Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Climate Progress

Climate Progress



Energy and Global Warming News for September 29: Boxer, Kerry set to introduce climate bill in Senate; China leads way for solar energy: "If the U.S. doesn't get serious, China's going to own this industry."

Posted: 29 Sep 2009 09:37 AM PDT

Boxer, Kerry Set to Introduce Climate Bill in Senate

Ending some nine months of closed-door deliberations, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) will release global warming legislation Wednesday that they hope will be the vehicle for broader Senate negotiations and an eventual conference with the House.

The bill's authors said last week that they expect to start hearings early next month on the bill, with a markup in Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee to follow soon thereafter. They also acknowledged that their legislation is just a "starting point" in a bid to win over moderate and conservative Democrats, as well as Republicans.

"I hope what we've done is constructive and well-received," Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday. "I have no pretensions, and neither does Barbara, that this will be the final product. It is a starting point, a commitment, full-fledged, across party lines to do what we need to do to protect the planet for the next century."

The Boxer-Kerry bill will build in large part off H.R. 2454 (pdf), legislation approved in June by the House following several marathon months of negotiations that involved lawmakers representing coastal and industry-heavy districts. Exactly what is the same in the two bills remains to be seen. As for differences, Senate Democratic aides say they expect the legislation to divert from the House bill's 17 percent emissions target for 2020 and go with an even more aggressive 20 percent limit. The bill also will stay silent on exactly how the Senate should divide up emission allowances.

At least five other Senate committees are also expected to contribute to the climate debate. The Foreign Relations and Agriculture committees are preparing language without convening a markup.

Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said he will hold votes on his pieces of the global warming bill. And the same goes for Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who last week told reporters that provisions on international trade and the allocation of emission allowances would be marked up provided Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says the bill is "clearly moving."

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has already approved legislation (S. 1462 (pdf)) out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that includes a nationwide renewable electricity standard and a raft of other energy incentives, including a provision that could bring oil and gas rigs closer to Florida's Gulf Coast. Bingaman is also planning a hearing Thursday on several competing cost estimates associated with the House-passed climate bill. The session, which was postponed once earlier this month, now gives senators an early public forum to sound off on the Boxer-Kerry bill.

Already last week, several Democratic senators working outside of the Boxer-Kerry camp said their ideas would be melded into the legislation at a later date. "It's going to need a lot of work," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Brown said he did not expect the Boxer-Kerry bill to include language adopted in the House that tries to assist energy-intensive manufacturing industries, including steel, pulp and paper and cement.

"My understanding is they did not include the House language on manufacturing," Brown added. "But I've been talking to them about it. They are very open to it. They are in no way dismissive."

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said she also does not think her concerns will be addressed in the initial draft from Boxer and Kerry. That means further efforts on issues related to agriculture, offsets and energy intensive industries.

"We will have to take a look at the language and then determine it from there," Stabenow said.

China leads way for solar energy

Next month, Santa Clara's Applied Materials Inc. is scheduled to open a giant solar energy R&D center. The company is investing up to $300 million in the facility. It will not be situated in California, nor in the United States, but in Xian, China. Because China's where the action is.

"If the U.S. doesn't get serious, China's going to own this industry," said Applied Materials spokesman David Miller. He points to the Manhattan Project-like push for alternative energy adopted by Chinese officials, which includes up to $60 billion annually in government investment. And here? "Here, we're way behind," said Miller. "We're still messing around with energy bills. We need to get serious, to get capital spending flowing, to get the government truly behind it, to get focused."

Miller and his company are not simply blowing smoke. In as little as two years, analysts predict, China will be the world's biggest consumer of solar energy. By 2013, its clean tech market could amount to $1 trillion annually, according to a report earlier this month from the China Greentech Initiative, a consortium of U.S. and Chinese companies that includes Cisco Systems and the Silicon Valley VC firm VantagePoint Venture Partners, which specializes in clean tech investments.

Neither is Applied Materials alone in its views. I've heard them similarly expressed by numerous Bay Area executives and investors with business ties to China. "They get that these are the industries of the 21st century," says VantagePoint managing partner Alan Salzman, whose Bay Area clean tech investments include Tesla Motors, BrightSource Energy and Solazyme. "The level of support for green tech there is breathtaking. It exceeds anything done here on a state or federal level."

