2020's Worst Environmental Disasters, and How Climate Change Played a Role

In a year of unprecedented disasters, much of the damage done to our planet in 2020 was self-inflicted.

From devastating oil spills in sensitive areas to deadly wildfires that consumed record acreage to failing dams that flooded entire towns, the worst environmental disasters of the year showed the influence of humans.

That influence is clearly evident when a tanker slams into a coral reef and spills thousands of barrels of oil. It's less obvious when climate change is a factor behind raging wildfires across the Western U.S. and Australia.

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Particularly in California, human-caused global warming, decisions on forest management and fire suppression, and expansion of homes and businesses into less-developed areas have combined to make the 2020 fire season one of the most destructive in recorded history.

"Humanity is waging war on nature," said António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, according to the Guardian. "This is suicidal. Nature always strikes back – and it is already doing so with growing force and fury. Biodiversity is collapsing. One million species are at risk of extinction. Ecosystems are disappearing before our eyes. … Human activities are at the root of our descent toward chaos. But that means human action can help to solve it."

Below is a more detailed look at some of the worst environmental disasters of 2020.

Oil Spill in Russia’s Arctic Region

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a state of emergency after some over 125,000 barrels (20,000 tons) of diesel fuel spilled from a collapsed storage tank on May 29 at a power plant in the Siberian city of Norilsk, above the Arctic Circle. The oil flowed into the Ambarnaya River and turned a 7.5-mile stretch crimson. The river feeds Lake Pyasino, which flows into another river that leads to the Arctic Ocean. The oil also contaminated the Daldykan River.

The former deputy chief of Russian environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor, Oleg Mitvol, said there had "never been such an accident in the Arctic zone," according to BBC.com. He said the cleanup could cost $1.5 billion and take as long as 10 years.

Rosprirodnadzor confirmed that Lake Pyasino was contaminated and it asked Nornickel, the company that owns the plant, to pay a record $2 billion in compensation, CNN reported.

The company said thawing permafrost caused by climate change was to blame for the spill.

"Right now we can assume ... that due to abnormally mild summer temperatures recorded in the past years, permafrost could have melted and the pillars under the platform could have sank," said Nornickel chief operating officer, Sergey Dyachenko, according to CNN.

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The head of Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources also cited thawing permafrost as the likely cause.

"We are still investigating, but there is a high probability that this is due to the thawing of the soil due to the climatic changes that are occurring in the Arctic zone," said Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Dmitry Kobylkin, according to a report by the Bellona Foundation, an environmental organization.

The consensus among scientists is that the Arctic has warmed at a rate of twice the global average over the past 30 years, BBC.com reported. The Copernicus Climate Change Service said temperatures in Siberia were higher than average at the beginning of the year – up to 18 degrees higher than normal in May.

Still, environmentalists argue that Nornickel has a history of environmental accidents and was relying on obsolete equipment.

"The root cause is not so important. More important is the reaction rate and how (Nornickel) relates to such incidents. Here a whole complex of systemic problems was revealed," said Simon Kalmykov, a member of the Bellona Foundation.

Most of the spilled diesel fuel has been cleaned up, according to Nornickel, and any remaining fuel is localized. More than 9 million gallons of fuel mixed with water has been collected and stored until it can be separated, the company said. About 104 acres around the Ambarnaya River also have been cleaned, it said.

The World Wildlife Fund in Russia said toxic chemicals left behind by the diesel fuel could impact the region for decades to come. The spill threatens not only fish, but also birds and a herd of wild reindeer, the WWF said. Indigenous people in the Taymyr area rely on the reindeer for their livelihoods.

"The accident ... will have catastrophic impacts on nature and it could take years to recover. WWF shares the concerns of the indigenous population. We have raised concerns about the consequences of such accidents for a long time. It is extremely urgent that the federal government take action to prevent the further spread of the toxic fuel. It is also necessary to study the issue of how to support the indigenous minorities of Taymyr engaged in traditional nature management in their original territory," Sergey Verkhovets, coordinator of Arctic projects at WWF Russia, said in a statement.

Alexey Knizhnikov, head of the Program for Business Environmental Responsibility at WWF Russia, said, "Stopping further spread is important, but the toxic elements will still be in the river and the lake. A spill like this should not have happened in the first place. (Nornickel's) aging infrastructure combined with rapidly thawing permafrost in the region highlight the need for companies in the Arctic to switch to alternative energy sources."

Mauritius Oil Spill

On July 25, the Japanese ship Wakashio left a regular shipping channel and ran aground on a coral reef off the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. On Aug. 6, the grounded ship began leaking oil. It spilled the equivalent of more than 7,400 barrels of oil into a pristine lagoon, killing scores of sea creatures.

