“ Yet our approach to oil has been antiquated at best, utterly dependent on information supplied by oil companies – about what they can gain – without adequate science to understand what could be lost.  It is time to bring balance back into our decision-making.”

– World Wildlife Fund Pres. Carter Roberts, told the Oil Spill Commission Wednesday.

-Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani

August 13, 2010

Asleep at the Wheel

China and the U.S. Going Different Ways

In the troubled climate action summer of 2010 it’s at least a little relief to know that some progress is occurring. The Department of Energy, in its latest assessment released this month of the American wind energy sector, reports that Texas is generating 2.29 gigawatts of energy from wind – equivalent to four good-sized coal plants. Four other states are generating more than 10 percent of their electricity from wind. They are Iowa (20%), South Dakota (13%), North Dakota (12%), and Minnesota (11%).

The other piece of good news this week is out of China, where Keith Bradsher reports in the New York Times that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has ordered 2,087 dirty, polluting, inefficient, carbon emissions spewing industrial plants shuttered by September 30. The heavy-fisted directive is intended to draw China closer to energy efficiency goals.

China and U.S. Going Different Ways
From an American perspective it’s easy to imagine the fear and frustration of the owners and workers of the doomed plants. Still, China’s action joins a series of other policy steps the world’s largest energy consumer and carbon emissions producer is taking to make the transition to a cleaner, low-carbon economy. In early October, during the UNFCCC intercessional meeting, the first UN climate conference ever hosted by China, the world will learn much more. Suffice to say that China is acting to 1) meet the world’s fastest rising demand for energy, 2) tame the damage to its air, land, and water resources, and 3) still deal with its soaring carbon emissions.

Meanwhile, U.S. climate and energy policy remains ad-hoc. Cities and states, in doing such useful things as approving energy efficiency standards for buildings, promoting public transit, and passing renewable energy standards are putting a big dent in U.S. carbon emissions. The Obama administration, in issuing new emissions limits for cars and light trucks in April, and in May announcing the intent to do the same thing with heavy trucks, also is making a difference.

But the dysfunctional Senate, in refusing to address the warming planet, is aiding the fossil fuel industry’s clear objective to sharply accelerate the opening of the next era of hydrocarbon development — mining “unconventional” tar sands and oil shale reserves for oil, and fracturing deep rock layers for natural gas. To put it bluntly, tapping each produces more carbon emissions, uses more water, damages more land than the disappearing “conventional” oil and gas reserves they are meant to replace.

In northern Alberta, Canada, energy developers are spending $15 billion annually to expand production of bitumen-saturated tar sands, which are the largest source of American oil imports and produce 40 million tons of carbon emissions annually, according to the Pembina Institute. In the U.S., pipeline builders are spending $31 billion to triple the flow of tar sands oil across the border to a legion of American refineries in the Great Lakes, Midwest, and Gulf Coast that are being expanded to receive it at a cost of more than $20 billion.

“Asleep At The Wheel”
In other words while China appears intent on making the transition to a low-carbon economy, the U.S. is sending mixed signals at best. That message is being received loud and clear by the global investment community, a sector of the economy that can reach senators of both parties.

As the week closed Reuters reported that in the wake of the Senate decision earlier this month to abandon a comprehensive climate and energy bill Deutsche Bank’s Deutsche Asset Management Division will focus its $6 billion to $7 billion annual “green” investment dollars on opportunities in China and Western Europe, where it sees governments providing clean energy and climate leadership.

“You just throw your hands up and say we’re going to take our money elsewhere,” said Kevin Parker, the global head of the Asset Management Division, reflecting the consensus view of climate activists as well. “They’re asleep at the wheel on climate change, asleep at the wheel on job growth, asleep at the wheel on this industrial revolution taking place in the energy industry.”

Until next week, take care, Keith Schneider

August 6, 2010

Gulf Disaster Approaches End As Senate Again Delays Energy Bill

On day 108 of the BP oil catastrophe, the company began pouring cement to seal the blown out well and eliminate the chance it would pour more oil into Gulf waters. The United States this week estimated the BP blowout, which began with an explosion and fire on April 20, released an oil torrent that measured 4.9 million barrels. Even with the 800,000 barrels that BP says it captured, the Gulf blowout is the largest oil disaster ever.

