Monday, August 10, 2009

Climate Progress

limate Progress

Climate Progress


Energy and Global Warming News for August 10: World's poorest women set to suffer most from climate change; American Psychological Association examines the behavior behind climate inaction

Posted: 10 Aug 2009 08:24 AM PDT

World's poorest women will bear brunt of climate change

President Jacob Zuma has identified climate change and its impact on women as a critical area of concern. "Natural disasters affect women directly and severely because of their social roles and the impacts of poverty. When there are floods, cyclones, or drought, women bear the brunt," he said recently.

In December this year, leaders from around the world will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a new global climate deal.

If a fair and effective deal is not reached, the poorest women in developing nations like ours stand to suffer the most.

As things stand now it would appear that leaders, especially from industrialised countries, are not putting the needs of the vulnerable and poor on their agenda. They have made very little substantive commitments within the negotiations….

Currently, up to two billion people live in extreme poverty worldwide (which means they live on less that US2 a day).

Two-thirds of these are women. The reality is that climate change will worsen existing poverty, particularly in developing nations that are heavily dependent on natural resources.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the threats to Africa are severe. It is expected that agricultural yields will decrease by 50 percent by 2050, with a total of 75million–250m people exposed to increased water stress, about 70 million people facing the risk of coastal flooding because of sea level rise by 2080, and there will be a significant increase in health impacts.

Psychological Factors Help Explain Slow Reaction To Global Warming

While most Americans think climate change is an important issue, they don't see it as an immediate threat, so getting people to "go green" requires policymakers, scientists and marketers to look at psychological barriers to change and what leads people to action, according to a task force of the American Psychological Association.

Scientific evidence shows the main influences of climate change are behavioral – population growth and energy consumption. "What is unique about current global climate change is the role of human behavior," said task force chair Janet Swim, PhD, of Pennsylvania State University. "We must look at the reasons people are not acting in order to understand how to get people to act."

The full report is here.  See also "Anti-science conservatives are stuck in denial but for climate science activists, the reverse is true."

Texans' views on climate aren't so different, polls show

Texas has not kept pace with many other states in adopting policies that address global warming – a distinction that the Legislature left unchanged in its 2009 session.

Some Texas government and business leaders, meanwhile, have been outspoken in opposing federal regulations to combat climate change, particularly the American Clean Energy and Security (or ACES) Act, which barely won House approval in June.

Still, the recently conducted 2009 editions of a pair of annual polls – the Texas Lyceum Poll and the Houston Area Survey – suggest that Texans' opinions on various aspects of the climate issue are not very different from those of Americans in general, including support for stepped-up regulatory action.

Utilities rushed to meet deadline for $3.3B from stimulus

The field is set for electric utilities competing for shares of the $3.3 billion being dangled by the Energy Department for smart-grid projects.

The deadline was 8 p.m. yesterday for utilities applying for DOE's "Smart Grid Investment Program." Funded by the economic stimulus law, the program is aimed at jump-starting wide development and deployment of smart meters, two-way communication networks and a more responsive electric grid — a key to conserving power and accommodating more renewable energy generation.

Plan urged to save national parks from global warming effects

The federal government must take decisive action to avoid "a potentially catastrophic loss of animal and plant life" in national parks, according to a new report that details the effects of global warming on the nation's most treasured public lands.

The 53-page report from the National Parks Conservation Assn., a Washington-based advocacy group, details concerns related to climate change in the parks, including the bleaching of coral reefs in Florida and the disappearance of high-altitude ponds that nurture yellow-legged frogs in California.

The group called on the National Park Service to come up with a detailed plan and funding to adapt to temperature-related ecosystem changes.

Downturn hits India renewables; solar plan by Dec

The global financial crisis is hurting India's hopes of attracting about $21 billion worth of investments in renewable energy by 2012, but a new solar plan expected to be rolled out by December could provide a boost.

Renewables energy officials said on Monday they had already received more than $3 billion worth of investment since 2007, which could generate about 3,000 megawatts (MW) of power, almost half of it from wind energy alone.

