Dear Hothouse Reader 🤩 ❤️
Let's talk about you
Simple climate action // I S S U E # 5 6 // W H A T ’ S N E X T
Hothousers,
We’re back! We spent the last two weeks getting to know our readers better, planning our coverage for the year, and, in my case, getting married 🥳, (see picture below). The time away was wonderful, wild, and (after a two-day mini-moon) restorative. A real honeymoon is planned for next year.
This week, we wanted to cover a few things: the UN climate conference and you, our audience. That’s a lot of ground to cover so let’s get to it.
Time for some COP talk
No climate newsletter would be complete this week without mentioning COP26: the UN climate conference busy deciding our fate in Glasgow, Scotland (or at least putting a weighty finger on the scale). If you’re lost amid the jargon and the lofty rhetoric, that’s understandable. But I’ll boil it all down for you.
When the United Nations began formulating a climate response under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in the 1990s, it began holding COPs (Conference of the Parties). For decades, they have been all about negotiations. After attending three of them (Indonesia, Denmark, and Mexico), I saw a familiar pattern: expectations are raised as the day approaches; negotiators slip behind closed doors to bicker about semi-colons and argue over commas. They hammer out a text heads of state can pick up, tweak, and sign during the final, (hopefully) triumphant days of the conference.
Some COPs are dull. Others, like COP15 in 2009, are dramatic. When Air Force One deposited US president Barak Obama on the tarmac in Copenhagen that year, failure hung heavy over the proceedings. Developing countries had rebuked rich nations over weak commitments. As talks teetered toward disaster, Obama and US officials huddled with their counterparts from China and India over laptops to smooth out a final text everyone could sign. The result, the Copenhagen Accord, was the first to agree on a 2°Celsius target.
This conference, COP26, will be nothing like it. For one, the Paris Agreement is now agreed upon. The 2015 deal saw most of the world agree to keep the rise in global average temperatures "well below" 2°C (ideally, 1.5°C), while escalating climate ambition and reporting on their progress every five years. It was a huge breakthrough for nations that represent 95% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
But so far, it’s not enough. We are still on track for a 2.4°C (4.3°F) world under today’s climate commitments (and it’s no guarantee we’ll achieve even that).
So the real question is whether COP26 marks a turning point from talk to action. With the Paris framework in place, the test for success is how countries use COP26 to demonstrate credible action and escalate their climate ambitions. That means shifting the purpose of the annual conclaves from negotiating text to implementing those same words.
Early evidence is...mixed. India just pledged to reach “net zero” emissions by 2070 (later than many would have liked). Australia has promised the same by 2050 (UK officials criticized the coal-loving country as lacking even a half-serious plan to get there).
So I’ll leave you with this. COP26 will not stop catastrophic warming. But we’re in a much better place than ten years ago. Nations have a common framework to act on climate. More than 63 countries have committed to revolutionary net-zero commitments considered nearly impossible just a few years ago. A credible pathway to a 2°C world exists. That means we can avoid the worst-case warming scenario, but our best chance to avoid disaster is slipping away as we delay. Let’s see what happens in Glasgow.
Dear Hothouse Reader 🤩
Next, let’s talk about you. We asked our readers about themselves over the past few weeks (it’s not too late: survey here!), and, boy did you reply. All 1,400 of you from around the world (and rising every day) had lots to say about the climate, hopes for the future, and what you’d want us to cover. I’ll summarize the highlights:
Why did you subscribe? Readers expect Hothouse to add a mix of inspiration and insight to their lives.🌤 🏖 Here are a few of the top reasons you clicked:
Nuanced insight into complex sustainability challenges that affect our everyday.
Inspiration
I love finding deep articles in my inbox that address urgent topics with a new light.
I care about climate change but largely feel helpless to combat it in my own life.
I feel I should be more engaged on climate issues
What's your biggest obstacle when it comes to taking action on climate change? Information overload, not enough time, overwhelmed by bad news, and others were among the reasons.
But the overwhelming winner (and I mean 90%)? “📰 Don't know good ways to make a material difference.”
Are we having an impact on your life?
Yes. Most of you report having changed your thinking or taken an action on a topic as a result of a Hothouse story. Fantastic!
U ❤️ Hothouse
Most of you gave us a 9 or 10 (out of 10). That gives us an incredibly high net promoter score (an industry benchmark) but still leaves some room for improvement. We’ll get there!
What topics should we write about?
Money and investment were a big one (expect these soon). Next were indigenous communities, as well as children and families and EV.
What do you hope to find at Hothouse that you can't find anywhere else? 🌤 🏖
Information and a little bit of hope for the future of our planet.
I'm looking for a well-edited, intelligently-written source for original articles that will help me make decisions on how to change my life.
ideas for action changes in our day-to-day lives or long-range projects.
Good storytelling that's both hopeful and honest about the community of people fighting climate change.
To be more effective in my climate action and share the information I find.
What’s your favorite story format?
You love in-depth features and profiles paired with tips and resources links. You were less excited about short videos (a la TikTok) or SMS text reminders. Here’s what you’d like to see
And that’s it friends. We’ll use this survey to make Hothouse even better going forward. Next week, the November issue will dive into Heat and the human body 🔥🥵 Our intrepid correspondent Dana Smith explores what happens when humans encounter the hottest temperatures expected as global warming intensifies. Will access to cool air become a human right? What can you do about this? That’s a world we’ll face very soon.
Until then,
Mike
PS: And the promised wedding photo from Lodi, CA. Our dog Miska was unimpressed, but the humans had the time of their lives. See you next week.
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Hothouse is a weekly climate action newsletter written and edited by Mike Coren and Cadence Bambenek. We rely on readers to support us, and everything we publish is free to read.
