Climate Change

As I’ve noted before, there is a lot going on!  What follows is another smattering of items like my “Smorgasbord” post below. 

Politics - There is much to be discussed regarding the politics of climate change, internationally, between various stakeholders, and, of course, within countries. Two pieces from “The Economist,” for instance, illustrate the intense politics in Britain around climate change:  “Climate change - A hot topic gets hotter” and the Bagehot column, “Brave Dave v Cautious Gordon.”  Both are from March 15 and both talk about the jockeying by the parties, Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrats, to be greener and to be seen by the British public as greener.  This, in my opinion, is a good battle to have waging.  To quote from the Bagehot column:  “But for all Mr Blair’s pioneering efforts, it is David Cameron who can claim to have done most to make climate change the topic of the moment. It is probably fair to say that without the pressure (and the cover) that has come from Mr Cameron, the government which Mr Brown will soon lead would not be committing itself to the kind of measures called for by this week’s draft bill on climate change.”  (Go here for these articles and some others but be cautioned that “The Economist” is not free.  You can get a trial subscription in order to see these.  You can also see my post of March 14 below on the British initiatives.)

In the U.S., there are an array of political tensions:  between Republicans and Democrats, of course, but within the parties as well, and between factions within other constitutencies, such as the conservative Christian community.  I will but dip my toe into these waters for the moment, by citing two recent articles.  The first is about the “conversion” of John Dingell, the exceedingly powerful former and once-again chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives.  Go here to see the committee’s recent activity on climate change.  Dingell, back 20 years ago when I and many others were engaged in fighting for an acid rain title for the Clean Air Act, was a thorn, to say the least.  (George Bush, pere, it should be noted to his credit, helped break the logjam to bring forth the acid rain legislation in 1990.)  To return to Dingell, he represents a district in Detroit and he’s spent his entire career being very protective indeed of the interests of the auto industry.  A recent article, though, “Changed Climate on Warming,” from the “Wall St. Journal,” reports that:  “Rep. John Dingell once dismissed global warming as a ‘theory.’ Lately, the Democratic lawmaker from Michigan has had a change of heart. ‘The science on this question,’ he said recently, ‘has been settled.’”  (Sorry to say, again, that this has gone into the pay-for-the-article zone.  You can go here to access it, or get it from the library.)

The other story that I want to flag for you concerns the very public spat between elements of the Evangelical Christian community in the U.S.  One recent focus of the contention has been the very active campaign waged against global warming by Richard Cizik, the vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals.  The NAE, for your information, is an umbrella group, with hundreds of organizational members, and represents on the order of 30 million Americans.  See “NAE rebuffs critics, affirming Cizik and a wider agenda” from “The Christian Century.”  (Bill McKibben is another featured writer for them.)  The NAE has an active “Creation Care” initiative.  You can hear Cizik talk about that here at NPR.  You might also check out the Evangelical Climate Initiative.  It’s being led by some pretty heavy hitters out there, among them Rick Warren, Jim Wallis, Leith Anderson, and former New York City congressman Floyd Flake.

Agriculture – The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with a modest annual budget of about $1.6 billion and a staff of over 8,000 employees, is known for some pretty hotshot research.  A recent report from them, Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming, appeared in the very highly regarded “Environmental Research Letters.”  The press release from the LLNL says:  “Warming temperatures since 1981 have caused annual losses of roughly $5 billion for the major cereal crops …”   One of the lead authors says:  “A key moving forward is how well cropping systems can adapt to a warmer world.  Investments in this area could potentially save billions of dollars and millions of lives.”  Also at the LLNL website is a link to an earlier report on how “Changes in agricultural practices could help slow global warming.”

Economic Consequences – Since we’ve hit on the subject, it might be a good moment to introduce the blockbuster report, from the British government, from October 30 of last year:  the “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.”  It lays out some stark economic prospects:

Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more. 

Discussion and debate erupted all over the world with the publication of the Stern Report.  See this from CNN for just a sliver of the hullabaloo.  Much more about this in future posts.

Global Ecology – Here’s an arresting lead:  “A new global warming study predicts that many current climate zones will vanish entirely by the year 2100, replaced by climates unknown in today’s world.”  The study, discussed in this story from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (my alma mater) was funded by the National Science Foundation and is further reported by them here.  Another understated, nevertheless alarming thought, from the paper itself:  “Climate is a principal influence in species distributions and ecosystem function, and the disappearance of existing climates, or the development of future climates not found at present, could have profound ecological consequences.”

