Category Archives: Climate Change

Future Tense: Australia’s safe climate vision

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Australian ABC Radio National show “Future Tense” features a pretty interesting discussion of the Safe Climate Australia goal to restructure Australia’s economy by transitioning away from fossil fuels. Some great insight by Ove and Professor John Wiseman amongst others – click below to listen to the audio.

[audio:https://climateshifts.org/media/SCA.mp3]

Al Gore: Safe Climate Australia is a wonderful initiative, apolitical, solutions-based, science-based, bringing together business leaders, leaders in the scientific community, the arts community, emergency firefighters, people from all walks of life, to respond to what many scientists have now been saying is truly a planetary emergency. And that phrase is one that still sounds a bit shrill to most ears, because we’re not used to hearing such a phrase.

A leader some 50 years ago in the aftermath of the attack in my country on Pearl Harbor during an investigation of why it wasn’t predicted in advance, and one of the explanations for why there were no preparations to anticipate that attack, was in an interesting phrase, they said, ‘We as human beings tend to confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.’ And of course if something’s never happened before, it’s a generally safe assumption that it’s not going to happen in the future.

The problem is, the exceptions can kill you, and this is one of those exceptions.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg: Well we’ve known for a long while in the scientific community that it doesn’t take much CO2 into the atmosphere to have major effects on ecosystems. And over the years I’ve been studying the demise of the Great Barrier Reef, and we’ve known for a decade that if you double CO2, you don’t have a Great Barrier Reef any more.

I think the latest science, especially that which was presented in March in Copenhagen, has shaken us up even more, because it’s telling us that things like the great ice sheets of the world are now melting very rapidly. Now if they do, and we continue down this pathway which is above the worst case scenario of the IPCC, we end up in a world in which we may have — well, we certainly have one metre, we may actually have three to four metres of sea-level rise around the planet. Now that would be devastating. That’s a civilisation wrecker. You’ve just to think about this harbour where we’re sitting right now, two metres of sea level, you don’t have this very spot. The messages from Copenhagen were very clear, we’re above the worst case scenario, it’s happening a lot quicker than we thought, and we now have little time to fix it. It’s not going to be easy, but by the same token, we haven’t even started.

The analogy is always drawn to step changes in behavior, such as Pearl Harbor for the US, where you go from making cars to tanks within a month. You can turn an economy up on its head and still survive, and I think that’s what we’ve got to do with the climate change problem. It’s so massive, it’s really looming as a planetary tragedy, and we’ve got to treat it as it is. It’s an emergency, and it needs emergency action.

Strange change in the weather?

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I read a fascinating story about noctilucent clouds on EcoWorldy blog. Apparently, certain cloud formations have been appearing where they shouldn’t be:

My boss was in France on Bastille Day last week where the big event of the night actually became the sight of these strange glowing clouds – – like polar noctilucent clouds except they were not over the North Pole – but over Paris.

The story gets more interesting:

Over the last week, photographers in many places around the world outside the Arctic regions, have run outside to get photos of these strange Noctilucent (Night Glowing) clouds showing up this week from Poland to North Dakota:

So what does all this mean?

Formed by ice literally at the boundary where the earth’s atmosphere meets space 50 miles up, they shine because they are so high that they remain lit by the sun even after our star is below the horizon.

Noctilucent clouds are a fundamentally new phenomenon in the temperate mid-latitude sky, and it’s not clear why they’ve migrated down from the poles. Or why, over the last 25 years, more of them are appearing in the polar regions, too, and shining more brightly.

“That’s a real concern and question,” said James Russell, an atmospheric scientist at Hampton University and the principal investigator of an ongoing NASA satellite mission to study the clouds. “Why are they getting more numerous? Why are they getting brighter? Why are they appearing at lower latitudes?”

Is this strange change in the weather a sign of global change due to human causes? The EcoWorldy article does a great job in discussing the pros and cons, and Quite a few people seem to think so – particularly as these clouds were first observed only after the Krakatoa eruption in 1885:

… climate models have predicted that higher greenhouse gas emissions would cause mesosphere cooling, resulting in more frequent and widespread occurrences of noctilucent clouds.

But a competing theory is that larger methane emissions from intensive farming activities are producing more water vapour in the upper atmosphere where methane concentrations have more than doubled in the past 100 years.

Al Gore, Ove and Ian Dunlop at the Safe Climate Australia Launch

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Click below for the video seminars from Al Gore, Ove and Ian Dunlop from the SCA launch last monday.  Safe Climate Australia aims to mobilise Australia’s extensive technological, economic and political expertise and resources in planning the transition of the Australian economy to zero net carbon, the sequestering of dangerous levels of existing carbon from the atmosphere, and in assisting the building of a global consensus for restoring a safe climate.