As if to buffer the magnitude of that number, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in an assessment on Wednesday that most of the oil had evaporated, been skimmed from the water, dispersed by chemicals, or otherwise disappeared. The agency also asserted that much of the environmental harm had departed with the vanished oil, a point that Gulf state scientists disputed.

“We’ve never had a spill of this magnitude in the deep ocean,” Ian R. MacDonald, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, told the New York Times. “These things reverberate through the ecosystem. “It is an ecological echo chamber, and I think we’ll be hearing the echoes of this, ecologically, for the rest of my life.”

The same thing could be said about the echo chamber in Washington, where last May’s Senate assurance of introducing comprehensive climate and energy legislation became a July promise of introducing just an oil disaster response bill, which this week became a weak statement, at best, that such a bill might be introduced in September.

Climate advocates will keep pushing in Washington, and at the international climate meetings heading to the UN climate summit in Cancun in December. Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. climate negotiator, said at the climate meeting in Bonn that despite the failure to act on a U.S. climate bill, “the United States is not backing away from the commitments our president made in Copenhagen. “

The U.S. Copenhagen commitment calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The World Resources Institute recently released a study that said the country could get most of the way to that goal through federal regulatory action and state measures, including renewable energy standards that require utilities to generate a portion of their power with cleaner alternatives like wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

One of the states where a renewable energy standard has influenced carbon emissions and industrial development is Michigan, where $3 billion in federal, state, and private sector funds is being invested for wind and solar development and $6 billion is being spent on next generation vehicles. On Thursday, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm appeared at a clean energy briefing at the Center For American Progress.  She was asked what she would do to break through the Senate logjam to advance comprehensive national climate and energy legislation.

“We have to get off the debate about whether global warming is occurring,” said the two-term Democratic governor, who noted that the first phase of clean energy development in her state would generate 89,000 new jobs. “We have to talk about jobs.”

She added: “Assume that the 132 countries that made commitments to cut their emissions are serious. Assume that those countries have analyzed the jobs that are inherent to do that. Then the best argument is about jobs for America. We need all kinds of jobs for all kinds of people. We are turning our back on this opportunity. Let’s just talk about the opportunity for jobs.”

In a nation where people care most about either finding or hanging on to a good job, maybe that is the best way to reach voters and the political leaders who represent them.

Until next week, take care, Keith Schneider

Fallout Begins After Senate’s Failure to Act on Energy
On Tuesday senator Majority Leader Reid announced that the energy bill will be delayed until September. After the worst oil leak in U.S. history and months of heated negotiations on energy and spill-response legislation, senators will head home for the August recess empty-handed.

Senate Democrats Hope Delay Will Lead to Broader Oil Response Bill
Senate leadership’s decision to punt a narrow energy bill to September has some Democrats hoping there is still a chance to pass a more sweeping measure this year. While many Democrats were disappointed that even the narrow package could not clear the chamber amid a heated pre-election political climate, some see the stall as an opportunity to renew their push for more a more aggressive bill when the Senate returns from the August recess.

Two Democrats May Counter Rockefeller
Rockefeller is seeking a vote this year on a bill that limits EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases from industrial facilities for two years. Democrats Carper and Casey plan to introduce their own proposal in order to draw attention and support from Rockefeller. Carper and Casey’s countermeasure proposal would exempt small sources from EPA climate rules while allowing the agency to regulate the larger polluters.

A Bet on Clean Energy in the Automotive State
There are 17 new plants in production, under construction or approaching groundbreaking in Michigan’s nascent vehicle battery sector, according to the state Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth. Two of them, representing an investment of $523 million, are in Holland, a city of 34,000.

BP Starts Cementing Gulf Oil Well
BP started pumping cement into its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well as it moved to permanently kill the source of the world’s worst marine oil spill.

INTERNATIONAL
Overseas Frustration Grows Over U.S domestic Impasse on Climate Policy
Top climate change leaders from Europe to Africa are wondering if it’s time to give up on the United States. Frustrated by the U.S. Senate’s recent abandonment of climate legislation and baffled by Congress’ seeming inability to cut emissions, several countries are uncertain about America’s role in upcoming treaty negotiations.

US keeps climate goal despite Senate setback
The United States stands by its 2020 target for reducing greenhouse gas
emissions despite the Senate’s failure to pass legislation to fight climate
change, the top U.S. climate envoy said on Monday.

