Climate Change

I want to send you to my colleague Bonnie Boyd’s terrific article on climate change in Central Asia. Bonnie is the FPA’s blogger on Central Asia and has got some really interesting posts going up. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its second report of the year yesterday in Brussels. (I referenced this in “Headlines” below on April 3.) The IPCC Report is titled “Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” – that’s a mouthful. Go to the IPCC website for all the material relevant to this including the “Summary for Policymakers” and a video of the press conference. There will be 16 regional press briefings around the world in the next couple of weeks, including one in Washington on April 16. There are over a thousand news articles about this listed by Google. I won’t get into the specifics too much here. Suffice it to say that the headlines read like this one from Reuters:  “U.N. panel issues stark climate change warning.” The BBC has this informative interactive map by region and by area of concern to describe what’s being reported. (I touched on some of the impacts that are being found in “Bits and Bobs” from March 30 below.)

One serious bone of contention between some of the 2,500 scientists who’ve been involved in this year’s series of IPCC updates and some of the government representatives who represent political interests is how much damage global warming has already been responsible for causing. (This particular 1,572-page report was prepared by more than 200 scientists, and a 21-page summary was endorsed by officials from more than 120 countries.) But, the conclusion, after all the jockeying, is that human activity causing global warming “… over the last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.” One of the co-chairs of the report team said:  “We’re no longer arm-waving with models. This is empirical information on the ground.”

It’s clear, for instance, that carbon dioxide has been making the world’s oceans more acidic. Harvey Marchant, lead author on polar regions for the report, said: “Carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere continue to rise, putting a greater strain on the world’s oceans which are being forced to absorb more of these emissions than ever before and with potentially catastrophic effects.” Elizabeth Kolbert, the brilliant and passionate journalist and author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, had a stunning article on this in “The New Yorker” on November 20 last year:  “The Darkening Sea – What carbon emissions are doing to the ocean.”Another immediate concern is the vulnerability of certain populations, many of which live in coastal regions. I referenced the 634 million people who live in vulnerable shore areas under Global Ecology in “Bits and Bobs” below, and a report on the dangers from storms and rising seas. See also this terrific slide show from Andrew Revkin and the “NY Times.” Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, said:  “It’s the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit.” In a report timed to coincide with the IPCC schedule, “Save the Children” claimed “Children’s future in jeopardy as climate change set to create up to 175m young disaster victims every year.”

So, we’re hearing again that it’s past time to act. Ed Markey, Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming in the U.S. House of Representatives, said:  “This Congress must rise to the challenge of transitioning from energy sources that threaten the planet and preparing for the damage we can no longer avoid.” (See more from Markey.) Hans Verolme of WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) said: “The urgency of this report…should be matched with an equally urgent response by governments.” Michael Oppenheimer, a world leader in public interest science for many years and an author of the report, said: “The actual outcome in terms of damages and ruined lives and costs depends heavily on the response — the response of individuals to deal with the changes and governments to organize and anticipate and deal with this in advance.”

Winston Churchill said:  “I never worry about action, but only inaction.”

I’ve been looking at renewable energy – we used to call it alternative energy – for a long time. When I went, as a high schooler, to the first Earth Day in 1970, I said, “Yeah, great. This is the future.” When I read Barry Commoner’s The Politics of Energy, published in 1979, I said “Of course, why not?” to the thesis that the federal government should be invested in making the transition to a non-carbon economy. When ten leading environmental groups came out with An Environmental Agenda for the Future in 1985, I said “Okay, now we’re really getting into gear.” When Al Gore became Vice President in 1992, I thought this was an important development. Unfortunately, as I’ve learned, things move slowly. When industrial economies have been burning coal, oil and natural gas for 150 years, you don’t jump right into the energy future. But so slowly? 

Maybe we’re making up for a lot of lost time now. Now we appear to really be on the cusp of a new way of doing business. As noted in my post below on “The Business of Green”, venture capitalists are jumping in with both feet. Wind power and solar power are becoming very big business.

Energy efficiency and green building are both integrally connected to the burgeoning new energy economy, and I will have a good bit to say about these as we go on through the year, but I want to just highlight renewables for the moment. Biofuels and nuclear seem to me to be in a different category too from pure renewable energy. Wind, solar, geothermal, fuel cells, hydro, and even ocean and tidal power. These are the technologies that have fascinated me since the first Earth Day. I think the genie is finally out of the bottle. It’s not a little exciting for me to see all this incredible activity. It should also be exciting for anyone who’s concerned about climate change.

