Climate Change

As always these days, there’s an awful lot going on.  Here are what I hope you’ll find to be pretty interesting items:

Carbon Dioxide by U.S. States – The A.P. took USDOE data and analyzed it and found some interesting numbers.  Not surprisingly, some of the leading states for population lead the nation in carbon dioxide emissions.  However, some of these big states, New York and California chief among them, rank at the bottom for per capita emissions - New York because of all its mass transit and population density, and California, for population density but also, no doubt, because it’s been leading the nation for years in creating renewable energy opportunities.  Here’s the story, courtesy of CBS News.

NASA Guy – Sorry if you might’ve been looking for this story from me last week but, frankly, the White House announcement rather eclipsed it (see last post below) and also, it was just too absurd.  The head of NASA, Michael Griffin, said, on NPR:  “I’m not sure it’s fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”  Absurd too because the Big Boss Man said, that very day, that attention to the matter and action was necessary.  James Hansen, one of the pioneers and leaders on climate change for years, and head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said: “I almost fell off my chair.”  The bipartisan League of Conservation Voters has called for Griffin’s head.  As Johnny Carson would’ve said:  “That is some weird, wild stuff!” 

Exxon Guy – At the recent annual general meeting, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson sounded not unlike a recent former U.S. Secretary of Defense.  Here’s Mr. Tillerson on climate change:  “There’s much we know and can agree on around the climate change issue, and there’s much that we just don’t believe we do know…and we want to have a debate about the things we know and understand, the things we know about that we don’t understand very well, and the things we don’t even know about around this very complex issue of climate science. So that is what will continue to be our position.”  Okay. 

Another, more important development on ExxonMobil, was the attempt at the AGM by CalPERS and Ceres to remove “… ExxonMobil board member Michael Boskin due to the company’s inaction on the business risks from climate change.”  CalPERS, the California pension system, has $245 billion in total assets and Ceres directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a network of more than 55 institutional investors with collective assets totaling a modest $4 trillion.  See this from Bloomberg News, and this press release. 

Airline Industry Meetings – This critical industry began its annual meetings on Sunday in Vancouver and global warming was at the top of the agenda.  A press release from yesterday signals really important progress:  “IATA Calls for a Zero Emissions Future.”  IATA’s “Strategy to Address Climate Change” is online here.  Giovanni Bisignani, IATA Director General and CEO, said:  “But a growing carbon footprint is no longer politically acceptable—for any industry. Climate change will limit our future unless we change our approach from technical to strategic. Air transport must aim to become an industry that does not pollute—zero emissions.”  Good on ‘ya, mate.  (See also my mention on May 29 of the NY/NJ Port Authority initiative for their three big airports.  And there’s something forthcoming here about Richard Branson in the not-too-distant future.)

Glaciers – Today is World Environment Day and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is celebrating by focusing on glaciers and the threat from global warming.  Here’s a pretty informative slide show from them on the subject.  

Media Notes:  I’ve had the Weather Channel climate change blog up since we started up here in March.  Check out Forecast Earth.  The Weather Channel’s coverage was itself covered in a story in the “NY Times” from yesterday, Everybody Talks About the Weather; All of a Sudden, It’s Controversial.  I’ve also had the AccuWeather.com climate change blog up.

On another note, “The Economist” has one of their excellent, comprehensive surveys out in print and online:  Business And Climate Change - Cleaning up.  I will get going on an article-by-article analysis (not unlike the piece I did back in March on a similar “NY Times” special series) and get that out next week.  Stay tuned.

No matter how you slice it, global warming or climate change, according to a news search on Google, U.S. President George Bush’s announcement yesterday got a lot of attention.  There are over a thousand stories on Bush and either “climate change” or “global warming.”  From Bangkok to Bloomington, from Vladivostok to Vincennes, what the White House has to say on the matter at hand here is noteworthy.  As it should be.

In a sea change, Bush called for “a long-term global goal” for reducing GHG and he said that negotiations should commence among “high-polluting nations” – and that means you India, China and Brazil – and that agreement should be reached by the end of his second and last term, the end of 2008.  Next week, President Bush will be going to Germany for the G-8 Summit where climate change is going to be at the top of the agenda.  The general expectation prior to yesterday was that Bush would not only have nothing to offer on this subject, he would attempt to blunt any G-8 initiative.

I had some notes on the G-8 below under Meetings and also under C40 – The Finale.  I said, in the latter post, that London Mayor Ken Livingstone “… cited one (unnamed) member of the G-8 as ‘in denial’ on climate change.  The presidential administration will change on January 20, 2009, and we will see action on climate change from the White House then.”  So, this is one of those moments when to be wrong is a good thing.  If the administration is at all sincere about yesterday’s announcement, then we are in a new place, and a much better place to be indeed.  White House inaction and fecklessness on climate change, to be sure, did not begin with the present occupant named Bush, but it certainly has been taken to new lows.  But if we can take this news at anywhere near its face value, we should definitely be thankful and Carpe Diem. 

For some excellent insight into this, listen here: to the podcast, the “NY Times” Backstory, an interview with its lead reporter on climate change, Andrew Revkin.  See also the BBC coverage, complete with speech extracts and a Q&A, and this, Analysis: Did Bush turn green?, from UPI.  Go too to the White House for their information packet on this.

Some of the proof of the pudding will be what the G-8 will proclaim next week.  Will the U.S. be a strong voice in whatever joint announcement is made?  An even stronger litmus test of the intentions of the White House will be how they treat legislation that will be coming to them from Congress this year, on both energy security – very much including renewables and efficiency – and then on a U.S. cap-and-trade system.  In fact, the signals they will be giving Congress now, if any, may show the depth of their sincerity on the new framework they’re proposing. 

There is a world of reaction to this, not only from the media, but from environmental groups and others.  Go to the “Climate Change Links” we’ve got for you here at the blog to see some of the response.  Not incidentally, we’d love to have yours.  Comment freely below.  Do you think we’ve turned the corner, or is something else going on?