Pessimism Clouds Climate Meeting
This week in Bonn, negotiators are meeting to prepare for this year’s
annual climate meeting, COP-16 (the 16th Conference of the Parties of the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), which opens in late
November in Cancún, Mexico. There is little optimism this time around. Even
the few areas of agreement that were hailed as great accomplishments in the
Copenhagen Accord seem to be back on the negotiating table.

New UN climate change chief rallies governments to step up action
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), made her first address at the UN climate change
talks, and emphasized the need to work together.

Will Russia’s Heat Wave End Its Global-Warming Doubts?
At a meeting of international sporting officials in Moscow on July 30,
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev acknowledged the need for heads of state
to come together and work on fixing the global challenges with the climate.

• Has Russia’s Heat Wave Changed Its Stance on Global Warming?
• Scientists Find Evidence That Oil and Dispersant Mix is Making its Way Into the Food Chain
• Bill Includes Citizens Oil Panel for Gulf, Arctic Coasts
• Greens Defend Climate Tactics
• Worlds First Solar Plant that Can Work at Night
• People Care less About the Environment as Unemployment Rises

July 29, 2010

Time to Recharge and Gear Up to Protect EPA Authority

A week after Senate Democrats abandoned the work of limiting carbon emissions that are warming the Earth, leaders of the House and Senate introduced separate proposals to reduce the risk of deep ocean energy exploration and production, and advance energy efficiency and cleaner vehicles.

In Washington, some 350 environmental organizations, including the US Climate Action Network, issued a joint statement that made the essential point that rising carbon emissions are fostering an accelerating cascade of dangerous consequences for the environment and the American economy, and the work to change that would continue.

Both points gained fresh legitimacy in science and reality. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week published State of the Climate 2009, which reported that air temperatures over land, sea-surface temperatures, sea level, ocean heat and humidity were all rising. Arctic sea ice, glaciers, and spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere were declining. And the past decade was the warmest on record.

Science and Reality
Meanwhile, an uncommon heat wave in Russia has led, said some reports, to hundreds of deaths from drowning. We also learned this week that phytoplankton, the microscopic plants that support all life in the oceans, are dying off at a dramatic rate, according to a new study from Dalhousie University in Canada.

It’s understandable that climate advocates who’ve worked so long to tee up federal action to cool the planet are at a spiritual ebb. Until December 2009, when the UN Copenhagen climate summit produced much less than anticipated, the idea of acting to limit carbon was on a roll. High points included 2007 Nobel Prizes for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s breakthrough science and for Al Gore’s astonishing work to elevate global warming to an international priority. They also included Barack Obama’s winning 2008 presidential election, and the formation of global online grassroots climate activism led by 350.org and TckTckTck, a project of the Global Campaign For Climate Action.
The Senate decision to drop climate from a comprehensive bill was the latest unmistakable signal that the burst of progress and optimism that led into Copenhagen was a political anomaly and that every step forward for the foreseeable future will be very hard work. The $5 billion in investments in clean energy and energy efficiency proposed this week in the Senate energy package help.

Climate advocates also are mindful of how the fossil fuel and utility industries, and their allies in Congress, are challenging the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Obama administration is using the law to soon produce dramatic reductions in carbon emissions in new vehicles, and is taking aim at large industrial polluters. Defending the agency and the law is shaping up to be the next big environmental clash in Washington.

Today, the EPA issued a formal rebuke to its critics who deny that climate change is real. The agency responded to petitioners who argued the agency’s finding late last year that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases endangered public health was scientifically flawed. The EPA, which based its regulatory action on the “endangerment finding,” said it found no scientific evidence to support the petitioners’ claims and “that climate science is credible, compelling, and growing stronger.”