UN chief says climate change biggest challenge

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday that climate change is the greatest challenge facing a world beset by crises and called on governments to reach a deal on the environment at a meeting in Denmark later this year.

Ban said the world has "less than 10 years to halt (the) global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet."

"It is, simply, the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family," Ban said, referring to climate change, in a keynote speech at a gathering in Seoul of the World Federation of U.N. Associations.

A 'no coal' campaign in China

On a hot, humid day in Beijing, the environmental group Greenpeace released a report challenging China's largest power-generation plants.

In front of a coal-fired power plant, campaigners and volunteers stood at the dry riverbed of Yongding River on the western outskirts of the capital.

They held a huge banner with a symbol for "No Coal".

Digging for victory: Britain's food revolution

Britain is to commit itself to a massive increase in domestic food production to feed the population in the next 40 years, The Independent on Sunday has learnt. The UK will announce tomorrow that it intends to "play a full part" in meeting a United Nations target of raising food production by 70 per cent by 2050.

The surge in homegrown crops and meat – which has echoes of the Dig for Victory campaign of the Second World War – is needed to cope with rising global population levels and crop failures and water scarcity caused by climate change.

Australian greenhouse gas levels to soar by 2020

The Federal Government is putting more pressure on the Coalition to support its emissions trading legislation, releasing a report estimating Australia's output of greenhouse gases would be 20 per cent above 2000 levels by 2020 if the scheme is rejected.

The report, by the Department of Climate Change, concluded Australia would need to avoid the creation of the equivalent of 138 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2020 to achieve a 5 per cent reduction target on 2000 levels.

1930s Home Goes Green

A 1930s house built in 2008 is about to undergo the first of three energy efficiency upgrades which will ultimately convert an energy inefficient house into a zero carbon home designed to meet the Government's 2016 CO2 targets for all new housing. The results of this research will be relevant to millions of householders across the UK.

The University of Nottingham had to seek special planning permission to build the house to 1930s specification. Over the next two weeks it will be upgraded with cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, draft proofing and double glazing together with a host of other energy saving devices and equipment.

Consolidation wave rolling through global solar industry

A shakeout in the solar power industry has begun as low prices for raw materials and a glut of photovoltaic equipment are pushing out smaller startups and expanding market access to a dozen or so major players.

Most energy industry analysts predicted last year that a global shortage of polysilicon, the feedstock material for solar panels, would eventually ease, leading over-optimistic equipment manufacturers to flood the market and force down prices and profits. But the global economic crunch has forced prices down much faster than anyone expected, leading companies that cannot lower costs fast enough to quickly exit the field.

Spectacular Melting Of The Largest French Glacier

Located over 12 000 kilometers from the Alps, the Kerguelen Islands are home to the largest French glacier, the Cook ice cap (which had an area of around 500 km2 in 1963). By combining historical information with recent satellite data, the glaciologists at the Laboratory for Space Studies in Geophysics and Oceanography (Université Paul Sabatier / CNRS / CNES / IRD) have observed increasingly rapid shrinkage of the ice.

Over the last 40 years, the Cook ice cap has thinned by around 1.5 meters per year, its area has decreased by 20%, and retreat has been twice as rapid since 1991. Their work has been just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Bold soil-mapping venture seen as crucial to efforts on climate, agriculture

Long left in the dust by their peers in climate research, a small group of soil scientists is spearheading an effort to apply rigorous computer analysis to the ground beneath our feet.

Their goal: to produce a digital soil map of the entire world.

It is a daunting task. In many parts of the world, such as Africa and South Asia, knowledge of soil is sketchy at best, relying on fading paper maps. And without accurate soil information, it is difficult for planners to know where crops are best grown, or for climate modelers to predict how much carbon might be released from soil into the atmosphere.

Suggestions for guest blog posts?

Posted: 10 Aug 2009 07:30 AM PDT

While I am on (70%) vacation, it seems like a good time to repost or excerpt some of the other terrific climate material on the blogosphere.