And this headline got my attention too:  “Climate change: study maps those at greatest risk from cyclones and rising seas” – This story is from Science Daily and comes from the International Institute for Environment and Development.  Fun fact:  634 million people — one tenth of the global population — live in coastal areas that lie within just ten meters above sea level. 

In my post from March 19 on some international polling results, one of the salient findings was that Americans’ consciousness and concern regarding climate change has risen dramatically in the past few years.  Two new polls confirm that.

The first, released March 12 from the Yale Center of Environmental Law and Policy’s Environmental Attitudes and Behavior Project, says “…83 percent of Americans now say global warming is a ‘serious’ problem, up from 70 percent in 2004.”  Sea Change in Public Attitudes Toward Global Warming Emerges reads the headline for the press release.  Further:  “Most dramatically, the survey of 1,000 adults nationwide shows that 63 percent of Americans agree that the United States ‘is in as much danger from environmental hazards, such as air pollution and global warming, as it is from terrorists.’”

The second poll, out this past Monday from Gallup, is subtitled “Public’s concern with attention to environment greater than five years ago.”  Most significantly, to me anyway, is that “…the environment has reclaimed the top position on Gallup’s ranking of what Americans perceive will be the ‘most important problem’ facing the country 25 years from now.”  As Mr. Spock would say:  “Fascinating.”

We should also note the results from last year’s Great Decisions “National Opinion Ballot Report” under the category The Energy Policy Conundrum:  “Of those participating in our nationwide poll, almost 45% considered the development of alternative energy technologies to be the No. 1 priority for U.S. policymakers struggling with the problem of meeting consumption demands, followed next by the need to control U.S. energy consumption.  Over two thirds of FPA’s ballot participants are for raising oil and gas prices and increasing fuel taxes for all. More than 80% of the voters feel that corporations should be given tax breaks for developing energy-efficient technologies.”

Not incidentally, online ballots will be up in the not-too-distant future for all eight of the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions categories for 2007, including climate change.  I will flag that here when they’re up.  Stay tuned. 

I’ve been looking at energy and environmental issues for nearly 40 years and I’ve never before seen the proliferation of big news stories that I’ve been seeing for the past year or so, particularly, of course, on climate change.  Maybe it was “An Inconvenient Truth,” released on May 24 last year; maybe it was the 72° temperature on January 6 in New York City this year (and no snow in the Alps); and maybe it was the sinking in of just how catastrophic Katrina was.  The war in Iraq is likely a factor.  It’s probably for these reasons and more that energy and environment have become such critical concerns.

We’ll look at some of the flak that Al Gore’s been taking recently in a post tomorrow or the next day.  This is a compelling story.  For your viewing pleasure, you might want to watch Al Gore and Bjorn Lomborg, one of the more prominent climate change skeptics, testifying on their “Perspectives on Climate Change” at a joint House hearing tomorrow.  Or see also Gore’s testimony before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee:  “Vice President Al Gore’s Perspective on Global Warming.”

First, let’s look at New Hampshire.  Town meetings throughout the state this month have declared war on global warming.  The Carbon Coalition in New Hampshire sponsored a campaign for the annual town meetings.  This initiative received enormous support.  Presidential candidates better have their climate change ducks in a row when they come a calling for the next year.  See also this from the “New Hampshire Union Leader.”

Following on the heels last month of the enormous breakthrough involving the shelving of eight coal-fired power plants in Texas in a deal negotiated by Environmental Defense, a deal was announced today that will substantially reduce the carbon loading from Kansas City Power & Light. The Sierra Club was the driving force in bringing this agreement to conclusion.  Wind farms and energy efficiency will be a cornerstone of KCP&L’s ongoing operations.  Adding 400 megawatts of wind power and reducing load by 300 MW are big numbers. 

Here’s an eye-catching headline: “Funds with $4 trillion under management want Washington to put mandatory limits on carbon emissions.”  Not, as one might say in New York, chopped liver.  See also this from Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk.