Al Gore:
http://blip.tv/play/g_QdgZHsOZmQCg
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg:
http://blip.tv/play/g_QdgZHsUpmQCg
and Ian Dunlop
http://blip.tv/play/g_QdgZHtBJmQCg

Palin vs. Markey: the former VP candidate weighs in on climate change

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News1_0

From The Daily Beast, July 18, 2009

Palin vs. the Planet

By Ed Markey

Congressman Ed Markey, co-author of a new energy bill in the House, fires back at the Alaska governor for her confusion, fuzzy math, and inaction on global warming.


The future ex-Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, decided to dip her toe in the water on the national debate over energy and climate legislation in an op-ed in the Washington Post recently. Hailing from Alaska, one would assume the Governor might have noticed the water around her is indeed rising.

While the Governor’s op-ed does not mention the words global warming, Alaska sits on the frontlines of climate change, with temperatures rising four degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years; melting permafrost is sending homes and roads in coastal villages like the centuries-old Shishmaref plunging into the sea.

In addition to threatening wildlife and food supply, thawing permafrost could cost $3.6 to $6.1 billion in damages to Alaska’s roads, buildings, pipelines, and infrastructure. If you really want to hear an Alaskan speak to the threat global warming poses to America’s last frontier, watch this video from Alaskan teen Charlee Lockwood testifying before my Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

To the Governor’s credit, she did mention global warming’s impact on her state during the presidential campaign (even if she was stumped on the science behind it). She is even on record with Sen. John McCain endorsing a solution to the climate problem—a policy called “cap and trade”—that’s right, the very same policy she now attacks in the Post op-ed. Confused? So is Gov. Palin.

Last month, when the House passed the historic Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act, a bi-partisan majority stood together to take a comprehensive approach to solving our energy, climate, security and economic challenge. This legislation invests $190 billion into clean energy technology, exceeding President Obama’s goal, and will unleash more than a trillion dollars in private-sector capital investment in clean-energy technologies. It’s time to make America the leader in the technological race for clean-energy jobs, as we can no longer afford to watch China, India and Europe take the lead in these industries.

The governor does not understand that Waxman-Markey is not a tax bill—as we explicitly rejected the carbon tax option in favor of a smart cap on pollution with price protections for consumers and businesses that will grow our economy and create jobs.

She argues for more drilling as a solution to our energy crisis. But that math doesn’t add up. The United States possesses only three percent of the world’s oil reserves, yet we consume 25 percent of the world’s oil. OPEC, in contrast, controls two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves. Geological reality, not Waxman-Markey, is what is making energy “scarcer and more expensive.”

That is why we need to develop American-made alternatives to our nation’s current foreign dependency. No matter how hard she looks, Gov. Palin is not going to find enough oil in Alaska to feed our country’s insatiable appetite for energy.

Our plan can only be compared with Palin’s proposals by omission, not commission. Here are the words she chose to omit from her op-ed: wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, efficiency, smart grid, and fuel economy. These are true America solutions to our energy problems. Solutions that will create over 1.7 million new clean energy jobs alone, solutions that will save consumers and businesses millions on electricity bills year after year.

The Governor criticizes Waxman-Markey for setting aside funds to address any temporary job dislocations that might occur as a result of the bill. But preparing for the worst case does not mean jobs will be lost. It means we want to make sure that we’re taking care of the workers of today as we prepare for the jobs of tomorrow. In fact, we expect so many new clean energy jobs to become available, that we’ve set aside more than $800 million to help educate and train workers to have the skill set needed to succeed.

So, if Gov. Palin really wants to know what the Waxman-Markey bill does, she should begin by considering the top 10 policies that would create a truly prosperous clean energy economy:

Waxman-Markey Top Ten Policies:

Invest in Clean Energy: Invests $190 billion into clean energy like wind, solar, geothermal and advanced coal technology. Waxman-Markey establishes eight Clean Energy Innovation Hubs across the country, linking our top academic institutions with clean tech businesses to get technologies from the lab to the marketplace.


Cuts Foreign Oil: Invests $20 billion in advanced fuel efficient vehicles like plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars and trucks, so that the next generation of drivers may never use a gas pump. When the bill is combined with fuel economy and renewable fuel standards already put in place, America will save more than 5 million barrels of oil a day, more than we already import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.


Reduces Carbon Pollution: For the first time, puts a cap on the carbon pollution causing global warming—reducing carbon and other heat-trapping pollutants 83 percent by 2050. The program makes polluters pay, driving down emissions over time by about 2 percent a year. American leadership on global warming will pave the way for an international deal that gets all polluters on board.


Creates Jobs, Trains Workers: Will create millions of new clean energy jobs that can’t be sent overseas to China and India, and provides $865 million in job training assistance for America’s new clean energy workers.


Builds a Smarter Grid: Encourages a Smart Grid that uses E-Chips—electricity computer chips—and other technologies in appliances, homes and businesses that will empower consumers to save money and energy using Internet and other telecommunications technologies.


