Climate Change

The Summit started in earnest yesterday.  Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, and Chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, had some opening remarks, including these which are very direct indeed.  (The C40 is in partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative.  I’ll have more to say about President Clinton and the CCI in a later post.)

In a separate panel later in the day, Livingstone gave considerable heart to NYC Mayor Bloomberg and other supporters of congestion pricing.  (I wrote about congestion pricing and New York’s big plans last month in Mike Bloomberg’s Earth Day.)  Livingstone cited the considerable success of the program in London and the acceptance by the public. 

It should be noted that in one year, the congestion charge has brought about a 38% drop in private cars entering London—twice the anticipated figure. There has also been a more than 80% increase in cyclists and a rise in bus passengers from four million to six million. This modal shift has been accompanied by substantial emissions reductions, including a 20% reduction in carbon emissions.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the Vice-Chair of IPCC Working Group on “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability,” reported on the state of the science and the good news and the bad news:  we are in very rough waters already with climate change and it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but we have the tools at hand to deal with the threat, if we apply the will and the energy.  I said it was up to political leadership and the publics they represent to address the problem.  He quoted Montaigne:  “Politics is the art of making possible what is necessary.”

George David, the CEO of United Technologies, had some fascinating things to say about using energy and the potential for radically reducing the amount of power that New York City consumes.  One chord that he struck that I heard later in the day is that the overall efficiency of power generation is 30% for central power stations and 70% for distributed generation.  You simply get much more energy output per Btu input when you locate the consumer close to the source of the power.  On the same panel, Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley noted they have three million square feet of green roofs and they have a “green technology permit system” to help expedite new and retrofitted smart green buildings.  (See my last post and the discussion of green building.)  Both Daley and Toronto Mayor David Miller emphasized the message that there is economic opportunity – I do love that word –  in green tech, and also that there are tremendous savings to be made by government, commercial interests and consumers in all of this. George David again came back to the idea of opening up power generation to small suppliers and suggesting that the federal government needs to promote net metering.

So, in the panel discussion I attended later on decentralized energy, there were some interesting tidbits.  Nicky Gavron, a deputy mayor of London, led the panel. Rotterdam and Copenhagen’s mayors talked about their district heating systems that are hugely efficient and comprehensive.  New York’s electric utility, Consolidated Edison, was represented by its CEO, and he talked about the highly efficient steam heating system we have.  Not incidentally, steam systems can also be engineered to provide cooling and are used this way.  The CEO of Britain’s largest electric utility, EDF Energy, also spoke.  They’ve got a considerable investment in renewables and are working with London to promote distributed generation through its new Climate Change Agency (LCCA). There were several folks in the audience who also spoke at Gavron’s urging, one of whom, Allan Jones, is with the LCCA, which is developing a number of important pathways for low-carbon energy.  Jones pioneered Woking’s innovative energy project where they’ve had nothing but success in saving money and cutting carbon use.  Tom Casten, head of Primary Energy, spoke rather passionately and well about local generation of power.  George David of UTC had earlier cited a number of 70% efficiency for local power.  Casten said 80%.  Here’s a convincing slide show from Casten that backs up his assertions.  See also this from the BBC on microgrids.  Finally, a consultant to Mayor Bloomberg on energy, Doug Foy, said that the City could be doing much more on locally generated power, as much as 2,000 mw or more.  Foy has had a distinguished career with 25 years as the president of the Conservation Law Foundation, and then he brought a new level of environmental thinking to Massachusetts, but resigned last year.

Thinking outside the box - or outside the grid - is what’s going to get us to healthy, low-carbon economies. 

The C40 Large Cities Climate Summit kicked off on a gorgeous spring day today in the Big Apple.  Thirty-two mayors are here with their delegations.  There are 46 cities represented, from six continents. There’s been considerable press on this, a couple of hundred by Google’s count, including this from Reuters “London mayor says cities lead on climate change” and this from one of our local radio stations, WINS “Clinton, Bloomy to Host International Climate Summit.”