So here are some interesting morsels. “Abu Dhabi eyes renewable energy future” from the FT. The Masdar Initiative aims to “… manage the implementation of a significant renewable and alternative energy initiative in Abu Dhabi.” Similarly, in Singapore, the launch of a new solar and fuel cell initiative was recently announced. See this from Reuters. According to the Singapore Economic Development Board:  “The Singapore government aims to develop Singapore as a global Clean Energy hub which will generate S$1.7 billion of value-added and 7,000 jobs by 2015.” In Portugal, they just opened the world’s largest solar power plant – 11 MW. See this story, and this for the bigger picture:  Portugal plans investments of €8.1 billion (US$10.8 billion) in renewable energy projects over the next five years.

This is a great overview of the state of the solar energy business from “The Economist” – “Bright prospects” from March 10. Here’s some refreshing news about wave power from Environment & Energy Publishing:  “The New Wave – Grid Power from the Sea.” There are some wonderful video and other links in this special report. However, there’s always some fly in the ointment or other. In the case of one ambitious project in Cornwall, it appears that “Surfers Make Waves in British Battle of the Breaks.” On geothermal, in January a major new report found enormous “… potential for geothermal energy within the United States” and “… that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth’s hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity the United States will need in the future, probably at competitive prices and with minimal environmental impact.” See this from the M.I.T. news service and the report itself. (Big file – 14.5 mb!)  That’s the good news. The bad news is “White House seeks to cut geothermal research funds.” Natch. On wind power, on one ambitious and highly promising front, there’s the Cape Wind project which promises that “Average expected production will be 170 megawatts which is almost 75% of the 230 megawatt average electricity demand for Cape Cod and the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.” Now don’t let anybody tell you that I think Republicans are the ones who always spoil the party. See this for instance:  “Ted out to blow down windmills.” To be fair, let Sen. Kennedy give you his perspective.

Well anyway, I must say I feel a little like Rip Van Winkle sometimes. There’s just such an enormous amount of forward movement on renewable energy these days. We’re jumping from quanta to quanta. (Forgive me physicists among you for the no-doubt hugely liberal use of the term.)  I was beginning to think I’d never wake up to the sound of renewable energy bursting into the world’s consciousness and becoming an accepted, even preferred source of power. Much more to come. Stay tuned. 

Supreme Court - As of noon Eastern time today, Google listed 1,127 news articles reporting on yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision, 5-4, in favor of the plaintiffs in probably the most important climate change case to be adjudicated anywhere in the world.  Here’s the story from “The Guardian” and from “The Online NewsHour.”   See this excellent analysis from Felicity Barringer at the “NY Times” and the “backstory” on podcast with her.  Reaction was generally muted from the EPA and the Bush Administration – see yesterday’s press briefing from the White House.  The reaction from some of the interested parties was, however, predictably jubilant.  “Fantastic news” was what the environmental secretary for Massachusetts deemed it.  Massachusetts was the lead plaintiff.  Senator Barbara Boxer, a sponsor of the strongest of the global-warming proposals so far put before Congress, said: “This decision puts the wind at our back.”  A really critical player in Congress in all of this, John Dingell, had this to say:  “Today’s ruling provides another compelling reason why Congress must enact, and the president must sign, comprehensive climate change legislation.” (I mentioned Dingell’s history, importance and role in last week’s post, “Bits and Bobs” below.)

The ruling also gives ammunition to California in fighting the legal challenge to its initiative on automotive emissions for which they need a waiver from the EPA. The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, said about yesterday’s ruling:  “We expect the U.S. E.P.A. to move quickly now in granting our request for a waiver.”

Here’s the caveat in all this, though:  The EPA will not break any speed records in racing to control carbon dioxide from automotive emissions nor any other source.  The EPA is a creature of the presidential administration and this President has said it’s not on. 

What is happening, though, is that momentum is building.  Congress will likely pass legislation this summer to increase energy efficiency and to boost renewable energy.  In the autumn, they may well get to passing something substantive on controlling carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.  The pressure is definitely on the White House, as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision and any number of other factors, including the pressure that will brought to bear on the U.S. at the G-8 summit in Germany in June. 

IPCC Report – “Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” is due out on Friday from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Advanced coverage of the report emphasizes the disparity in how various populations of the world are able to deal with climate change.  A piece in the “NY Times” Science section today highlights the problems.  There are a number of good resources there, including a reader forum in which you can take part.  That there is uneven development in the world is not, I’m afraid, news.  What is news is that people are raising the question of global warming’s impact on the situation now and how it may exacerbate conditions in many impoverished places in the future.  The Kyoto Protocols have an important feature:  the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).  The idea is to have richer nations help poorer nations by developing CDMs to boost sustainability. The UN administers the program and you can go to this interactive map to find projects throughout the world.

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.”