So I am soliciting suggestions for such articles.  You can suggest your own post.  I can't guarantee I will reprint everything.  And I certainly prefer things from blogs that don't already have high readership, say, blogs with web sites that rank greater than 100,000 on Alexa.

Boxer considers modified 'price collar' for climate bill

Posted: 10 Aug 2009 05:54 AM PDT

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is considering a "price collar" for her global warming bill that could help to curb the economic costs from a cap-and-trade program.

"I don't know why we can't consider this as one more way to give more certainty," Boxer said during a hearing today. "I'm looking at it, is what I'm saying."

Boxer did not go into much detail about what she means when she says a "price collar" is possible for the draft legislation expected early next month. Indeed, the concept does mean different things to different people in the often complex and controversial global warming policy debate.

I try to stay ahead of the curve on climate science, clean energy solutions, and carbon politics.   This time my discussion of the price collar issue along with my specific proposal "How the Senate can fix cost containment in the climate bill with 'price collar plus' " came less than 24 hours before the remarks that E&E News PM (subs. req'd) reported.

The article goes on to make clear that Boxer does not support the traditional — and environmentally flawed — price collar whereby the government to sells an unlimited number of allowances that represent no emissions reduction whatsoever at the ceiling price, but rather something closer to what I suggested:

Under the House-passed bill, U.S. EPA would release "strategic reserve" allowances into the carbon market via an auction in the event credit prices rise faster than expected.

House Democrats opted against an "offramp" that would cancel the climate bill's requirements in the event prices went too high. And they also rejected the notion of a "safety valve" that placed an absolute ceiling on the price of carbon allowances — an idea that often has drawn outright opposition from environmental groups because it would not do enough to stimulate low-carbon energy technologies.

A Boxer aide later clarified that the EPW panel's chairwoman is weighing a reserve fund that can control volatile prices without destroying the environmental integrity of the climate legislation.

"It is not an off-ramp, and she does not support a safety valve," the aide said.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has long advocated price controls as part of a cap-and-trade bill, including a "safety valve" in previous versions of his own.

"I think it's something that makes a lot of sense to look at," Bingaman said today.

Bingaman's proposals have also captured support from senators who do not typically sign onto such stringent environmental legislation, including Sens. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

"That was a big factor in why I had joined with Senator Bingaman," said Murkowski, the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "I'm encouraged to hear she's looking at that."

But both Bingaman and Murkowski cautioned that many details beyond the price control language would need to be addressed before reluctant lawmakers start signing on.

"These cap-and-trade bills have so many pieces," Bingaman said. "I don't know that you can point to one thing and say, 'Stick that in and everyone jumps on board.' I think it's much more complicated than that."

Several top industry groups have been lobbying for a "price collar" as part of the climate bill, including the Edison Electric Institute, the lead trade association for investor-owned utilities.

"We're encouraged that Chairman Boxer has expressed interest in the concept of a price collar, which we think is essential to reducing price increases under a climate bill," EEI spokesman Dan Riedinger said. "Setting a floor on allowance prices will encourage investments in new clean-energy technologies, while establishing a price ceiling will protect against price volatility and market manipulation."

The National Commission on Energy Policy, an influential bipartisan group, was among the first to tackle the cost-containment debate in a 2004 report that called for a firm price limit on greenhouse gas allowances. The group, headed by Jason Grumet, one of President Obama's top environmental advisers from last year's campaign, has since backed away from the "safety valve" stance and now endorses the strategic reserve concept.

"Our commission has long advocated predictable price signals in the early years as both good policy and good politics," NCEP spokesman Paul Bledsoe said today. "An effective cost collar can reduce economic risk of high prices and price volatility, while the price floor provides certainty for clean energy investors of a minimum carbon price."

Environmentalists today largely held their fire that Boxer's plan would not derail the integrity of the legislation. "We're confident that they're not going to put something forward that busts the cap," said Dave Hamilton, who directs the Sierra Club's global warming and energy programs.

Indeed, fence-sitting Senators and industries can legitimately see price collar plus as achieving stronger cost-containment protection than their analysis suggests the House bill now provides, including protection against speculators running the permit price up, while progressives can legitimately see PCoP as achieving better environmental outcomes than their analysis suggests the House bill now provides.  Win-win.