Efficiency Savings: Saves consumers $69 billion annually by 2030 by making our buildings, homes, appliances, and lights use less energy. New buildings and homes will be 50 percent more efficient by 2016, and old buildings will be retrofitted with energy-saving technology. Efficiency provisions in Waxman-Markey will avoid the need to build more than 150 large power plants.


Saves Families Money: Provides hundreds of dollars in energy rebates annually to low-income families and helps all families reduce their electricity bills. Cumulative energy cost-savings would total more than $4,000 per household by 2030.


Price Spike Protection: Over 50 percent of the program is dedicated to protecting consumers from the price spikes typical of the old energy economy. It dedicates 30 percent of the program to protect families and businesses from rate spikes on their electricity bills. W-M dedicates 15 percent of the program to protect low-income families from price increases, providing hundreds of dollars in energy rebates annually to low-income families.


Funds New Technologies: Establishes a “Clean Energy Bank” to leverage $75 billion in loans to fund established clean energy technologies like wind and solar, and to breakthrough technologies that have yet to be invented.


Fiscally Responsible: The Congressional Budget Office found Waxman-Markey will not raise the federal budget deficit.

I do agree with Palin that there is no shortage of threats to the American economy—and I believe that her strategy of inaction on clean energy and global warming is one of them. We must deliver a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill to President Obama and to the American people. That is why the House bill was built with input from every region of the country and every sector of the economy. It’s time to take action. Failing to meet these challenges is no longer an option.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee.


—————————————–

From the Washington Post, July 14, 2009

The ‘Cap And Tax’ Dead End

By Sarah Palin

There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America’s unemployment rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won’t bring jobs. Our nation’s debt is unsustainable, and the federal government’s reach into the private sector is unprecedented.

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president’s cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn’t lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America’s economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity bills will “necessarily skyrocket.” So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under the cap-and-tax scheme, “poor people are going to pay a lot more for electricity.”

We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.

In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.

Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy.

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama’s plan will result in the latter.

For so many reasons, we can’t afford to kill responsible domestic energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher prices.

Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation?

Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama’s energy cap-and-tax plan.

The writer, a Republican, is governor of Alaska.


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Palin’s Cap-and-Trade Is Alaska’s Bait-and-Switch

By Shannyn Moore, from the Huffington Post July 17, 2009

In her op-ed in the Washington Post this week, Sarah Palin, while still governor, took up the sword for corporate interests; a position directly opposing what is best for Alaska.

The flip-flop to anyone who watched the vice presidential debate was obvious. When Gwen Ifill asked, “Do you support capping carbon emissions?” Palin responded, “I do. I do.”

What or whom changed Sarah Palin’s mind about cap-and-trade?

In both her resignation speech and her op-ed, Palin touted AGIA, the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act. It was widely supported and passed with a vote of 58-1. “This is the largest private sector energy project, ever. THIS is energy independence,” she said on July 3. In her piece, she railed Obama’s plan for cap-and-trade. She mentioned AGIA again and how we are “progressing” the 3,000-mile project.

As evidenced by its near unanimous passage in the Alaska Legislature, AGIA is one of the most important pieces of legislation in our 50 years of statehood. We need jobs and energy relief.

The Senate Resources committee was still hashing out details of the gas line legislation this year. With such a monumental project on the table — one that will affect generations, the committee members took pains to consider the potential impact of future federal legislation on the project. The prospect of cap-and-trade came up repeatedly. How would it affect the gas line? How would it affect Alaska?

On March 25, Dr. Mark Myers, a former Alaska Division of Oil & Gas Director, appointed by President Bush to oversee the United States Geological Service, and the State of Alaska’s AGIA Coordinator, presented a slide to the committee titled “Impact of Carbon Regulation on Natural Gas Demand.” His presentation demonstrated how the gas line will have an economic edge and environmental advantage over coal plants in producing clean energy. Such a regulation will also create higher demand for Alaska gas, thereby pushing up prices and ultimately benefiting Alaskans in form of additional state revenues and support for jobs in the gas field.

In Senate Resource hearings on March 26, April 7, and June 3, Senators Wielechowski and Therriault asked experts how cap and trade would affect the Alaska gasline.

March 26, 2009 DR. DAVID WOOD (a LNG international consultant) said gas should benefit from that legislation, being the least carbon…of fuels. Cap and trade will penalize coal with respect for gas…most cap and trade will increase demand.


April 7, 2009
TONY PALMER (TransCanada’s Alaska Vice President) said he has not spoken to Obama yet but has spoken briefly with his staff about a month ago, before they had formulated how they might proceed. Cap and trade agreements should be positive force on this project.

June 3, 2009
MR. PALMER said carbon legislation would be put in place, that should be positive for gas and therefore this project.

They were unanimous that federal cap-and-trade legislation will have a positive influence on the AGIA project.

Thus, between the amount of carbon credits Alaska would have to trade, and the increased demands for clean energy in natural gas, federal cap-and-trade regulation is in the best interest of Alaska.