JPMorgan Chase is the lead sponsor for this event and they made some news of their own with the announcement that they would make their climate change research publicly available.  Check out their climate change investment page.  This is good, solid, serious research that they’re putting out. 

I enjoyed going out today on the Swiss catamaran “Sun21” which just made the first transAtlantic voyage of a solar-powered vessel.  For a land-locked country, these Swiss are pretty good sailors!  You can go to the sponsoring organization’s website to see, among other things, a great little video.

But wait, there’s more:  The same folks, Transatlantic21, have created the “World Clean Energy Awards.” The jury for these awards, to be given in seven categories with the winners to be announced at the tenth annual Sun21 Energy Forum in Basel on June 15, included such luminaries as Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute and Nicky Gavron, a deputy mayor of London and one of the organizers for the C40 group.  London, as you know, has been going full-tilt boogie to avert a climate change crisis, along with the U.K. government, and the rest of Europe for that matter.  (See my post from March 14.)  For a further look at what the Swiss have been doing, see information at SwissEnergy, such as this on renewables, and, from a consortium of companies, Solar Impulse, an attempt to go around the world in a solar airplane!

On the boat ride, I had the distinct pleasure of talking with Kevin Hydes, the current chairman of the board of the World Green Building Council. Their mission, among others, is to help foster the creation of national councils all over the world.  Kevin is the past chair of the USGBC.  They are the parent of the LEED Green Building Rating System which is the national benchmark for high performance green buildings.  LEED stands for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” and has become a critically important tool in the green building movement.  The American Institute of Architects also has a Committee on the Environment (COTE) that has done, and is doing, pathfinding work.  I mentioned Randy Croxton (who I interviewed many years ago about the NRDC building in New York) and Kevin talked about Bob Berkebile, founding chairman of the AIA Committee on the Environment and a driving force.

Here’s Kevin in front of the Solaire which bills itself as America’s first environmentally advanced residential tower.  Kevin, when he was president of the USGBC, presented the LEED plaque that adorns the entrance.     

We were taken on a tour of the building, including seeing the photovoltaic arrays, the water reuse system, the apartments with all Energy Star high-efficiency appliances and low-emissivity windows, and the green roof where water is captured and filtered and which also diminishes the ambient heat.

All in all, I had a hugely informative and enjoyable afternoon.  More to come tomorrow on the C40 Summit.

I touched on hydrogen vehicles in my post from April 30.  I noted a comparison in the “NY Times” of several approaches. Here’s a video.  Well, I was at the Tribeca Film Festival’s concluding street fair on Saturday and GM had some vehicles on display.  I talked a bit with Raj Choudhury, a project manager for GM.  Here’s a link to their website’s discussion of advanced technologies, including electric and hybrid vehicles.

These technologies are pretty critical.  I heard Jim Gordon, president of the Cape Wind project, say at the RPA conference last week (see post immediately below) that, after you supplied the needs for household and commercial electricity, with the excess from wind, you could power most of the surface transportation on Cape Cod and the islands if you were using plug-in hybrids.  I’ve been dreaming about just that sort of thing for 30 years.  Sweet.

Meanwhile, I’m a nut for windmills so I couldn’t resist having this picture taken.  It’s not as cool as the one of Stavros Dimas from my recent post on Carbon Expo, but it’s fun.

The big news from GM this week was that they joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the tremendously influential group of major American companies that have been driving for action on climate change.  They’re the first automaker to join and that’s, as Bernie Sanders might say, “Yoog.”  See this story from Reuters and the press release from GM.  I noted a while back that Congressman John Dingell, chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, was on board for tough legislation.  He’s been Detroit’s most important champion in Congress for many years and if GM and Dingell are on board, then that’s good news for those pushing for effective federal legislation.  I wrote about Dingell and his critical role here on March 30.