In Washington yesterday, Henry Waxman, held a second hearing on the subject of “Political Interference with Climate Science” in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he now chairs.  Waxman, from Los Angeles, is an old hero of mine from the Acid Rain Wars of the 1980’s when he was chairman of the House Health and Environment Subcommittee (of the Energy and Commerce Committee).  Waxman’s formal statement said this:  “It would be a serious abuse if senior White House officials deliberately tried to defuse calls for action by ensuring that the public heard a distorted message about the risks of climate change.”  James Hansen, one of the most respected climate scientists in the world and one of the first to indicate the sources and the dangers of global warming, testified as to the considerable pressure that has been brought on him under the Bush Administration.  One must understand Hansen’s position and stature.  He heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which “…emphasizes a broad study of global climate change.”  Bill McKibben characterized him, in a recent piece in the “NY Review of Books,” as the scientist whose testimony before Congress in 1988 really set off the global gold rush to sharpen and deepen scientific inquiry on the matter.   Hansen appeared with Philip A. Cooney, George C. Deutsch, III, and James Connaughton, all Bush administration appointees, all of whom said that undue pressure had not been focused on scientists and that editorial liberties had not been taken with scientific reports.  See this summary from the L.A. Times.

Finally, even for someone brought up in the age of color television and space flights to the moon, I have to marvel at technology sometimes.  Technology can be, certainly, the source of environmental ills, but it can also provide some wonderful flights of fancy that prove, often, to provide solutions for some of humankind’s enduring problems.  Here’s a new trip on gossamer wings:  “Flying electric generators (FEGs) are proposed to harness kinetic energy in the powerful, persistent high-altitude winds.”  See this from the special issue on wind power from the technical journal “IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion.”

As I said in my inaugural post on March 5, the good news on climate change is that “… the recognition of the terrible problem we’ve created is deepening and solutions are being actively sought.”  People everywhere are tuned in to the issue.  Recent polls indicate that this is very much the case.  “Poll Finds Worldwide Agreement That Climate Change is a Threat” reads the release from WorldPublicOpinion.org, an arm of the Program on International Policy Attitudes.  The survey, released on March 14, was done with the venerable Chicago Council on Global Affairs and looked at attitudes on climate change in 17 countries, representing 55% of the world’s population.  From Australia, where the support for the reality and the danger of global climate change was the strongest, to India, where it was the weakest, the heavy betting is that we have a “serious and pressing problem” on our hands.  I thought that one of the more compelling opinions expressed was on international trade:  a large preponderance of those polled said that environmental standards should be written into trade agreements. Some of those expressing this feeling were in countries where their governments have been resisting precisely this sort of approach.

A previous poll from these folks, from October 11, 2006, was headlined “World Publics Willing to Bear Costs of Combating Climate Change.”  One of the interesting subtexts here was that consciousness of global warming as a threat has risen dramatically among Americans in the past couple of years.  The pollsters speculate that this may be largely due to the impact of Katrina and the other catastrophic storms that devastated Florida and the Gulf Coast in 2004 and 2005.  Another salient finding:  “Seventy percent of Americans say that the U.S. government should take part in the Kyoto efforts, despite the Bush administration’s opposition to the treaty.”  The Chinese and the Indian publics are also noted to be at odds with their official government line.  They want to see the problem addressed.  (By the way, there are links here to other fascinating polls on the subject of climate change, energy, and the environment.)

One of these, done last summer for the BBC by WorldPublicOpinion.org, has the provocative title, “Current Energy Use Seen to Threaten Environment, Economy, Peace.”  The survey registers overwhelming support for renewable energy development and higher fuel efficiency for cars and trucks.  Another significant item:  “There is relatively lukewarm support for more nuclear energy with just one-half favoring nuclear energy to reduce reliance on oil and coal.” Disappointingly, only 37% strongly or somewhat favor increasing energy taxes.  Aussies, Brits, Kenyans and Indians show the strongest support for higher energy taxes and the Poles, Ukrainians, Russians and Brazilians show the least.

Another poll, by YouGov for the “Daily Telegraph” from last fall, found considerable awareness and concern among Britons regarding climate change.  Public opinion seems to be substantially driving the political debate there.  Climate change has become a hugely prominent issue among the U.K. parties.  They are fighting each other to be greener. This is fascinating and encouraging.  This article and this column from “The Economist” talk about it.  Would that our American political parties had a different dynamic.            

The big news last week was from Brussels.  The European Union Summit meeting produced a truly historic agreement on greenhouse gas reduction, renewable energy, and energy efficiency, among other things.  We’ll get to some of the specifics in a moment.  First, consider what we’re talking about when we talk about the European Union.  It is 490 million people in 27 countries.  It has an annual gross domestic product of about 13 trillion dollars, roughly equivalent to the United States, and just about 20% of the world total.  It receives over 40% of the world’s total foreign direct investment.  Europe is a powerhouse.  So momentous agreements like this have some juice.