You don’t have to follow Palin’s tweets to know she wasn’t present at the Senate resource hearings. However, her appointee, Dr. Myers, was not only attending, he was advising the legislature that the cap-and-trade legislation will be of great benefit to Alaska — a view that is diametrically opposed to Palin’s new stance.

Recently, the federal government found Alaska has warmed at more than twice the rate of the rest of the United States. Widespread and unprecedented thawing of permafrost, sinking buildings, buckled roads, damaged runways, water and sewer systems, are just part of the affects of climate change. Three coastal villages have begun relocation plans with 160 rural communities threatened by erosion. Alaska’s climate is the canary in the coal mine. Capping carbon emissions may help Alaska avoid some dire environmental consequences.

Palin’s op-ed was completely contradictory to her own administration’s position in its Juneau testimony last legislative session. She has apparently been convinced that, despite its importance to Alaska’s gas line project, cap-and-trade is somehow bad for the rest of the country. Sarah Palin either doesn’t understand the importance of cap-and-trade to Alaska, or she does know, but now that she’s pandering to red swing states, she just doesn’t care.

Al Gore launches Safe Climate Australia

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This monday saw the launch of Safe Climate Australia, a non-government organisation formed by a group of scientists, and community and corporate leaders who aim to end Australia’s reliance on cheap coal for electricity.

Safe Climate Australia will build on a range of international innovation and transition projects such as Repower America, which target energy efficiency and renewable generation, a modern national smart grid and electrification of transport as key actions in addressing global warming, energy security and peak oil.

Inspired by these projects, the purpose of Safe Climate Australia is to identify and catalyse action on the societal transformations and solutions needed to achieve a safe climate for Australia, and for the planet, at emergency speed. The structural change achieved in the next ten years is crucial.

Safe Climate Australia was launched by the Nobel Prize winner and former Vice President Al Gore. In an impressive speech, Gore likened last years Australian bushfires as evidence that the planet had a “fever”:

“It’s difficult to ignore the fact that cyclones are getting stronger, that the fires are getting bigger, that the sea level is rising, that the refugees are beginning to move from places they have long called home,” Gore said.

“The odds have been shifted so heavily that fires that used to be manageable now threaten to spin out of control and wreak damages that are far beyond what was experienced in the past.”(Read More)

For more information on Safe Climate Australia, click here, or follow this link for video excerpts of Al Gore’s speech (which for some reason refuse to embed here, apologies in advance). and see below for a clip from an ABC interview:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2sn6vAkLMA&w=560&h=340]

More info on the US House Climate Change Bill

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From today’s Washington Post:

Q and A on the Climate Bill

By David A. Fahrenthold and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 5, 2009 7:21 PM

The climate bill approved by the House last month started out as an idea — fight global warming — and wound up looking like an unabridged dictionary. It runs to more than 1,400 pages, swollen with loopholes and giveaways meant to win over un-green industries and wary legislators.

Here are answers to some key questions about the bill.

How would it work?

The legislation sponsored by Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and gradually tighten it. Major emitters of greenhouse gases — including any business that burns fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas or coal — would have to reduce their emissions or buy allowances, which would be traded on markets like commodities. This would be the first economy-wide limit on greenhouse gases in the United States; Europe has had a similar system in place for years.

Would this bill stop climate change?

No. Even if it works exactly as planned — delivering a 17 percent reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared with 2005 levels — it might not slow down the rate of climate change by very much.

That is because emissions are a global problem: Greenhouse gases contribute to the Earth’s warming whether they are emitted in China or in Chevy Chase. Even if the United States meets the legislation’s goals for 2020, the world’s total emissions would be reduced by about 3 percent, according to Energy Department projections.

That would be a start, environmentalists say. Usually emissions grow as the economy grows, so a 17 percent cut would be a huge feat for the energy industry. But scientists say that far deeper cuts are needed to head off disaster from warming temperatures, rising sea levels and other climate changes. The legislation would require reductions of 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050.

What will all this change cost, and who will pay?

Less than 50 cents per household per day, according to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Congressional Budget Office. And that does not take into account benefits from avoiding hard-to-calculate costs associated with accelerating climate change.

According to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, the cost would be much steeper: $11.78 per day in the coming decades. According to House Republicans, the costs would cripple the U.S. economy and drive American jobs to countries that do not have climate regulations.

These costs are a mix of higher prices for carbon-based fuels — the whole idea of a cap-and-trade system — offset by a complex series of tax breaks and free allowances, new technologies and behavioral changes, and impacts on corporations and their profits.

Any estimate is tough to make because it is difficult to forecast exactly how the system would work and what new technologies will emerge. New technologies might make it cheaper to turn wind and sunlight into electricity, or make it possible for coal plants to capture carbon dioxide on a wide scale and store it underground.

Or they might not: It is difficult to forecast the effect of inventions still un-invented. Photovoltaic cells are similar to computer chips, whose prices keep falling, but carbon capture and storage is largely uncharted territory.

What did Waxman and Markey give away to get the bill passed?