NYT: Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security

Posted: 09 Aug 2009 11:40 AM PDT

darfur.jpg

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

So begins the excellent lead story by John Broder in today's NY Times.   This  won't surprise regular readers — indeed, last September I wrote about an unusually savvy new intelligence forecast on global risks "previewed in a speech by Thomas Fingar, the U.S. intelligence community's top analyst" which

… envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.

The report … also concludes that one key area of continued U.S. superiority — military power — will "be the least significant" asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because "nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force."

Thank you George Bush and Dick Cheney and your fellow deniers for delaying action so long has to make such an outcome all but inevitable!

The photo above is from Darfur.  The NYT notes, "The conflict in southern Sudan, which has killed and displaced tens of thousands of people, is partly a result of drought in Darfur."   A 2007 Atlantic Monthly piece, "The Real Roots of Darfur," went further, asserting, "The violence in Darfur is usually attributed to ethnic hatred. But global warming may be primarily to blame."

And we haven't even warmed 1°C yet!  We're facing more than five times as much warming the century as the last century on our current emissions path.  How much conflict and misery will be caused when we have turned one third of the Earth's inhabited land mass into a Dust Bowl and sea levels are more than a meter higher and the oceans are increasingly hot, acidified dead zone, which is what the second half of the century holds in store when we blow past 550 ppm on route to 850 to 1000 ppm or more?

The NYT offers this grim scenario:

Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.

One military exercise "explored the potential impact of a destructive flood in Bangladesh that sent hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into neighboring India, touching off religious conflict, the spread of contagious diseases and vast damage to infrastructure."

The UK government's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, laid out a similar scenario in a March speech to the government's Sustainable Development UK conference in Westminster. He warned that by 2030, "A 'perfect storm' of food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration as people flee from the worst-affected regions," as the UK's Guardian put it.  The NYT continues:

If the United States does not lead the world in reducing fossil-fuel consumption and thus emissions of global warming gases, proponents of this view say, a series of global environmental, social, political and possibly military crises loom that the nation will urgently have to address.

This argument could prove a fulcrum for debate in the Senate next month when it takes up climate and energy legislation passed in June by the House.

Lawmakers leading the debate before Congress are only now beginning to make the national security argument for approving the legislation.

Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a leading advocate for the climate legislation, said he hoped to sway Senate skeptics by pressing that issue to pass a meaningful bill.

Mr. Kerry said he did not know whether he would succeed but had spoken with 30 undecided senators on the matter.

I do think this is an important argument to make to Senators, many of whom see themselves as historical figures playing on the world stage.  Indeed, this is part of the even bigger message that Senators who vote to block the national action — and hence vote to kill any chance of a global deal — will be remembered for condemning the next 50 generations to unimaginable misery and strife.

BUT as serious as this argument is, it's equally important not to leave people with the impression that one is arguing global warming is mainly going to impact other countries, and not us.  The United States will be directly devastated by climate change if we don't rapidly reverse emissions trends (see "Intro to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water " and Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year — and that isn't the worst case, it's business as usual!).

"We will pay for this one way or another," Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a retired Marine and the former head of the Central Command, wrote recently in a report he prepared as a member of a military advisory board on energy and climate at CNA, a private group that does research for the Navy. "We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind.

"Or we will pay the price later in military terms," he warned. "And that will involve human lives."

For more discussion of the kind of wars we might be seeing, albeit for the year 2046, here is a three-part radio series on Climate Wars.

The time to act is yesterday.

Drudge advertises "conservative humor" T-shirt: "I'd rather be waterboarding."

Posted: 09 Aug 2009 10:28 AM PDT

One of the revolving ads at the top of the homepage of one of the leading purveyors of disinformation on global warming, the Drudge Report:

Self-described conservative "humor" — with a lengthy definition of "humor" at the top of the t-shirt website just in case for some reason you didn't get that this was humorous!

Seriously, torturing people is just so damn funny.   Stop it, you're killing me.