Climate's ticking population bomb, plus Biden's Saudi goals

Welcome to Callaway Climate Insights. All eyes on the Texas grid today.

Today in Callaway Climate Insights:

- A new UN report says eight countries will hold half the world’s population growth in the next 30 years. Their climate outlooks aren’t good.

- Are EV leasing services the key to rapid adaption? This British company thinks so.

- Why President Biden’s controversial visit to Saudi Arabia won’t help oil prices

- UK’s Tory leadership contest already hurting British climate agenda

This landscape of ‘mountains’ and ‘valleys’ speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. This telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. NASA released the first image Monday, and today released more full-color images and spectroscopic data at a special event from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The project is a partnership with the European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI, WEBB ERO production team.

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Before I became a journalist, I always wanted to be an astronomer. So, the images released by NASA this morning of the universe more than four billion years ago captivated me with their beauty and timelessness. The one above is my favorite.

Back here on Earth, however, it’s getting kind of crowded. A big United Nations report this week shows that our population will reach eight billion later this year, and almost 10 billion by 2050. India is set to pass China as the world’s most populous nation during that time.

Most ominously, the report shows that more than half of that growth in the next 30 years — almost one billion more people — will be concentrated in just eight countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Tanzania.

That those countries are among the most exposed to the ravages of global warming gives pause as to what is to come in the next three decades. Climate change has often been called a human migration story. With temperatures in some of these countries already approaching “web bulb” ranges, where humans can’t survive, the economic and social fallout from those impending migrations will soon start to be measured.

Expect a lot of analysis shortly on the impact on oil and minerals markets in some of those countries, as well as increased carbon emissions, and what will happen across borders as migration patterns emerge. Stranded assets, indeed.

More insights below . . . .

Don’t forget to contact me directly if you have suggestions or ideas at dcallaway@callawayclimateinsights.com.