The Europeans fully intend to help bring the rest of the world fully on board. The Europeans actually challenge the world by saying that they will up their goal of a 20% reduction by 2020 (from 1990 levels of greenhouse gases) to 30% if others will as well.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel chaired the summit and substantially guided the negotiations.  She said:  “At international negotiations, we will offer to reduce emissions by 30% if international partners come on board.”  World headlines used terms like “Europe sets benchmark,” “EU Raises Bar,” “EU challenges world,” and “Leaders hope polluting nations will follow suit.”  Will the U.S., India, East Asia and others get on board?   Good question.

So what are the terms of the agreement?

*20% cut in greenhouse gases from 1990 levels.

*20% boost in energy efficiency.

*20% total renewable energy use by 2020.

*10% target for biofuels use by 2020.

*A large-scale carbon capture and sequestration pilot, involving at least 12 projects.

*An “unbundling” of power generation and distribution activities. (This, obviously, has a lot of implications for distributed generation which we will explore here in the blog over time.)

*A “cross-border perspective” in regulating markets.

These are all admirable goals.  Merkel said she felt “… no little satisfaction that today we are able to go for such ambitious and credible targets.”  It is no small thing it seems to me that the EU is characterizing these targets as “credible.”  I have been following this stuff for a good number of years and have long thought these sorts of initiatives could be “credible.”  However, I have been chastened by the nearly utter lack of vision and will by governments.  This sort of leadership by the EU itself seems incredible to me.  But I love it. 

So, to make matters even better, the UK unveiled their climate change bill this week with 60% carbon reductions by 2050.  Tony Blair, to his credit, has been heralding the call for action for a number of years.  He championed the issue through his presidency of the G-8 in 2005 and forged an agreement then at the summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.  The UK draft legislation tracks at least one of the EU’s targets in setting a 26-32% reduction by 2020.  The Environment Minister, David Miliband, even made a YouTube video to explain the bill.  The Brits have been exemplary and I will reference other of their initiatives in the near future.  Let me just here mention - and applaud - the announcement on February 27 by London’s Mayor, Ken Livingstone, creating a “Climate Change Action Plan.”  “Action today” read the press release, in Churchillian tones. 

I will touch on the economics of climate change a lot in the coming months, and also how businesses, large and small, are driving so much of the action.  For openers, I want to refer to a really terrific special section of the “NY Times” that came out on March 7:  Business of Green.  What follows are some thumbnail sketches of the dozen articles and some thoughts.  You should, though, definitely go to the articles themselves.  Very readable, very informative.

Matt Wald, a terrific and knowledgeable writer who’s been on the environmental technology and transportation beat for years, has an interesting piece about the economies of scale that can make renewable energy all that more efficient.  He talks about, among other things, the Cape Wind project on Nantucket Sound, and some big solar projects out west.

In an article about individuals buying carbon offsets, questions are raised about whether this is all about assuaging guilt and, if so, if that is counterproductive to the lifestyle changes that many folks think are necessary at this point for Post-Industrial Man and Woman.  “USA Today” also did a great piece recently on travel and offsets that focused on the question of who was doing the offsetting, a for-profit or a non-profit organization.  In the spring of 2007, PG&E will launch ClimateSmart to help its costumers make choices about offsets.  In the NYT article, Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, speaks eloquently to the question of personal responsibility:  “These programs get the idea across that individuals are neither blameless nor helpless, and can really make a difference.”

A fascinating profile of James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, one of the largest emitters of CO₂ in the U.S., looks at the tension between big industrial interests and the need to have clearly defined laws and regulations.  Rogers appears to have a long track record of being the exceedingly rare utility industry executive who cares about the environment and wants to have everybody playing on a level playing field.  He wants a cap-and-trade system in place in the U.S. and he wants it sooner rather than later.  In noting the need for an array of programs to address climate change, Rogers says: “There is no silver bullet here.  What we need is more like silver buckshot, a lot of things working together.”

In an article on jobs with an environmental focus, we learn that “Businesses as businesses are becoming actors of environmental sustainability …” and that concerned students of environmentalism are these days steeped in “sustainable ecosystems.” Instead of just studying law, policy and science, they are now getting degrees in finance, business and economics, and going out for work not just to government or to advocacy groups, but to financial concerns, small businesses and corporations.

Keeping restaurants clean and green is another article’s subject.  The Green Restaurant Association gives certification for energy efficiency and other aspects of good environmental stewardship.

Large retailers such as Tesco, the British supermarket megachain, and Timberland, are looking at their “carbon footprints.”  Tesco is trying to create industry standards through its new Sustainable Consumption Institute.  Third-party issuers of environmental certification are the main way to go on this.  Climate Counts is a new group in this just getting underway.  There is an umbrella group for these:  the Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN).