"This oil spill occurred in one of, if not the most, sensitive areas in Mauritius," oceanographer and environmental engineer Vassen Kauppaymuthoo told Reuters. "We are talking of decades to recover from this damage, and some of it may never recover."

The ship's operator, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, said the Wakashio was carrying about 3,800 tons (almost 24,000 barrels) of very low sulfur fuel oil and 200 tons of diesel oil, CNN reported.

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Of the 7,400 barrels of oil that leaked from the vessel's fuel tank, the operator said about 2,900 barrels were manually recovered from the sea and coast. French and Japanese crews were able to remove most of the fuel that remained aboard the Wakashio, BBC.com reported, before the ship broke apart on Aug. 15.

The oil spread over more than 18 miles of the island nation's 217-mile shoreline.

Mangroves – the roots of which provide nurseries for marine life, like mollusks, crabs and fish – were covered, Jacqueline Sauzier, president of the non-profit Mauritius Marine Conservation Society, told the journal Nature. Chemicals from the oil may seep into corals and seagrass, Sauzier said.

Those chemicals might also affect the critically endangered Pink Pigeons that live on the Île aux Aigrettes, a small island near the wreck.

Environmentalists also said dozens of dolphins were washing up dead in the month after the spill. The government collected carcasses, but the results of autopsies were not released.

"We will never know if anyone should be held accountable for the death of 50 whales and dolphins if there is no public information," Happy Khambule, Greenpeace Africa senior climate and energy campaign manager, said in a statement. "Instead of buying time and placating the public, authorities in Mauritius should gain its trust by disclosing all they know."

The spill also affected many fishermen who were already struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There is a community of 15,000 people who live alongside, and are suffering alongside, the wildlife of this small corner of Mauritius," Adam Moolna, an environment and sustainability lecturer at Keele University in England and a Mauritian, told the Independent.

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Mauritius, a country of 1.3 million people, relies heavily on tourism and the sea. Tourism makes up 8.6% of the nation’s economy and employs 10% of its workers, according to the World Ocean Initiative. More than 9% of export earnings come from the seafood industry, which makes up 1.3% of the economy.

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines has agreed to provide at least $9.4 million for environmental projects and to support the local fishing communities, the Voice of America reported. The Mauritius Natural Environment Recovery Fund would help restore the coral reef and to protect mangroves, seabirds and rare species.

The ship's owner, Japan’s Nagashiki Shipping, said in early November the cleanup should be mostly completed by January, Reuters reported.

After the Wakashio broke apart, the front portion of the ship was towed out to sea and sank, despite pleas from environmentalists that sinking the ship could cause further damage.

"Sinking this vessel would risk several whale species and contaminate the ocean with large quantities of heavy metal toxins, threatening other areas as well, notably the French island of La Réunion," Greenpeace Africa said in a statement.

The stern remains lodged on the coral reef. Nagashiki Shipping said the removal of the stern would begin in late December and last several months.

The ship's captain was arrested and charged with endangering safe navigation, BBC.com reported. Crew members told police there had been a birthday party on the ship the day it ran aground. Investigators also were looking into claims the ship navigated close to the shore in order to pick up a Wi-Fi signal, according to BBC.com.

The government of Mauritius has said the country sustained $30 million in damage as a result of the spill, according to the Voice of America. Mauritian officials have said the country will seek compensation from Nagashiki Shipping and its insurer, though a treaty limits how much the country may be able to collect.

Japan's government also is considering some form of economic assistance to Mauritius, Nikkei Asia reported. Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said during a visit to the country on Dec. 14 that Japan will "positively consider" Mauritius' request for about $289 million in loans to help recover from the spill, the Japan Times reported. Japan also is working on an aid package that would include support for the fishing industry and for restoring damaged mangroves.

Venezuelan Oil Spill

An oil spill twice the size of the one in Mauritius washed ashore in Venezuela's Morrocoy National Park in early August, spoiling 9 miles of the area's white-sand beaches and endangering sensitive wildlife.

Environmentalists, who said they first noticed oil floating in the Caribbean Sea along the country's northwest coast on Aug. 2, warned it could damage the park's important wetlands and offshore coral reefs, BBC.com reported. Venezuela's authoritarian government offered little information about the spill.

Independent researchers and opposition lawmakers said it most likely came from El Palito oil refinery operated by the government-owned PDVSA oil company, according to Reuters. Satellite images showed a slick 3.5 miles long and 1 mile wide near the refinery on July 22. Researchers estimated it contained 26,700 barrels of oil.

"We project that the negative consequences on ecosystems and their components could last for 50 years or more," said Julia Alvarez, a biologist with Venezuela’s SVE ecological society.