Plenty. But the compromises — with the possible exception of one involving agriculture interests — would affect who pays the costs of cutting greenhouse gases, without undermining the emission targets.

What Waxman and Markey gave away were free emission allowances during a transition period of 10 to 20 years. The biggest chunks would reduce costs for certain companies and consumers, especially those reliant on coal. Other allowances would essentially be subsidies, going to states, a new clean-energy bank, forestry groups, automakers, and others that would sell them and use the proceeds.

Who loses in these compromises?

The federal government. Under President Obama’s initial proposal, the federal government would have auctioned off 100 percent of the emission allowances under the cap. The Waxman-Markey bill would auction off about 15 percent to start with and would not phase out the free stuff until 2030. During the program’s first 10 years, a full auction could have pumped an extra $713 billion in revenue into the Treasury. That could have been used to slash the deficit, pay for health care, cut payroll taxes or fund energy research. Obama had proposed a combination of energy aid for lower-income households and an extension of a temporary tax cut approved this year.

Who benefits?

— Local electricity distribution companies that rely heavily on coal would get 35 percent or more of the allowances through 2025. Local utility regulators would decide whether costs can be passed through to consumers, but the Waxman-Markey bill has provisions designed to ensure that the benefits of free allowances flow to consumers.

That is great politics. But it means consumers would not have as much financial incentive for energy-efficient home improvements. The bill would still send powerful signals to anyone building a power plant, which is expected to last long after the phase-out of the proposed free allowances.

— Energy-intensive manufacturers, such as those that make aluminum, glass or steel. These firms are worried about competition from countries such as China and India, which do not price greenhouse gases. These firms would get 10 to 15 percent of allowances for most of a decade. (A tariff would take effect in 2020 for goods from countries still lacking carbon prices.)

— Various companies and agencies. According to Point Carbon, a market analysis firm, rural electricity firms would get an extra $6.4 billion worth of allowances thanks to an amendment to the bill. Three-quarters of 1 percent of all allowances would go to about a half-dozen small, independent oil refiners, said Kevin Book, managing director of research at ClearView Energy Partners; major oil refiners would get 2 percent of allowances. Automakers would need allowances to cover only their manufacturing emissions, not tailpipe emissions. But they would still get 3 percent of allowances for six years, then 1 percent of allowances for eight more.

Companies working on carbon capture and storage would get as much as 5 percent of allowances.

In the initial years, state governments would get 10 percent of allowances, which they would sell to finance a range of energy-efficiency activities, including mass transit.

An additional 5 percent of allowances would help groups fighting deforestation. They would sell the allowances to fund projects in places such as Brazil, Indonesia and China.

What could go wrong?

The bill’s success depends heavily on carbon offsets. These are official certificates given for greenhouse gases that might have been emitted but were not or for emissions that were somehow removed from the atmosphere.

U.S. polluters could buy them and pay someone else to reduce emissions, instead of doing it themselves. But, if some offsets turn out to be bogus, the climate loses and the system bleeds credibility.

The idea behind overseas offsets is that foreign companies might be able to reduce their emissions more cheaply than U.S. firms could here. That would provide an equal benefit to the climate at a lower cost. It also might prompt foreign companies to buy emissions-reducing technology made in America.

If the government does not allow offsets from overseas, the EPA estimates, this might drive up the price of carbon credits, the allowances that polluters need for each ton of greenhouse gases emitted, up by 89 percent.

But some critics say that it will be difficult to verify whether an overseas company really reduces its emissions — and show that these reductions would not have happened on their own. Offsets make political targets, too. “I’m sure our constituents want our money shipped overseas to plant trees,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said sarcastically during debate on the measure.

“I think people will buy the offsets,” said Kenneth P. Green, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “The question is whether or not the offsets, especially the foreign ones, can be validated and meaningful.”

What about U.S. farmers?

U.S. agriculture interests won two key concessions. Unlike interest groups that won free allowances, the agriculture concessions could undermine the cap. That is because the bill would put the Agriculture Department, instead of the EPA, in charge of agricultural offsets. Those could include credits for tillage techniques that would minimize carbon dioxide emissions. If the Agriculture Department is too lax with standards or credits for long-standing practices, it could mean little change in emissions.

What else is in the legislation?

A lot. It is called a cap-and-trade bill, but key portions are about regulation. The provisions would act as backstops, cutting emissions even if the cap-and-trade system does not work as advertised.

One section would require new coal-fired power plants to emit 50 percent less carbon dioxide than existing plants do. Plants licensed after 2020 would have to cut emissions by 65 percent. Other parts would establish more energy-efficient building standards and order the phasing out of hydrofluorocarbon, a refrigerant that is a strong greenhouse gas.

Finally, the legislation would establish a nationwide renewable electricity standard, requiring utilities to meet 20 percent of their 2020 power needs from renewable energy sources or energy efficiency. The generous set-asides for efficiency and the definitions of renewables make this standard weaker than those most states have already adopted.