Mike Bloomberg is a billionaire (see Forbes) and the mayor of the biggest city in the United States. He’s in his second term of office – NYC has a term limit of two for municipal office – and he’s come out with a very bold, far-reaching plan, PLANYC, for “A Greener, Greater New York.” He unveiled the plan on Earth Day at the American Museum of Natural History. “With historically low unemployment, a low crime rate and better schools, New York is thriving – it’s a place that people want to be. The time to build on our success is now, and I will not spend my last 984 days in office ignoring the problems that this City will face in the future,” said Hizzoner. (You can watch a video by going here.) 

Bloomberg’s plan is ambitious and, from my perspective, absolutely fabulous. It’s also unprecedented in my experience to have a New York City mayor really embrace so many of the ideas that urban environmentalists have been championing for years:  street trees, expanded open space, an emphasis on renewable fuels, energy efficiency and green buildings, distributed generation, mass transportation, brownfield remediation, protecting ambient water and expanding recreational opportunities. So many of New York City’s environmental mandates are dictated by federal and state law. Mayors haven’t been able to skirt these. But they’ve often stinted of their concern. Giuliani wanted to liquidate most of the community gardens and had nothing but contempt for recycling. I was at an American Planning Association convention one year listening to someone from Chicago talk about Richard Daley’s commitment to street trees and urban parks and I just was squirming thinking of my own city. I also remember being in a meeting in 1986 with one of Ed Koch’s deputy mayors. A group of us were discussing a state bond proposal to increase spending for open space acquisition. “We don’t want new parkland, even if the bond act will pay for it,” the deputy mayor told us. “We’d have to spend money on upkeep if we did.”  I wrote a magazine article for the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day in 1990 which, in essay form, was later published by the American Planning Association. “The City Is Built To Music” is a sort of urban environmental utopia. I always thought that the Big Apple’s politicians could never really think this way. Mike’s making a monkey out of me, and I love it.

Here’s one big-ticket item:  plant a million trees!  Sweet. “Beyond aesthetics and emotional well-being, trees perform important functions that protect and enhance city dwellers’ health and property. Trees literally clean the air by absorbing air pollutants and releasing oxygen. They reduce stormwater runoff and erosion; they temper climate; they can save energy; they create wildlife habitat; they can improve health, serve as screens, and strengthen community. They can even help contribute to a community’s economy and way of life.”  The USDA has a wealth of information on the benefits of the urban forest.

Another initiative in the plan is congestion pricing. I mentioned this in my post immediately below, under the heading How Green is Your City?  The pushback is already coming on strong. See this from “Crain’s NY Business.”  But you’ve got to see the congestion pricing also in the context of the overall transportation plan. We are supposed to get better mass transit at the same time.  Not incidentally, the NY metropolitan area already has, by far, the most extensive and widely used mass transit system in the country. See this from the US DOT. Anyway, London’s congestion pricing system works!  It can and should in the Big Apple. (For critics of congestion pricing as an “elitist” measure, consider London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s politics. They don’t call him Red Ken for nothing.)

So here’s the part that’s most germane for this little sector of the blogosphere:  the plan has a significant component on climate change. Fun fact:  The sheer scale of our city means that New York emits nearly 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, slightly more than Switzerland and Norway and slightly less than Ireland. We’re looking now for a 30% reduction from the 2005 baseline by 2030. The idea is to get reductions of 33.6 million tons - 10.8 million tons coming from “clean power,” 16.7 million from “efficient buildings,” 6.1 from “sustainable transportation,” plus an additional 15.6 million avoided by accommodating 900,000 people in New York City or “avoided sprawl” as the Plan terms it. Plus, the City will devise a comprehensive plan for dealing with weather impacts that are likely to come no matter how negatively or positively global warming trends. This is all heady stuff.  

Bloomberg and New York City are hosting the “C40 Large Cities Climate Summit” next month. “Cities are responsible for three-quarters of the world’s energy consumption, and as such, the world’s largest cities have a critical role to play in the reduction of carbon emissions and the reversal of dangerous climate change,” says their website.

I’ll let the Mayor get the last word in here. He’s earned it, for my money, with this plan. “Climate change is a national challenge, and meeting it requires strong and united national leadership. The fact is, the emerging consensus among scientists is that, to avoid serious harm, we must reduce our emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050.”