Eduardo Klein, director of the Remote Sensors Laboratory at Universidad Simón Bolívar, said the spill was the first of three big oil spills from El Palito this summer and fall, the Caracas Chronicles reported.

Samuel Berti, who has been fishing off Puerto Cabello for 30 years, told the Caracas Chronicles he has pulled fish from the water with oil coming from their mouths.

The spills are among several recent incidents involving Venezuela's crumbling oil industry, the Washington Post reported. In September, oil gushed into the sea off Venezuela from a cracked underwater pipeline from the Cardón refinery, which PDVSA has been trying to restart. A second pipeline spewed natural gas into the sea.

In the Gulf of Paria, off northeastern Venezuela, the FSO Nabarima, a rusting storage vessel with 1.3 million barrels of crude, is taking on water. Activists, anti-government oil workers and analysts worry the ship could sink and create a major environmental disaster in the Caribbean Sea.

Matthew Smith, who writes about oil and gas, mining and infrastructure for OilPrice.com, says the volume of spills and other environmental incidents connected to Venezuela's oil industry will keep rising.

"As financial pressures on Caracas mount because of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, significantly weaker oil prices and strict U.S. sanctions, funding for vital oil maintenance activities will keep declining. That means already heavily decayed oil infrastructure will keep crumbling, causing the volume of oil spills, leaks and other environmentally damaging incidents to mount. These not only damage the environment but also sharply impact the livelihood and health of everyday Venezuelans who are already caught amid one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century."

Wildfires in the U.S.

The National Interagency Fire Center reports that as of Dec. 4, there have been 52,934 wildfires in the U.S. that have burned 14,905 square miles this year. That's twice the land area of the state of New Jersey, and it's the second-largest area burned in the past 10 years.

Oregon saw nine people killed and over 4,000 homes destroyed as 1,908 square miles burned in more than 2,000 wildfires.

Colorado saw three of its largest wildfires in state history this year. They forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate. The largest, the Cameron Peak Fire, began on Aug. 13 and burned 326 square miles before being contained on Dec. 5, according to InciWeb. Its cause is being investigated.

The East Troublesome Fire, which started Oct. 14, consumed 302 square miles and killed two people. Its cause is still being investigated. The third-largest, the Pine Gulch Fire, started by a lightning strike, burned more than 217 square miles.

However, no state saw as much wildfire destruction this year as California. Five of the six largest wildfires in the state's history happened in 2020. The largest, the August Complex Fire, burned 1,615 square miles, more than twice the acreage burned by the second-largest fire, according to Cal Fire. Overall, 9,639 wildfires consumed more than 6,527 square miles this year in California. The fires killed 33 people and destroyed or damaged more than 10,000 structures.

"Climate change is having a big role in California's wildfires, and this year puts a cap on the exceptional trend in wildfires we've seen in recent decades," Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and energy systems analyst, told weather.com. "We actually have slightly fewer fires in California than we had in the 1980s in terms of the number of fires, but our typical fire today burns about five times more area than it burned in the 1980s."

The huge fires are happening because conditions on the ground have changed, Hausfather said.

"When a spark happens, it's much more likely to catch and to spread rapidly into a major fire," he said.

Two factors play into that: drier vegetation (fuel aridity), driven by changes in precipitation, which hasn't changed all that much, and changes in temperature, which have increased during the fire season, especially in California, he explained.

In addition, California's forest ecosystem naturally adapted to burn every few decades, which clears out the underbrush that fuels big fires. But the forest service has done a "zealous job of extinguishing almost every fire they can manage since the 1920s or so," Hausfather said. That has created a degree of fuel buildup that means once fires do occur, they can grow faster.

"They can be much more devastating than if our forests were in a condition where they had more frequent low-level burns," he said. "It's the combination of those two things: a history of fire suppression leading to fuel build-up and drier vegetation from climate change that are driving the record areas burned we've seen in recent years."

Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University, pointed out that there are multiple contributors to individual wildfires and wildfire risk overall, including the weather, ignition sources, where and how structures are built and how fuels are managed. What's important is how changes in any one of these affect the risk overall, he said.

"With respect to climate change, the area burned in the Western U.S. has increased around tenfold over the past four decades," Diffenbaugh told weather.com. "Careful study shows that about half of that increase in area burned is attributable to long-term warming via the effect of that warming on the fuel aridity."

In a research paper published this summer, Diffenbaugh and his colleagues found that the frequency of extreme wildfire weather in California has more than doubled in the last four decades.

"Days with extreme wildfire weather are much more likely to contribute to large areas burned," said Diffenbaugh. "Long-term warming is driving that increase in extreme wildfire weather days via vegetation aridity."

These conditions are likely to continue, he said, and Hausfather agrees.