How will the world view this?

This might be the most surprising answer of all: A bill swimming in bureaucratic minutiae might make its biggest impact as a broad-stroke idea, a symbol that the United States is serious about climate change.

“It really sends a signal to the international community that one of the largest emitters means business,” said Elizabeth Perera of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group. If that persuades other large-scale polluters such as China to set their own emissions standards, Perera said, the world might get the major reductions that scientists say are needed.

© 2009 The Washington Post Company




Climate change being discussed at the G8 summit

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Picture 590Global climate change is being discussed intensely this week at the G8 summit in Italy. The G8 leaders just release a “Declaration of the leaders: the majority economies forum on energy and climate” which can be downloaded as a PDF here.  Some of the highlights:

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. As leaders of the world’s major economies, both developed and developing, we intend to respond vigorously to this challenge, being convinced that climate change poses a clear danger requiring an extraordinary global response, that the response should respect the priority of economic and social development of developing countries, that moving to a low-carbon economy is an opportunity to promote continued economic growth and sustainable development, that the need for and deployment of transformational clean energy technologies at lowest possible cost are urgent, and that the response must involve balanced attention to mitigation and adaptation.

Our countries will undertake transparent nationally appropriate mitigation actions, subject to applicable measurement, reporting, and verification, and prepare low-carbon growth plans. Developed countries among us will take the lead by promptly undertaking robust aggregate and individual reductions in the midterm consistent with our respective ambitious long-term objectives and will work together before Copenhagen to achieve a strong result in this regard.

Adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change is essential. Such effects are already taking place. Further, while increased mitigation efforts will reduce climate impacts, even the most aggressive mitigation efforts will not eliminate the need for substantial adaptation, particularly in developing countries which will be disproportionately affected. There is a particular and immediate need to assist the poorest and most vulnerable to adapt to such effects. Not only are they most affected but they have contributed the least to the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

We are establishing a Global Partnership to drive transformational low-carbon, climate-friendly technologies. We will dramatically increase and coordinate public sector investments in research, development, and demonstration of these technologies, with a view to doubling such investments by 2015, while recognizing the importance of private investment, public-private partnerships and international cooperation, including regional innovation centers. Drawing on global best practice policies, we undertake to remove barriers, establish incentives, enhance capacity-building, and implement appropriate measures to aggressively accelerate deployment and transfer of key existing and new low-carbon technologies, in accordance with national circumstances. We welcome the leadership of individual countries to spearhead efforts among interested countries to advance actions on technologies such as energy efficiency; solar energy; smart grids; carbon capture, use, and storage; advanced vehicles; high-efficiency and lower-emissions coal technologies; bio-energy; and other clean technologies.

It all sounds great, but there aren’t a lot of specifics on how the goals will be met.

One of the setbacks at the summit was the (non-surprising) refusal by India and China to commit to specific reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.  Peter Baker reports on this in the NYT here:

If he [Obama] cannot ultimately bring along developing countries, no climate deal will be effective.

While the richest countries have produced the bulk of the pollution blamed for climate change, developing countries are producing increasing volumes of gases. But developing countries say their climb out of poverty should not be halted to fix damage done by industrial countries.

As various sides tried to draft an agreement to sign Thursday, those tensions scuttled the specific goals sought by the United States and Europe. The proposed agreement called for worldwide emissions to be cut 50 percent by 2050, with industrial countries cutting theirs by 80 percent. But emerging powers refused to agree because they wanted industrial countries to commit to midterm goals in the next decade and to follow through on promises of financial and technological help for poorer nations.

The declaration also states “We recognize the scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2 degrees C.”  But is this really a scientific view?  I think it is a social or political goal, but I don’t think we know exactly how a 2 degree increase will differ from a 3 or 4 degree increase.  I.e., we don’t know where the tipping point is. See the very nice discussion (with expert commentary from Stephen H. Schneider, Kenneth Caldeira and others) on the merits of the 2 degree solution being discussed so much this week at the G8 meeting on Dot Earth here.

Even Bill O’Reilly believes in global warming now!

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Even Bill O’Reilly believes in global warming now!  The conservative Fox News commentator told even more conservative commentator Dr. Laura-she isn’t really a Dr-Ingraham”.  According to the Huff Post:  When Ingraham claimed that the planet was getting cooler – O’Reilly cut her off and said, “Well, that’s not what the temperature says.”  She the video on the Huff Post here.

And see the YouTube video (below) where O’Reilly says “Governments gotta be proactive on environment, global warming is here”.  Amazing.  Progress is being made.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD39QY8ew3c&w=425&h=344]

Shifting baseline of global temperature anomalies

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Seems like the weather watchers are fawning over the latest update of the UAH MSU satellite data:

June 2009 saw another — albeit small — drop in the global average temperature anomaly, from +0.04 deg. C in May to 0.00 deg. C in June, with the coolest anomaly (-0.03 deg. C) in the Southern Hemisphere. The decadal temperature trend for the period December 1978 through June 2009 remains at +0.13 deg. C per decade.

