Tag: global warming

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

(From The Environmentalist Managing Editor – reprinted by permission)

Al Gore, addressing a United Nations summit on green investment, warned business leaders about the consequences of investment in technologies that did not reduce the carbon footprint, given the associated costs to both society and business of climate change:

UNITED NATIONS – Al Gore advised Wall Street leaders and institutional investors Thursday to ditch businesses too reliant on carbon-intensive energy – or prepare for huge losses down the road.

“You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you – as my longtime good redneck friends in Tennessee say, I guarandamntee you – that if you really take a fine-tooth comb and go through your portfolios, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets,” the former vice president said.

More below the fold…

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

In a “Tokyo Declaration” announced today, Sony, Nokia and ten other well known brands have announced that they will work with the World Wildlife Fund to involve their suppliers, customers and transportation partners in the fight to halt global warming:

Tokyo – A business group including leading companies such as Sony, Nokia and Nike has come together to present the Tokyo Declaration, a joint call to tackle the urgent issue of climate change. Signing the declaration at the Climate Savers Summit 2008 held by WWF and Sony in Tokyo today, a dozen business leaders highlighted that the world’s greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by more than 50 percent by 2050, and that emissions must peak and start to decline within the next 10 to 15 years in order to keep global warming below the dangerous threshold of 2 degrees Celsius.

More below the fold…

The National Geographic Channel is premiering 6 Degrees tonight (8PM EST/9PM PST), which tracks the consequences of catastrophic climate change, degree by degree (YouTube preview):

Webpage

Terrifying stuff, to be sure, the show is not without controversy, as it focuses on doomsday scenarios, but perhaps it’s best to see what we’re facing at the upper limit.  

For a more measured prediction (but equally troubling, imo), a previous essay on the Nine Tipping Points.

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

An international team of experts has submitted a report that lists nine tipping elements — areas of concern for lawmakers — that quantify how much time is left to address their impending impact.

Produced by scientists from the U.K, Germany and the U.S., the study states: “Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change,” and goes on to predict the critical threshold at which a small change in human activity can have large, long-term consequences for the Earth’s climate system.

“These tipping elements are candidates for surprising society by exhibiting a nearby tipping point,” the report states. “Many of these tipping points could be closer than we thought,” said lead author Timothy Lenton, of the University of East Anglia in England. “Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under human-induced climate change.”

Link to the list below the jump…

This excellent essay was posted at DKos on Tuesday. Its author, “the Cunctator” has registered for DD and will be here soon!

Is Lieberman-Warner a “Strong” Climate Bill?

by The Cunctator

Friends of the Earth challenged Sen. Boxer to support legislation that resembles the Democratic presidential candidates’ platforms for climate change legislation, not the Lieberman-Warner bill.

Boxer called Friends of the Earth “defeatist.” FoE responded: “We’re being realists.”

ASiegel then wrote: Boxing our way to disaster looking for an “explanation for her strong championing of the fatally-flawed Lieberman-Warner Climate (in) Security Act”.

Then Environmental Defense leaped to attack Friends of the Earth and ASiegel.

Boxer calls the committee passage of Lieberman-Warner the “greatest legislative accomplishment of my political career of thirty years”.

ED and NWF call L-W “a strong bill.” NRDC calls L-W “a very strong start.” The Nature Conservancy calls L-W “a strong starting point.”

So who’s right? Let’s take a step outside the Beltway and check in with some facts.

Is L-W a “good” bill?

The proper metrics to judge mandatory CO2-emissions-reduction legislation such as L-W are:

  1. effectiveness in reducing emissions

  2. effect on economy/society

So, how does L-W rate?

Effectiveness in Reducing Emissions

On the first, the IPCC 4th Assessment Report says that a long-term stabilization target of 2°C above pre-industrial levels is needed to have an even chance at avoiding the tipping point into catastrophic climate change.

The report also says that to achieve that target, the industrialized nations need to cut emissions to 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050.

(Developing nations need to simultaneously achieve “substantial deviation from baseline” for overall reductions to be sufficient. See Box 13.7 in the 4th Assessment Report, p. 776.)

L-W is not close to either of these targets. L-W only covers 80% of emissions.  For covered sectors, it hits 1990 levels by 2020 and 65% below 1990 levels by 2050.

