Crypto News: Olympics in a warmer world

Today's newsletter looks at how Olympic athletes are preparing to compete in a warmer world. You can read the full story on Bloomberg.com. For unlimited access to climate and energy news, please subscribe.

By Kendra Pierre-Louis

Paris can be a sticky, hot place to be in July. In fact, researchers have found that scorching summers there are now 10 times more likely than in the past because of climate change. It's the kind of weather that would make anyone want to slow down. Yet for elite athletes descending on the city for the Olympic games that begin this week, there's no choice but to go full speed. After all, there's national pride on the line.

As someone whose athletic performance peaked with what I can only describe as middling basketball performance in the 8th grade, I can't exactly relate. But I can identify with the feeling of extreme heat sapping my energy. And that's exactly what Michael N. Sawka, a professor at Georgia Tech University, says happens when temperatures soar.

Sawka provided some more insight on the subject to Ira Boudway and me for our story today on the stress that high temperatures will be putting on Olympic athletes in Paris – especially those competing in the heat-prone city center.

An athlete drinks water lying down after the Ironman World Championships in 2022. Photographer: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images North America

The issue for elite athletes – and the rest of us – is that as the body moves, it generates heat. "When you perform muscular exercise about 80% of the energy that's generated is released as heat," Sawka says.

When temperatures are cool, dissipating that heat is easy — think about how good cold air feels on the skin after a workout. But as temperatures increase, the body has to work harder to shed heat — diverting resources from muscles to do so. This is why a long leisurely stroll at 65F(18C) can feel pleasant but a walk around the block at 90F can make you question all of your life choices. This is especially true in high humidity when shedding the heat our body generates is even harder.

The good news is that humans – and not just athletes – can train to better perform in high heat. An athlete's ability to adjust to heat, "can mean the difference between a medal and 10th place," said Christopher Blevins, an Olympic mountain biker with team USA. Blevins trains in the relatively moderate climate of Santa Cruz, California – meaning he has to find creative ways to crank up the heat. He regularly dons five layers of clothing for indoor heat-training rides, which he complements with time in the sauna.

"When you're taxing yourself, at the level of an elite mountain bike race your brain goes to these interesting places," says Blevins. "I've noticed that the heat sometimes brings a physiological panic response in a way where your whole system is telling you to get out of there and go cool off."

For the athletes competing this weekend, there might be a lucky break. The current forecast for Paris on Saturday is a bit of drizzle and 70F.

Read the full story here.

1.64C

This is how much higher the global average temperature for the year through June 2024 was compared with pre-industrial times. The Paris Agreement seeks to ideally limit planetary warming to below 1.5C, but that considers averages over a 20 or 30 year period.

"These days I think it's much more appropriate to call it 'global weirding,' Wherever we live, our weather is getting much weirder."

Katharine Hayhoe

A professor at Texas Tech University who studies climate impacts

The term "global warming" itself suggests a kind of predictability that may no longer suit the times, Hayhoe says.

The UK government has revealed its first plans for the new state-backed company Great British Energy.

It was announced on Thursday that the Crown Estate of King Charles III, owner of virtually all of the seabed around the UK, will partner with GB Energy to accelerate the building of offshore wind farms.

The agreement has the potential to leverage as much as £60 billion ($77 billion) of investment into the UK's renewables business, the government said. Energy security and the need for the state to play a bigger role in guaranteeing that was a major campaign issue for recently elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Offshore wind turbines at the Scroby Sands Wind Farm near Great Yarmouth, UK. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Unusually hot days are becoming more common. The number of days with temperatures over 30C (86F) in the UK have tripled in the past decade, compared to 1961-1990, according to the Met Office, which expects the trend to intensify as the climate warms.

Countries renew call for trillions in climate funds. China and some of the world's biggest developing nations made a renewed demand on richer countries to lift climate financing to trillions of dollars a year to accelerate the green transition in emerging economies.

South Africa is falling short of climate targets. The country may miss the emission-reduction targets it agreed to as part of an international treaty and deepen inequality in what is already the world's most unequal nation, a government advisory body said.

By Brian K Sullivan

A fast-moving fire that erupted in Bidwell Park, about 85 miles north of Sacramento, California, on Wednesday has already spread to 45,549 acres, forcing residents to be evacuated. The fire is only 3% contained, according to the latest update from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Dubbed the "Park Fire," the blaze near Chico, California has created a "dangerous situation" as it spread quickly through the rural area, Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles said in an X post.

The Bidwell Park fire is the latest major blaze in California as the state nears the heart of wildfire season. California has had two winters of plentiful rain and snow that has encouraged vast amounts of vegetation to spring up, leaving plenty of fuel around to ignite during the driest time of the year. Dead, dried-out grasses and small shrubs are often the kindling needed to start larger blazes. However, the cause of the Park Fire is still under investigation, according to Cal Fire.

Read the full story here.

California is getting closer to heart of fire season with multiple blazes across the state. A helicopter makes a water drop on the Hawarden Fire in Riverside County, California, on July 23 Photographer: Jon Putman/SOPA Images/Sipa/AP Photos

In related news:

Wildfire season is an insurance nightmare. While many insurers have retreated California due to fire risks, Delos Insurance Solutions has gone all in. The company is relying on its wildfire models, which it says can predict risk for an individual home with greater accuracy than the rest of the market.

Meanwhile, Californians are suing the state-backed insurer. A new lawsuit alleges that California's state-backed insurance plan has failed to provide adequate coverage for hundreds of thousands of homeowners living in wildfire zones.

Trees deserve more credit. While they are well known for sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, researchers have discovered they offer one more important benefit: They can act as a net sink of methane, another gas that harms the planet.

To meet the demands of a net zero future BloombergNEF analysis estimates that the world will need to nearly double its grid network to 111 million kilometers — a distance almost three quarters of the way to the sun — by 2050. How will we get there? Former BNEF grid expert Sanjeet Sanghera, a one-time control room operator who is now working on strategic futures at the National Grid, tells Akshat Rathi about the challenges and opportunities this enormous transformation of the world's biggest machine will bring. Listen now, and subscribe on Apple or Spotify to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.

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