Next week is August’s start, a good time for Washington’s environmental community to get out of town, take a break, recharge. Thank you to all of our colleagues fighting so hard at the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Until next week, take care, Keith Schneider

As early as next week, the Senate Appropriations committee could decide whether to restrict EPA’s ability to limit carbon pollution.   Now is the time to move forwards, not backwards in protecting public health, cutting pollution, and moving to a clean energy future. Send a letter to your Senator and urge him/her to vote against any action that would block or delay the EPA’s ability to regulate the nation’s biggest polluters. Visit https://secure.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1923 for a sample action alert from NRDC.  For more information please contact Kate Smolski: ksmolski@climatenetwork.org or Jennifer Kurz: jkurz@climatenetwork.org

Dems Unveil Energy, Spill Package Plan to Move it Quickly
The legislation will address a number of issues in response to the BP PLC oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as create an energy-efficiency retrofit program, provide tax breaks for natural gas vehicles and infrastructure, and boost funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, according to the draft summary.

Senators Push for a Renewable Energy Standard
In a letter, 27 Democrats, led by by Sens. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Tom Udall (N.M.), made the case for a RES, which would require many utilities to supply escalating amounts of power from sources like wind and solar energy in coming years.

Cap-and-trade Prospects Shaky in Lame Duck
Although many climate advocates are hoping that cap and trade will be addressed in a House and Senate conference bill after the elections, the uphill climb to 60 Senate votes likely won’t get easier during a lame-duck session.

Reid clashes with Democrats and renewable groups over RES
Senate Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a draft summary of their energy and oil spill-response package with an ambitious goal of passing the measure by the end of next week. As expected, the package omits more controversial proposals including a price on carbon and a renewable electricity standard. RES advocates launched a last-minute lobbying blitz this week urging Reid to replace the energy mandate. Environmentalists, renewable energy industries and other proponents insisted that an RES — which would require utilities to generate a minimum percentage of their electricity from sources like wind, solar and geothermal — could win the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate.

Tiny Tax on Wall Street Trades to Pay for Climate Mitigation and Adaptation?
One of the key issues in securing a global climate deal is finding the finances for worldwide climate mitigation and adaption. U.S. Rep Pete Stark, has introduced a bill that would levy the tiny tax on trades of stocks, bonds, foreign exchange, futures and options involving large-scale traders who make more than $10,000 in transactions per year. This revenue could help millions of people in countries vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change.

China to Impose Economic Punishment on Six Companies for Violation of Emission Reduction Regulations
China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection said Friday it would impose “economic punishment” on six companies for violation of emission reduction regulations.  The six companies – five power enterprises and one chemical enterprise – were accused of abnormal operation of desulfurization facilities or of cheating in emission reports, ministry spokesman Tao Detian said.

Guyana and Norway Establish REDD+ Investment Fund
Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo and Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday announced the establishment of the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF), and stated that they have invited the World Bank to act as the fund manager.

Large Developing Nations Push for a Bigger Role in treaty
Ministers of the four so-called BASIC countries (China, India, Brazil, and South Africa meets in Rio de Janeiro to develop a new scientific panel to provide climate change data for and about developing countries

–Joint Statement on Senate Inaction by Environmental Groups, including USCAN.

• Want the Good News First?
• Oil Spill Near Kalamazoo River Causes Stench, Mess
• The Earth climbs to new heights on heat charts — NOAA
• Regional and state interests may dominate future climate and energy policy
• DOE and DOD join forces to push clean energy research
• Electric carmakers focus on incentives, not carbon prices
• GM to Be First in U.S. to Air Condition Autos with Climate Friendly Coolant
• Climate smackdown reverberates around the Web
• Bare Hands Clean-Up of a Horrible Oil Spill
• Crews work to keep oil spill from Lake Michigan

July 23, 2010

No sooner had Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on Thursday that climate measures would be dropped from a new and much more narrowly focused energy bill than the finger pointing began. Democrats blamed Republican resistance. Republicans countered that not even enough Democrats were wedded to cuts in carbon emissions.  Climate advocates groused privately that the president didn’t do enough to help. Journalists blamed environmentalists for an inflexible message that didn’t rouse enough public ire.

Whatever. It’s painful.

Still, in the dispiriting hours after the announcement climate advocates and Senate leaders agreed that the Earth is warming dangerously, the nation will suffer economically as climate change accelerates, and that giving up is not an option. “If we can’t do it in the next weeks, we’ll do something that begins to do something responsibly in the short term,” said Senator John Kerry, the Senate’s most important climate action leader. “But this will stay out there, and we’ll be working on it. We’ll be asking you to talk to your senators and move them to understand why we have to get this done.”