Let’s run through this one more time, using the UAH NSSTC data over at WoodForTrees:

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Above is the 1979 – 2009 dataset.

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If we ‘pick’ the 5yr period between 1993 – 1998, things look like they are getting much warmer!

3

If we ‘carefully select’ the 5yr period between 1988 – 1993, then it’s abundantly clear that global warming doesn’t exist at all, right?

For some incredibly elaborate cherry-picking, take a look at this post by mathematician Luboš Motls making the most of the ‘shifting baseline’ effect (which he chooses to call ‘trends over different intervals‘) of selecting which years to run the analysis:

Global warming is supposed to exist and to be bad. Sometimes, we hear that global warming causes cooling. In this case, global warming causes global averageness. In all three cases, it is bad news. The three main enemies of environmentalism are warm weather, cool weather, and average weather.

To quote WoodForTrees: “What you find can depend on where (or when) you look!”:

Temperature trends – pick a timescale, any timescale! Temperature trend-lines (linear least-squares regression). I hope this is useful, but I would also like to point out that it can be fairly dangerous…

Depending on your preconceptions, by picking your start and end times carefully, you can now ‘prove’ that:

trend

To summarise, here is the WoodForTrees analysis of ALL datasets (with trendlines, and adjusted anomaly baselines), with trends of 0.13-0.17°C/decade, which projects to between 1.3 and 1.7°C per century.

trend2

Whether this continues to increase at the same rate remains to be seen, but hawkishly watching the latest data month and saying ‘it’s colder!’ or cherry-picking the data to your own means isn’t going to ‘disprove global warming’. As John blogged the other day, short term declines in global temperature (as illustrated above) are actually predicted by Global Climate Models.

Climate Models Get Biological Makeover

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Quick preface: This great article on global climate modelling (Published in Miller-McCune magazine) was written by Nicholas Jachowski, a Stanford student who as part of the Stanford Overseas Program conducted studies on coral physiology at Heron Island Research Station.

While the ultimate concern over climate change centers on how it affects living things, in the past, modelers have focused on the physics and chemistry of climate change. Now they are including biology.

Phytoplankton

It’s springtime in Silicon Valley and a timeless tale is being retold. Kevin Arrigo, an oceanography professor at Stanford University, stands in the front of a classroom of students explaining how life works. He’s not talking about any old life though, but life in the ocean — where life began. And it’s not the fishes and the whales, either; as Arrigo puts it, “If it’s big enough to see, it’s probably not important.”

Arrigo is talking about the tiny plants that make up the base of the oceanic food pyramid — the phytoplankton. Like all plants, microscopic phytoplankton take light from the sun and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make food and oxygen in the process known as photosynthesis. But in much the same way that Arrigo dismisses the ecological primacy of the oceans’ larger denizens, climate scientists have for the most part dismissed the role of marine life in their climate models.

No longer.

For the first time, researchers at the premier climate-modeling institute in the United States are explicitly incorporating the complexities of marine life into their computer simulations. The first of these next-generation models was initiated last month, and while final data won’t be available until next year, their approach is already promising the most accurate climate simulations ever. More accurate climate models will help to inform and guide world leaders, policy makers and everyday people who seek to avoid potentially irreversible harm to the planet due to climate change caused by mankind. Understanding why — and why it took so long – to incorporate biology into climate models means taking a closer look not just at the computers but at the microscopic life of the oceans.

Phytoplankton grow quickly as long as they get sunlight from above and nutrient-rich water upwelling from the depths. The tiny plants are in turn eaten by zooplankton such as krill and copepods, which in turn are eaten by fish, which are eaten by bigger fish, and on upwards to seals and dolphins, and those other “unimportant” things we can see.

It was the evolution of these tiny plants in the ocean that allowed more complex organisms like humans to evolve. If man were around 3 billion years ago during the advent of the first phytoplankton, he would suffocate from lack of oxygen. By the process of photosynthesis, phytoplankton drastically changed the Earth’s atmosphere from having almost no oxygen to the 20 percent oxygen levels of today.

Changes are occurring in the atmosphere again, but not because of phytoplankton. This time humans are the cause. As scientists try to predict the changes man’s atmospheric tampering will have on the Earth, they are beginning to look to phytoplankton to see what role they might play in keeping Earth’s atmosphere in balance.

Last month, scientists working on the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report began experiments on the newest climate model, which, for the first time, includes phytoplankton.

According to IPCC, a scientific body charged with evaluating the risk of climate change associated with human activity, the Earth’s temperature could rise between 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit and 11.5 degrees during the 21st century. The main contributor to the warming is the increase of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuel. One of the most significant greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas that is pumped out in unnatural quantities as a byproduct of burning those fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased 38 percent since the mid-1700s.

