma Coast , started to fight back against a proposed nuclear facility in bodega Bay , and they successfully fought it off. But what ended up happening was the utility just took that project to a different part of the coast down the road with , you know , a more amenable city council , and the nuclear plant got built anyways. And so recognizing that , yeah , we actually need to take a philosophical stand to protect the entire coast because just because we protect one slice of the coast does not mean the rest of the coast is protected. So there was this movement led by the people. It was a , you know , a ballot measure. And truly , the California Coastal Act made the philosophical stand in California that the beach cannot be owned by anyone , and therefore it belongs to everyone. And so , you see , along the entire coastline these signs pointing to staircases that take you between homes and down what seems like residential private roads that take you to the beach. And the way we have not built infrastructure and high rises along the coastline , is truly remarkable and truly the legacy of the California Coastal Act. I mean , you look at the coastline along Miami or I'm from Massachusetts , and I think of all the privatized beaches in Massachusetts , and that's just not the case in California.
S1: That's so very interesting , because , you know , when I first moved to San Diego , I was wondering , why isn't there more development along the coastline ? Where are the hotels and the spas and and restaurants along the beach ? Uh , and that explains it. That explains a lot of it. So , you know , when it comes to climate change solutions , you say they generally fall into one of two categories mitigation or adaptation. And you argue that we need to focus more on solutions of adaptation at this point.
S4: And California talks a great talk and , you know , is walking the walk on a lot of that. So when you hear people say , we're trying to go for zero emissions , net zero emissions electric vehicles , cleaner energy use like that is mitigation. Adaptation is acknowledging that the world as we know it is going to change , that there are consequences of climate change that we are going to have to face regardless , because of all of the emissions we've already put into the world , all of the emissions the ocean has already absorbed , that even if we stopped emitting any carbon emissions tomorrow , there will still be impacts well into the next few decades. And what does it mean to face those realities ? And so when I hear people talk about taking climate action , those two categories tend to be conflated. And so part of my goal of just really diving into the specifics of sea level rise is to help people understand that this is a story about adaptation and what we need to do , regardless of how much we curb our emissions , which we absolutely need to do. We need to both mitigate and adapt , but we tend to conflate the two. And so with adaptation , I mean , the ocean has absorbed again more than 90% of the excess heat from our excess emissions since the Industrial revolution. So even if we stopped all carbon emissions tomorrow , the ocean will continue to rise at the rate it's been rising for at least the next couple of decades , I think. What we do today with carbon emissions will affect the sea level rise extremes that we were projecting and seeing as a possibility for the second half of the century , the end of the century. But regardless , we need to adapt in the mid-term. And that conversation has been really , really fraught because we know that the sea isn't rising three feet tomorrow and making these longer term changes that at a gut level we know will need to happen. But we know also it doesn't require any sacrifice. Today has been really hard. And so going from that short term to the long term and how to enter that transition period has been really the place that we've been stuck and the place where I think there's a lot of opportunity to prompt conversations , deep in conversations and try to guide people through this really , really complicated middle ground and middle process of building and reimagining our coastline towards this future that we inevitably have to face.
S1: That was L.A. times environment reporter Rosanna Shaw , speaking with me last fall about her book , California Against the Sea Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline. That's our show for today. Don't forget to watch Evening Edition tonight at five for in-depth reporting on San Diego issues. We'll be back tomorrow at noon. And if you ever miss a show , you can find the Midday Edition podcast on all platforms. I'm Jade Hindman. Thanks for listening.