At Bali, the Annex I Kyoto signatories (every single industrialized nation except the US and Turkey) agreed to the IPCC targets. The EU has unilaterally committed to achieving 20% reductions from 1990 levels by 2020, and would shoot for 30% reductions if the US makes a comparable effort.

Again: Lieberman-Warner is expected to achieve 1990 levels by 2020, and 56% below 1990 levels by 2050.

So, even assuming that the legislation is well designed and will be well implemented such that the targets in the bill will be met, if by “perfect” one means “an even chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change”, L-W is not perfect in its targets.

Furthermore, its lookback and cap-adjustment provisions are heavily weighted towards short-term economic growth instead of scientific necessity or long-term economic health.

Is L-W good? Is it “strong”? ED, which did not publicly support the Sanders amendments in committee to strengthen the cap targets and lookback provisions, evidently thinks so. I’m not sure what science they’re using to come up with that result.

Similarly, NRDC has said “Effective legislation must be enacted soon to avoid a 2 degree Celsius temperature increase.” I’m not sure what science they’re using to consider L-W “effective legislation.”

Effect on Economy and Society

In this analysis, I am going to make two a priori assumptions:

  1. Catastrophic climate change would be worse for our economy and society than doing nothing

  2. some mandatory regulatory system will be put in place

In other words, I’m comparing L-W’s economic effect against other hypothetical emissions reduction programs, not against the do-nothing scenario.

There is a well-developed consensus for some of the elements necessary to a “perfect” regulatory system, following principles of economic efficiency (maximum benefit to sector-wide industry and businesses) and economic justice (job creation, benefit to poor and middle class, etc.).

These include:

  1. 100% auction of credits

  2. Auction proceeds should go into minimizing economic disruption and investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy and other emissions-reduction technology, sustainable agriculture, and international/local mitigation/adaptation

  3. To minimize economic disruption: Most efficient system is to make overall tax system more progressive (possibly improving other safety net systems like healthcare)

        1. Allocation of about 15% of auction to poorest 20% (preferably by reducing existing taxes, such as payroll taxes) protects them from harm

        2. About 6% of auction revenues sufficient to protect electricity producing sector from harm; can be phased out over time

        3. Similarly for other covered sectors

  4. Energy efficiency:

        1. Short-term emphasis should be more on energy efficiency than new-tech investment (see Architecture 2030) — free allocations to load-serving entities would block/slow this

        2. Smart grid/electranet/distributed grid should be emphasized — support for traditional power system will block/slow this development

        3. Mass transit, smart growth, high-density urban planning should be emphasized — subsidization for traditional highway system, etc. with block/slow this

  5. Technology investment:

        1. no more than $8-$30 billion over 10 years needed to spur carbon-capture and sequestration technology

        2. Subsidization of renewable energy technology should be at least on par with subsidization for nuclear, natural gas, coal, oil. Would make sense to actually be more strongly subsidized. Would make sense to reduce/remove subsidies for gas/coal/oil that aren’t emissions-reduction focused.

  6. Agriculture:

        1. Sustainable agricultural practices (high-carbon farming, local farming, etc.) should be supported — subsidies for industrial agriculture blocks/slows this

        2. Biofuels need to be locally and sustainably produced and used to have a net positive effect

  7. International mitigation and adaptation support — I’m not sure what the “perfect” system is here, but I know that, for example, the Nature Conservancy wants a real emphasis on preventing deforestation

Now, L-W is not “perfect” on any of these. In fact, it has nearly the exact opposite emphasis in most categories. Over its 4-decade span, allocates about 48% of the permits away for free, giving 22% directly to polluting entities. These giveaways are heavily frontloaded. About $350 billion is allocated to supporting CCS (also frontloaded). It lumps nuclear and “clean coal” tech with renewable energy. It allocates permits for free to load-serving entities. It allocates permits for free to state governments (guaranteed to make pricing more inefficient).

The ED and other groups like to argue that we shouldn’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. It’s also to remember that the bad is necessarily the enemy of the good.

It is possible to reform the existing framework in the L-W legislation, in my opinion, to arrive at a bill that is “good”. It certainly wouldn’t be perfect.