Every five to seven years since 1990, the IPCC has put out assessment reports that both summarize the scientific literature on climate change published since the last report and make projections. Key to making projections about the future climate are “global climate models,” or GCMs, which are computer codes used for simulating a dynamic Earth. The Fifth Assessment Report is due in 2014, and computer programmers and scientists are already hard at work on the next generation of GCMs.

According to Arrigo, biology — or to be specific, biogeochemistry, the chemical cycles caused by biology — was not thought to be important enough to include in GCMs until now. “There was no ocean biogeochemistry in the old IPCC models,” said Ron Stouffer, a meteorologist and climate modeler at Princeton University’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, an arm of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. “Now everyone is trying to include terrestrial and ocean biogeochemistry.”

Arrigo says biogeochemical processes were not modeled because scientists thought that the physical and chemical processes relating to increasing greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide trapping heat in the atmosphere, ocean circulation transporting heat poleward, clouds reflecting sunlight and sea-ice melting, were more important. Such processes might be more important, but nobody knows for sure because no one has extensively modeled biogeochemistry in GCMs before.

Another reason for not including biogeochemical cycles in GCMs is the extra layer of complexity they add “in a model you didn’t trust very much to begin with,” said professor Stephen Schneider, referring to the uncertainty inherent in modeling future climates. Schneider, a Stanford climatologist who has been involved with the IPCC since 1988, thinks the biggest thing holding back climate modeling is the lack of computer time.

According to Stouffer, it can take up to six months to run just one GCM experiment, and that’s on “one of the bigger (computers) on the planet,” he said. Stouffer noted that with biology in the models, run times could be twice as long — up to a year.

As computers become faster and more computing time is available, Schneider offered three strategies for modelers: Add more processes such as biogeochemistry, add more predictions of future greenhouse gas levels or increase the resolution of the model. Each option has its merits, and “none of it’s wrong,” he said. The decision likely will come down to scientists’ individual preferences.

Oceanographer Anand Gnanadesikan, also at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, is one scientist who has decided to add biogeochemistry to the models. Gnanadesikan, who headed the ocean model development team for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, said, “I’m interested in how ocean circulation determines plant growth and how plant growth potentially influences ocean circulation.” The ocean model is coupled with an atmosphere model to make a global climate model.

Oceans are important for GCMs because water circulation is responsible for much of the heat distribution around the world, and the oceans remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The “ocean is more important than the land” when it comes to the climate, Arrigo said — it’s four times more potent than the land at pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

But as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, it also increases in the oceans — with sometimes unexpected results. Carbon dioxide combines with seawater to make carbonic acid, which is acidifying the oceans and making it harder for marine organisms, including some phytoplankton, to make shells. The continued addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and its subsequent absorption into the ocean threaten the future of these species.

Ocean biogeochemistry is nothing if not complex. It’s no wonder the first generations of climate models left it out. But following the details is potentially crucial for predicting climate changes. In the case of shelled animals in an acidified ocean, the chemical process that creates shells actually releases a molecule of carbon dioxide. So, decreasing the amount of shell means less carbon dioxide will be in the oceans — which means more carbon dioxide could leave the atmosphere and be absorbed into the water. This “negative feedback,” could decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — cooling the climate — if it happens on a broad enough scale. The question is: Will it be strong enough to counteract global warming? Modeling may be the only way to find out.

According to Arrigo, most of the potential biogeochemical feedback loops caused by increasing carbon dioxide and global warming are negative feedbacks. Most physical feedbacks tend to be positive, for example, increasing temperatures will put more water vapor in the atmosphere via evaporation, further increasing the Earth’s temperature.

What’s unclear, Arrigo said, is whether first-order effects, like greenhouse warming, or feedback loops, like the demise of shells, are more important in climate modeling. Fortunately, we may know the answer to that question very soon. “We started running the model a couple days ago,” Stouffer said by phone last month, referring to the model he, Gnanadesikan, and about 80 other scientists at Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory have been working on for the past three years.

John Dunne, another climate modeler at Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, says this latest model contains 30 biogeochemical variables used to model the impacts of biology on the climate, which he describes as “fairly sophisticated.” The model even contains three phytoplankton groups. This is light-years ahead of the biogeochemistry in the old IPCC models, in which the biology consisted of assuming the ocean to be “off-green everywhere” to account for phytoplankton absorption of light, says Gnanadesikan.

The GFDL climate modelers are taking their time to produce the best global climate model they can with the limited computational power and knowledge of oceanic biogechemical cycles available. The time has come for biology in the models, but it’ll take years to work out the kinks. The data from models they’re running now will be publicly available in a year and a quarter, said Stouffer. But he added, “There’s too much uncertainty, there’s not enough observation, and there’s not enough understanding.” The best we can hope for by the next IPCC report in 2014 “is to start to get a handle on the uncertainties.”

That means focusing, for the first time, on Arrigo’s favorite marine creatures, the phytoplankton. The needs of global climate science might mean that these tiniest of plants -and the people who study them — will finally get their turn in the big time.