As if any more wake-up calls were needed, two other VantagePoint Venture Partners' portfolio companies, Santa Clara's Miasolé, which produces advanced, thin-film solar panels, and Sunnyvale's Bridgelux, developer of energy-efficient LED lighting, are reluctantly considering locating their manufacturing facilities outside the United States.

"From a global competitiveness perspective, we're just not there," said Salzman.

East Africa Drought In Fifth Year, Millions Hungry

Drought for a fifth year running is driving more than 23 million east Africans in seven countries towards severe hunger and destitution, international aid agency Oxfam said on Tuesday.

Launching a $9.5 million (6 million pounds) appeal, it said the situation was being worsened by high food prices and conflict. The most badly hit nations are Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda.

Malnutrition is now above emergency levels in some areas and hundreds of thousands of valuable cattle are dying.

"This is the worst humanitarian crisis Oxfam has seen in east Africa for over ten years," Paul Smith Lomas, Oxfam's East Africa Director, said in a statement.

He said failed and unpredictable rains were ever more common in the region, and that broader climate change meant wet seasons were becoming shorter. Droughts have increased from once a decade to every two or three years.

"In Wajir, northern Kenya, almost 200 dead animals were recently found around one dried-up water source," Lomas said..

"People are surviving on two litres of water a day in some places — less water than a toilet flush.. The conditions have never been so harsh or so inhospitable, and people desperately need our help to survive."

Some 3.8 million Kenyans, a tenth of the population, need emergency aid, Oxfam said, partly because food prices have risen to 180 percent above average.

One in six children are acutely malnourished in Somalia, the charity said, while conflict meant people were less able to grow food and drought is ravaging areas where people have fled. Half the population — more than 3.8 million people — are affected.

In Ethiopia, 13.7 million people are at risk of severe hunger and need help, Oxfam said. Many are selling cattle to buy food. Farmers in northern Uganda have lost half their crops.

EU, U.S. eye green goods tax pact in climate fight

EU diplomats told Reuters that under a plan being discussed by Brussels and Washington, the 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and China would agree a global pact to phase out import tariffs on goods such as wind turbines, renewables and green technologies.

But any deal is unlikely to include environmentally friendly hybrid cars, the diplomats said.

"The talks are entering an advanced stage. Brussels and Washington hope this could be one of the incentives needed to get China on board in the lead up to the Copenhagen climate change talks," one EU diplomat told Reuters.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office said the United States and the EU had been pushing within the Doha round of world trade talks since November 2007 for a deal to cut tariffs on environmental goods "and continue to work closely in pushing for concrete progress."

"We remain eager to move ahead with negotiations to eliminate tariff barriers on climate-friendly technologies and spur momentum on a larger WTO Doha package on environmental goods and services," said USTR spokeswoman Carol Guthrie.

U.S. businesses such as United Technologies Corp and General Electric Co, that are frustrated with the slow pace of the Doha round, have urged the Obama administration to consider alternative paths to reach a deal to boost trade in environmental goods and services.

"It's a chance to jump-start U.S. trade policy and aid global climate negotiations at the same time," said Jake Colvin, vice president for global trade policy at the National Foreign Trade Council, a U.S. business group.

China is on course to become the world's largest producer of wind turbines in the world this year and is a major manufacturer of solar products.

Britain to host pre-Copenhagen climate talks

Britain said on Monday it would host a meeting of major economies next month ahead of talks to reach a new U.N deal to fight climate change.

The United States had asked Britain to hold the meeting of the 17-member Major Economies Forum (MEF) it set up earlier this year to provide an informal forum to discuss climate issues in London on October 18 and 19.

The discussions come less than two months before about 190 nations gather for talks in Copenhagen in December to forge a successor to the emissions-capping pact known as the Kyoto Protocol.

"MEF will cover most of the climate issues discussed in the official UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) talks ahead of Copenhagen but is not an official part of the negotiations," Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change said in a statement.

"However, it will provide valuable contribution towards Copenhagen if developed and developing countries can reach a shared understanding and build consensus on some general principles.

"Real commitment from all countries is needed to secure a breakthrough deal."

Delegates are currently meeting in Thailand for two weeks of talks to try to settle on the outline of a tougher pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

A spokeswoman for the department said the MEF was likely to meet again following the London talks and a further meeting on the eve of the Copenhagen talks was also likely.