Perfect climate legislation requires:

  1. 100% coverage of emitters, not 75-80%

  2. Climate-positive / carbon-negative targets–actually reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere

  3. Transformative reform of existing agriculture/land-use policy

  4. Transformative reform of existing transportation policy

  5. Transformative reform of existing tax policy

  6. Transformative reform of existing resource extraction policy

  7. Transformative reform of existing electricity distribution policy

So the best that a single cap-and-trade policy can be is “good”. As Al Gore outlined a year ago, a comprehensive and effective climate policy merely starts with a strong cap-and-trade system.

By reasonable economic and scientific metrics, L-W is not a good bill unless you own coal and/or nuclear plants or belong to an investment bank.

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has updated its policy on climate change with the pronouncement that changes to the Earth’s climate system are “not natural.”

The Earth’s climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system-including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons-are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century.

More below the fold…

Switchgrass is nothing less than amazing!

BBC News reports on a new study, Grass biofuels ‘cut CO2 by 94%’.

This is good news for the United States in so many ways:

1. Fewer CO2 emissions – 94% is almost “carbon neutral”

2. 540% EROEI – Growing “energy independence”

3. Better than corn and soy – Less need for harmful herbicides and pesticides, such as Atrazine

4. Native prairie grass – Improves local biodiversity

5. Plant once – Reduces erosion and farm fuel consumption

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

The University of East Anglia (UK), working with the British Met Office, has made its annual temperature prediction for 2008:

2008 is set to be cooler globally than recent years say Met Office and University of East Anglia climate scientists, but is still forecast to be one of the top-ten warmest years.

Each January, the climate scientists at the university work with the British Met Office to forecast the expected temperature, taking into account conditions such as El Niño and La Niña, greenhouse gases, industrial aerosols, particulates, ocean trends and solar impact.

The assessment for 2008 is that there will be a “strong La Niña” event in the Pacific, which will limit the warming trend for the year (whilst still being one of the warmest years):

During La Niña, cold waters upwell to cool large areas of the ocean and land surface temperatures. The forecast includes for the first time a new decadal forecast using a climate model. This indicates that the current La Niña event will weaken only slowly through 2008, disappearing by the end of the year.

More below the jump…

More unfortunate climate change news for us and the candidates – this time from the boreal forests. The Guardian and others are reporting on a new study that finds trees are absorbing less CO2 as the world warms.

The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.

The finding published today is crucial, because it means that more of the CO2 we release will end up affecting the climate in the atmosphere rather than being safely locked away in trees or soil.

The results may partly explain recent studies suggesting that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected. If higher temperatures mean less carbon is soaked up by plants and microbes, global warming will accelerate.

Worldwide, only tropical rainforests are larger then boreal or northern forests. They cover Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia.  

This is about how we respond to the Climate Crisis and the relentless bad news about it-with despair, or with hope.  I’ll tip my hand and say it is really about how to fight off despair and find hope for the future.

It’s not easy to find hope.  For thanks to the climate crisis, the prospects for a livable future just keep getting worse.

I’ve written many times about the Climate Crisis over the past several years on various community blogs, and I notice several repeated reactions in comments.  Some offer their favorite solutions, or write about what they are doing personally to limit their carbon footprint.  But many responses are more emotional.

 There is fear, partly the product of quite natural denial-not denying the reality of global heating, but staying in denial about it as much as possible, while obsessing on much smaller issues.  There is anger, about how we allowed this to happen, etc. And there is despair: the world is coming to an end, and there’s really nothing we can do about it.

Despair, like anger, is another expression of fear.  But it is not entirely irrational.  How can it be, when we do face the real possibility of catastrophe?  

People have basically two reasons for despair: they believe that in its present state, humanity won’t meet this challenge.  There are too many political, economic and cultural barriers.  Humanity isn’t smart enough yet, mature enough, enlightened enough. And then there’s human nature: greed and fear will overcome.  

The second reason for despair is that resistance is futile: that the tipping points have all been passed, and there’s nothing humanity can do anyway to prevent catastrophe.  

It’s hard to argue with either of these reasons.  They may prove to be true.  But there are also counterarguments to each of them.