To fight climate change, and now Russia

To fight climate change, and now Russia, too, Zurich turns off natural gas https://www.npr.org/2022/04/20/1092429073/to-fight-climate-change-and-now-russia-too-zurich-turns-off-natural-gas April 20, 20225:10 AM ET Dan Charles The city of Zurich, Switzerland, is shutting down the gas supply to some neighborhoods. Originally aimed at fighting climate change and saving money, it's also a step to cut gas imports from Russia. Edwin Remsburg/VW Pics via Getty Images European officials are debating whether they can stop buying natural gas imports from Russia. Many say it can't be done. But the biggest city in Switzerland – Zurich – is already taking ambitious steps to wean itself off gas. It's shutting down the flow of gas to whole parts of the city. Zurich started down this path a decade ago in order to save money and fight climate change. The plan provoked controversy at first. Today, as the city's residents install alternatives to gas heating, there appears to be broad support for the switch – in part because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. About half of Switzerland's natural gas supply currently comes from Russia. "Attitudes have changed once again, dramatically," says Rainer Schöne, a spokesman for Energie 360°, Zurich's city-owned gas utility. "Today, it's clear; people want to, and have to, move away from fossil gas." Zurich's experience may offer lessons to other cities around the world that are encouraging residents to switch away from natural gas appliances – but are not, so far, shutting down the infrastructure that delivers it. A rocky start, but then, wide acceptance Zurich's move to abandon gas was driven in part by economics. The city wanted to expand a "district heating" system that uses excess heat from a waste incinerator on the edge of the city, a modern plant outfitted with the latest pollution control technology. The incinerator – supplemented by other facilities that burn wood or gas – heats water, and that hot water or steam circulates through underground pipes to homes and businesses that tap it as a heat source. It made little sense for the city to maintain both hot water and gas pipelines side-by-side, says Zurich's energy commissioner, Silvia Banfi Frost. "It's quite clear that we don't want to have parallel networks for supplying heat," she says. In 2011, city officials announced that they would start shutting down gas service within five years in one part of the city that's well-served by district heating. This area, historically dominated by industry and apartment buildings, is home to 93,000 people. But protests erupted. The plan "was indeed a shock" to many people who relied on gas, says Schöne. Residents argued that they'd received too little notice, and that they were being forced to buy costly replacements for their gas appliances. So officials backed off, promising to compensate people who had to replace gas furnaces that were less than 20 years old. Zurich also delayed the start of the gas shutdown to 2021. Now, however, it's underway. Some residents of Zurich, especially those in single-family homes, can't easily connect to the district heating system, and have to find other alternatives. Ernst Danner is a member of Zurich's City Parliament from the centrist Evangelical People's Party. He lives in a single-family home, and he installed an electric heat pump that draws warmth from water circulating through pipes that go deep underground. It cost him just over $40,000 after tax breaks and city subsidies, but it also cut his heating bill in half. Over the lifetime of the system, he says, "I pay a bit more, but it's not that much more, and it's more ecological." Many of his neighbors, Danner says, have installed less-costly "air-source" heat pumps that draw heat from the air outside. "Those I know are very happy with their heat pumps. It's very good!" he says. Zurich is expanding its district heating system, which delivers hot water and steam through underground pipes. With more buildings relying on this system for heat, there's less demand for natural gas. City of Zurich Some complaints linger but other cities draw lessons Mohamed Ali, the chef at a Lebanese restaurant called SimSim, isn't quite as pleased. "Actually, gas is nice," he says. "You know, to cook, to feel, to give power." Ali is replacing his stoves with electric induction versions. Unlike old-style electric stoves, induction allows precise control of cooking, similar to gas. These stoves work fine, Ali says, but they cost $40,000, and for him, few city subsidies were available. "I was so angry, because you have to pay a lot of money, and the city is not helping," he says. Last year, when the appointed time arrived to shut down gas service to the first neighborhood, city officials had to delay it for several months because a few people weren't yet ready. One landlord, in particular, simply refused to replace his gas furnace with new equipment to provide heat to his tenants. "He just didn't want to take care of the problem," Schöne says. "We had to visit the landlord himself, in his workplace, and tell him how serious this is." Year by year, Zurich plans to expand its district heating system and shut down gas service in additional neighborhoods. Within twenty years, according to the long-term plan, the burning of what city officials call "fossil gas" will end. Gas pipelines may remain in the historic city center, Banfi Frost says, but she expects they will carry "biogas" captured from animal manure or similar sources. Rainer Schöne, from Energie 360°, says most residents of Zurich now support the switch, mainly because of concerns about the effects of greenhouse emissions from burning fossil fuels. "There is a broad consensus in Zurich that [gas] is not, and cannot, be the future," he says. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has only strengthened those views. "I think we should stop buying gas from Russia," Danner says. "We would have a supply problem, but we could survive without it." The trail that Zurich is blazing could become a guide to other cities around the world. Many are encouraging people to switch from gas to electric appliances, but primarily on an individual basis. "We are very much promoting switching from natural gas," says Kerrie Romanow, director of environmental services for San Jose, California. But she says the city is focused on the appliances that consume the most gas. "We're not so worried about your gas cooktop, or your gas clothes dryer, as we are about heating and water heating, because those are much bigger uses," she says. If San Jose succeeds in this effort, though, it could end up in a situation similar to Zurich's, with an expensive gas system that serves fewer and fewer customers. The financial burden of maintaining that system could fall on low-income residents who are least able to pay for new electric replacements, like heat pumps. In addition, aging pipelines are prone to leaks, releasing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas which is the main ingredient in natural gas, into the air. Romanow says it would be up to the gas company – in this case Pacific Gas and Electric – to decide when shutting down gas pipelines makes economic sense. A spokesperson for PG&E, Ari Vanrenen, declined to say whether the company is thinking about such a possibility. In an email to NPR, he wrote that "a multi-faceted approach is needed to cost-effectively achieve California's greenhouse-gas reduction objectives. This includes both electrification and decarbonizing the gas system with renewable natural gas and hydrogen." https://www.npr.org/2022/04/20/1092429073/to-fight-climate-change-and-now-russia-too-zurich-turns-off-natural-gas https://www.npr.org/2022/04/19/1093613413/climate-change-hurricane-rainfall Climate change fueled extreme rainfall during the record 2020 hurricane reason April 19, 20224:16 PM ET Rina Torchinsky Philadelphia firefighters walk through a flooded neighborhood on Aug. 4, 2020, after Tropical Storm Isaias moved through. Matt Slocum/AP Human-induced climate change fueled one of the most active North Atlantic hurricane seasons on record in 2020, according to a study published in the journal Nature. The study analyzed the 2020 season and the impact of human activity on climate change. It found that hourly hurricane rainfall totals were up to 10% higher when compared to hurricanes that took place in the pre-industrial era in 1850, according to a news release from Stony Brook University. Too Many Storms, Not Enough Names It's not too late to stave off the climate crisis, U.N. report finds. Here's how "The impacts of climate change are actually already here," said Stony Brook's Kevin Reed, who led the study. "They're actually changing not only our day-to-day weather, but they're changing the extreme weather events." There were a record-breaking 30 named storms during the 2020 hurricane season. Twelve of them made landfall in the continental U.S. These powerful storms are damaging and the economic costs are staggering. Hurricanes are fueled in part by moisture linked to warm ocean temperatures. Over the last century, higher amounts of greenhouse gases due to human emissions have raised both land and ocean temperatures. Reed, associate professor and associate dean of research at Stony Brook's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, says the findings show that human-induced climate change is leading to "more and quicker rainfall," which can hurt coastal communities. "Hurricanes are devastating events," Reed said. "And storms that produce more frequent hourly rain are even more dangerous in producing damage flooding, storm surge, and destruction in its path." The research was based on a "hindcast attribution" methodology, which is similar to a weather forecast but details events in the past rather than the future. The publication of the study follows the release of a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a United Nations body — that found that nations are not doing enough to rein in global warming. Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and one of the hurricane study's co-authors, said the increases in hurricane rainfall driven by global warming is not shocking. "What is surprising is that the amount of this human caused increase is so much larger than what is expected from increases in humidity alone," Wehner said in the release from Stony Brook. "This means that hurricane winds are becoming stronger as well."