Going green at Whitey's, with aid from government

Whitey's Auto Mall is going green, and the business secured $20,000 in federal funds to help.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, announced Saturday that Ohio will receive more than $10 million in federal funds to support renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. The funding was made available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Energy for America Program.

Whitey's plans to install a geothermal climate control system for its new Mercedes showroom, which opened this month. Co-owner Dirk Schluter said drilling started three months ago for the energy-efficient heating and cooling system.

"We're looking for whatever we can to go green. If this system works well, we plan on doing more," he said..

The business applied for the grant a few months ago, and only learned of the award Saturday.

Brown, a leading advocate in Congress for creation of a clean energy industry, is the first Ohioan to serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee in more than 40 years.

"These funds will help Ohio's small towns and rural communities make strides in energy efficiency and energy innovation," he said in a news release. "Across the state, these are projects that work to reduce our dependence on foreign energy and are key to our future economic development and prosperity."

Schluter said Whitey's is interested in wind turbines and new lamps for the entire dealership, which will mean considerable savings in utilities.

He said the Park Avenue West dealership's new auto body shop uses a waterborne paint system, which contains and emits less organic solvent, is less flammable and has a lower toxicity.

"It's a pretty big green investment we made," he said.

U.N. warns deadline imminent on climate change agreement

The United Nations on Monday warned world leaders they have only 70 days to reach a new deal to limit global warming.

"Time is not just pressing. It has almost run out," U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said of leaders' dwindling time before they meet in Copenhagen to finalize a pact.

"As many leaders have said, there is no Plan B," he said. "If we don't realize Plan A, the future will hold us to account for it."

But only hours after negotiations began, rich and poor nations were already flinging their usual rebukes at one another for failing to do their part to reach a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Talks have been deadlocked for months over the industrial nations' refusal to commit to sufficiently deep cuts or provide billions of dollars to poor nations to help them adapt to the effects of climate change and transition to a low-carbon economy.

Major developing nations, such as India and China, have refused to agree to binding targets altogether and are leery of demands that their commitments be monitored and verified as part of any agreement.

Indian delegates called Monday for emissions cuts by developing nations of 40 percent to 45 percent below 1990 levels. And Sudan, speaking for the Group of 77 developing nations and China, said industrialized nations must provide financial help.

But the U.S. shot back that developing countries would have to do their part – short of binding targets – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and for the first time agree to a system that would monitor and verify their promised actions.

The need for a deal was driven home by a U.N. report last week that showed climate-related events such as the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets and the increasing acidification of the oceans are happening much faster than scientists had predicted even two years ago.

CIA opens center for climate change

The Central Intelligence Agency announced plans to launch a center on climate change to examine the potential security risks of environmental issues.

The CIA said it was working on its new Center on Climate Change and National Security to examine the national security impact of environmental issues such as population shifts, rising sea levels and increased competition for natural resources.

CIA Director Leon Panetta described the center as an effective support tool for U.S. lawmakers examining international agreements on the environment.

"Decision makers need information and analysis on the effects climate change can have on security," said the director. "The CIA is well positioned to deliver that intelligence."

The CIA will use the center to coordinate with other members of the intelligence community to review and declassify imagery and other data for use in environmental and climate-related issues.

Google Earth 3D climate change simulator unveiled — starring Al Gore

Posted: 29 Sep 2009 09:19 AM PDT

Google is using its Google Earth mapping tool to simulate on a 3D map of the world the predicted effects of climate change until the year 2100.

Using data provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the search giant created new layers for Google Earth showing the range of expected temperature and precipitation changes under different global emissions scenarios that could occur throughout the century.

The Sydney Morning Herald further reports these "new tools were introduced in partnership with the Danish Government ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Convention in December."  And as as HuffingtonPost reports, "Al Gore stars" in the Google Earth climate simulator video:

From Cope to Hope: Twitter to the rescue?

Posted: 29 Sep 2009 07:55 AM PDT

http://www.bizzia.com/behindthebuzz/files/2009/06/cope-hope-flagpole-english-low-res.jpgCan Twitter save civilization? We're about to find out.

As the clock winds down on the big climate negotiation in Copenhagen this December (formally known as the 15th Conference of the Parties, or COP-15), the future of the planet and its inhabitants may be in the hands of tweeters, especially tots, teens and twenty-somethings.