"The one really pernicious aspect of climate change is it's not easily reversible," Hausfather said. "Even if I could wave a magic wand and bring all global emissions down to zero tomorrow, temperatures would still remain as they are right now. The best we can hope for is that the current conditions we see in the Western U.S. in terms of dry vegetation are the new normal and it doesn't get worse."

Both scientists also said more resources need to be devoted to forest management and other efforts to reduce the risk of wildfire.

"If this is the new normal in terms of area burned each year, a lot of these forests aren't going to be able to regrow to the level of density or maturity they were in the past," Hausfather said.

Diffenbaugh said, "We're in a 'once in our history' experiment observing the succession of these forests. They're growing back in a new climate. It's yet to be seen how that unfolds."

Australian Wildfires

Australia also experienced an unprecedented wildfire season in 2019-20, a period known now as Black Summer, when hundreds of bushfires caused $7.3 billion worth of damage.

More than 93,000 square miles were burned. At least 33 people died in the fires, and extensive smoke may have caused many more deaths, according to a report from the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements. More than 3,000 homes were destroyed.

Billions of animals were killed or displaced, and the fires may have increased the risk of extinction of some species. Extensive downpours in February helped extinguish many of the blazes.

A prolonged heat wave enveloped the country during the fires, but a study conducted by the World Weather Attribution group published in March found that climate change made the wildfires at least 30% more likely to occur.

"Although fires are natural in Australia, they’re now occurring at an unprecedented frequency and intensity in areas that, historically, did not burn. This new regime does not allow the effective recovery of natural systems to their pre-fire state," wrote a group of climate scientists from the University of Tasmania in the Conversation.

The scientists use the example of alpine ash forests to show how some species won't recover from the fires. Alpine ash trees recover when seeds are released from the canopy and quickly grow into seedlings after a fire.

"Multiple fires in quick succession kill seedlings before they reach maturity, disrupting the tree’s reproductive cycle and leading to local extinction of the species in the landscape," the group said.

Australia has been romanticized as a land of floods and droughts, Richard Kingsford, a professor and ecologist from the University of New South Wales, said in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.

"But really, there’s nothing that says these cycles will always occur," Kingsford said. "If we change the severity of these cycles, we get into a place where our plants and animals no longer have the adaptations to cope with that level of change. And some of them will fall off the cliff, and they won’t just do it in small numbers. They’ll do it in large numbers."

Michigan Dams Collapse

Over two days in May, two failed dams spilled billions of gallons of water in Central Michigan, washing out trees, bridges, roads, houses and businesses and forcing more than 11,000 people from their homes. About 2,500 properties were destroyed from the township of Edenville through Sanford and into the city of Midland, where the downtown was submerged under 9 feet of water, NBC News reported.

Heavy rains on May 19 caused Wixom Lake to breach the Edenville Dam’s earthen embankment, Bridge Michigan reported. The torrent of water caused the downstream Sanford Dam to overflow.

Heavy rains in the Midwest have been linked to climate change.

"We are seeing more rain, and more precipitation in general," Richard B. Rood, a professor of meteorology at the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, told Inside Climate News. "The other thing we have been seeing is individual events that are more extreme and more precipitation in general."

As a result of warming, the atmosphere is holding 7% more moisture than it did just five decades ago, Jennifer Francis of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution told Yale Climate Connections. That moisture equals energy, she said.

"So when it does rain, it rains harder."

Heavy precipitation events, fueled by the extra moisture, have increased almost 40% across the upper Midwest in recent decades, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Add more extreme weather events to aging infrastructure and disaster is bound to happen.

The Edenville and the Sanford dams were rated high hazards in 2018, according to the National Inventory of Dams. Michigan officials and the owners of the Edenville Dam had battled for years over repairs needed at the dam, according to Michigan Live.

When it finally failed in May, it caused about $200 million in damage, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced.

There was some fear the flooding could have released hazardous materials from a chemical manufacturing complex along the Tittabawassee River. Dow Chemical said the situation did not pose harm to people or the environment, and no chemicals appeared to have been released.

Whitmer ordered an investigation into the failures. Work on an emergency project to stabilize what’s left of the Edenville Dam was set to begin on Nov. 19, Michigan Live reported.

An investigation by the Associated Press found 1,688 high-hazard dams rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition in 44 states and Puerto Rico. The actual number is probably higher, the AP said. More than $70 billion would be needed to repair and upgrade dams across the U.S., the Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimates.

Heavy precipitation events are predicted to continue increasing over the next 50 years.

"The dawning reality is that the dam, levee and other infrastructure failures will be more likely to occur as global warming intensifies," Shana Udvardy, a climate resilience analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told National Geographic.

"We’re seeing again and again, it’s not whether they’re going to fail; it’s a matter of when they’re going to fail."

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