Another piece, focused primarily on Denmark, looks at Europe’s triumphs and challenges with renewable energy.  (There will be much more here about Europe’s efforts throughout the year, and about the just-completed EU agreement in a few days.  Stay tuned.)

Venture capitalists who’ve done well in Silicon Valley and in biotech are turning their attention to energy.  Robert M. Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, a pretty big I.T. infrastructure maker, and now a venture capitalist, says (modestly):   “We’re going to solve the energy problem in 30 years, just like we solved the Internet problem in 30 years.”  I have to stop here to note that 20 years ago, I was temping at a venture capital shop run by James Wolfensohn, later head of the World Bank, and I wrote a proposal to him suggesting that they create a research initiative, piloted by me of course, on renewable energy and environmental technologies.  Oh well, he missed the boat.  Good guy though.

An article on how the interest in climate change among law firms is growing says that “emissions-management tools” such as carbon credits and the markets that trade them are a principal focus.  Another is the opportunity for lobbying on new laws and regs that will be forthcoming, hopefully, from the Congress. 

Vermont it appears, not surprisingly, is courting green business, particularly environmental engineering and sustainable technology firms.  And bioplastics, we learn in another article, are a growing industry.  Two leaders in this are NatureWorks and Metabolix.

Finally, there’s a really interesting piece here on the idling of long-haul trucks.  It turns out that the DOE estimates that up to one billion gallons of diesel fuel is spent in idling each year in the U.S., and the EPA calculates about 11 million tons of carbon dioxide are spewed from this activity.  One result is that the banning of unnecessary idling is gaining ground among local jurisdictions, to cut down on their ambient air pollution.  Another outcome is that curbs on idling are being put into place by companies, among them Walmart, and that fixes like small battery packs and generators, as well as hookups at truck stops are burgeoning.

Great articles.  Read them if you can.

I’ve got bad news and I’ve got good news.  The bad news is that we have managed over the past 250 years or so to begin to dangerously overheat our planet, primarily by the burning of fossil fuels:  coal, oil, and natural gas. What’s worse is that we have accelerated this process as industrial civilization has grown exponentially and proliferated across the globe from Europe to North America to South America and to East Asia and India. There are other critical influences on climate change, such as forest loss and the production of methane and other gases from agriculture, that we will discuss over the course of the next year as this blog progresses through the many important subjects and themes that pertain.

In a report from the U.K.’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change, we are told that 2007 is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998.  The Fourth Assessment Report of the UN-mandated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says unequivocally, again, that what we are experiencing is real, it’s dangerous, and it’s manmade.  One particularly disturbing conclusion from the IPCC is that “Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized.”

But you probably already know all this.  You’ve probably seen “An Inconvenient Truth” aka the “Al Gore movie.”  If you haven’t seen it, you pretty certainly know that it just won the Oscar for best documentary.  You’ve also probably seen the now-ubiquitous media coverage of the subject of climate change.  You’ve perhaps read some of the excellent books that have come out in the past several years.

But then that’s the good news.  People, everywhere, in government, the environmental movement, in the media, in the science community, and in the general public now know what time it is.  The parlous state of our planet’s health is being addressed, albeit in fits and starts, but the recognition of the terrible problem we’ve created is deepening and solutions are being actively sought.

We will here look at an array of things, among them the politics of climate change.  In another excellent contribution from Bill McKibben in the “NY Review of Books,” he notes:  “After twenty years of inactivity— a remarkably successful bipartisan effort to accomplish nothing—the first few weeks of the new Congress have witnessed a flurry of activity.”  There is going to be a lot of news from Washington. 

There have been many important insights and developments from environmentalists and energy experts, business analysts, architects and engineers.  Hopefully, we are in what Thomas Kuhn would call a “paradigm shift” and there are going to be more and more positive developments in renewable energy and energy conservation, land use, and transportation.  We will be looking at high tech and low tech, lifestyle changes, and one important theme will be activism.  What can you learn?  What can you do?  Who can you reach out to influence?  “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living,” said Mother Jones.

Another theme will be that efforts to reverse the global warming trend will at the same time produce other felicitous effects.  Renewable energy, for instance, equals clean energy – for the most part.  (We’ll get into nuclear power, but not here and now.)

So, welcome to the Foreign Policy Association’s ongoing discussion of climate change.  Let’s roll up our sleeves and do some good work together.