“The twin challenges of building a clean energy economy and addressing global warming are too important to fail,” said Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters.  “The fight to create new clean energy jobs and solve the climate crisis will continue — in this Congress, in the states and at the EPA.”

Less Filling
The new and less ambitious energy bill that Senator Reid plans to introduce next week will focus on a response to the BP Gulf disaster, improvements to energy efficiency, converting vehicle fleets to natural gas, and other energy measures that are more likely to attract bi-partisan support. But the introduction of such a bill would appear to have the effect of squandering the work of the House, which passed a cap-and-trade bill in June 2009 that set a national cap on carbon emissions and required companies to have permits for such emissions.

The question pondered by climate activists in and outside of Washington is what will it take to tee up and pass a comprehensive climate bill? The worst oil disaster in the nation’s history wasn’t enough. Nor was the news this week from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that 2010 is the warmest year on record.

New Message Campaigns Needed
Two openings, though, for new and urgent message campaigns may have presented themselves this week.

The first was a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council that linked climate change to water shortages and found that “more than 1,100 counties — one-third of all counties in the lower 48 — will face higher risks of water shortages by mid-century as the result of global warming.” Water is personal, essential, and very much at risk in the era of climate change.

Secondly was the news that China next year will put a price on carbon and start a program of domestic carbon trading to help it meet a 2020 carbon intensity target. Americans thrive on competition and there is no more important global race than the one China is winning in developing the markets and technology to command the multi-trillion dollar low carbon economy.

This troubling week also included the sad news that Stephen Schneider, the Stanford climatologist whose ability to communicate the risks of climate change to ordinary people was as keen as his scientific acumen, died at the age of 65. Paul R. Ehrlich, the biologist and population expert, said of Schneider, “I don’t think anybody has worked harder and longer to educate the public on climate issues in particular and science issues in general.” Our condolences to Schneider’s family and all of us who knew and admired his work.

Until next week, take care, Keith Schneider

Dems Abandon Comprehensive Energy Legislation
At a press conference this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the Democrats’ top climate and energy negotiator, acknowledged officially, and with obvious disappointment, that they lack the votes to pass legislation limiting carbon pollution, and that forthcoming energy legislation will be extremely narrow, in a bid to overcome a GOP filibuster.

Democrats Pull Plug on Climate Bill
Senate Democrats pulled the plug on climate legislation Thursday, pushing the issue off into an uncertain future ahead of mid-term elections.  Rather than a long-awaited measure capping greenhouse gases – or even a more limited bill directed only at electric utilities – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will move forward next week on a bipartisan energy-only bill that responds to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and contains other more popular energy items.

On the Death of the Climate Bill
Not only will the bill not contain any restrictions on greenhouse gases — not even a watered-down utility-only cap – it won’t even contain the two other key policies that would have moved clean energy forward: the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) and the energy efficiency standards.

Lack of Votes for Senate Democrats’ Energy Bill May Mean the End
The decision to abandon the proposal was another concession to the difficult political environment that party leaders face, as many rank-and-file congressional Democrats are wary of casting any votes that could be used in Republican attacks.

Carbon Trading in Pipeline for China
In a recent development, it now appears that China will implement a domestic carbon cap and trade program in its 12th Five-Year plan set to begin in 2011.  Details sounding the program are still being worked out but official have said that China made the decision to implement the program to help the nation reach its 2020 carbon intensity target.

Stephen H. Schneider, Climate Change Expert, dies at 65
Stephen H. Schneider, 65, an influential Stanford University climatologist who parlayed his expertise on the dangerous effects of greenhouse-gas emissions into a second career as a leader in the public dialogue — and debate — on climate change, died July 19 in London.

- Senator Harry Reid

• Climate Science Loses a Key Figure: Stephen Schneider
• Natural Gas as Panacea: Dubious path to a Green Future
• Stabilization Targets and Irreversible Climate Change
• Himalayas Circle of Blue WaterNews
• BP’s Altered Photo Distorts Spill Center Activity
• U.Va.: Cuccinelli brief an ‘editorial screed’ that proves he’s targeting academic
• U.S. Government to Ask 600k Supplies for Greenhouse Gas Data
• Major Nations Pledge to Improve Energy Efficiency
• First Half of 2010 is the Hottest Ever, but is Climate Change to Blame?
• Global warming raises water shortage risks in one-third of U.S. counties