Several groups are attempting to mobilize a worldwide mandate for action in Copenhagen, calling for boots to hit streets and thumbs to hit keyboards, to harness the power of Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, You Tube, FlickR, text messaging and the potential power of the PDA Nation.

One of my favorites (in part because I've been a sometime advisor on it) is a campaign called Hopenhagen, launched last week during "climate week" in New York City. At the request of the United Nations, the International Advertising Association is applying its creative powers to a viral effort in which young people will petition for a "definitive, equitable and effective" climate agreement at COP-15.

Led by the global communications powerhouse Ogilvy & Mather, the campaign urges young people to become citizens of a Hopenhagen community, complete with a virtual passport. With help from corporate giants Coca Cola, Siemens and SAP, and with support from a growing list of "Friends of Hopenhagen" who range from Reader's Digest and the Wall Street Journal to Mother Jones magazine, Ogilvy will deploy media and billboards in major cities to promote the power of the grassroots.

Rather than complaining about an infringement on its name, the City of Copenhagen has agreed enthusiastically to rename itself "Hopenhagen" in December, replacing Cs with Hs where the city's name appears at the airport and on highway signs leading to COP-15.

Hopenhagen is one of several current opportunities for youth to help shape the future they will inherit, and for old-timers like me to improve the future we will pass along. Here are some of the others:

Tck Tck Tck: Organized by the Global Campaign for Climate Action, Tck Tck Tck is an alliance of civil society organizations, trade unions, faith groups and individuals using social media and the internet to demand a "fair, ambitious and binding" climate treaty.. Partners include the World Wildlife Fund, Oxfam and Amnesty International, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the World Council of Churches and the Global Campaign Against Poverty, among others.

International Day of Climate Action – Oct. 24, 2009: 350.org is a coalition of more than 200 organizations encouraging local people to hold thousands of events around the world on Oct. 24 to "show our world and its decision-makers just how big, beautiful and unified the climate movement really is". The group's web site offers a tool kit to help local activists organize their events.

So far, 1,578 events are scheduled in 125 countries. The goal is to push for a global agreement that reduces atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to a maximum of 350 parts per million – the ambitious emissions reduction target advocated by Dr. James Hansen, the outspoken chief climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

1Sky: Back in the United States, the meta-group 1Sky is mobilizing people to shower Senators with telephone calls in call for action on a climate bill this year. 1Sky has set up a system that makes it easy to let your fingers to do the marching straight into the offices of your Senators.

Raise Your Voice: The Danish government, YouTube and Google have created a web site for people to post their own videos and "raise their voices" about global climate change. The best of the videos will be featured Dec. 15 during a CNN/YouTube "debate" at Copenhagen and on an Earth Globe at the conference.

Focus the Nation: FTN has created a network to help climate activists communicate about their plans and to join groups working on climate campaigns this fall. FTN also helps local groups organize Clean Energy Forums.

Apollo Alliance: The Apollo Alliance is working with Ceres, the Clean Economy Network and others to help businesses lobby the Senate Oct. 6-7 for clean energy and climate legislation. (To point out that businesses have a stake in climate action is a vast understatement. Converting the world to clean energy technologies is likely to be the biggest market opportunity in the history of commerce.) For more information, go to www.wecanlead.org.

Power Shift 2009: A project of the Energy Action Coalition, Power Shift has organized tens of thousands of young people to march in Washington, D.C. in the past. This fall, it is organizing regional summits – 11 so far — to "exercise the political power of young voters and ask President Obama and Congress to pass a clean energy jobs plan by December to rebuild our economy, end our dependence on dirty energy, and bring America lasting security."

To veterans of the Vietnam era like me, social networking seems less impressive than taking to the streets. For my generation, social commitment meant braving enlistment in a war, or a concussion and jail time to protest the war. Some old-fashioned protest still is underway today in acts of civil disobedience, lately against coal mining and coal power plants. Ask Jim Hansen, who is one of several people facing jail time for a protest against mountain top removal in Appalachia.

When I asked a friend of mine – a young mother with pre-teen children – why more of today's youth aren't marching in the old way, she replied: "Kids today don't march. They network." Clearly, we need both.

To us wonks and wags emerged in climate policy, a campaign like Hopenhagen may seem light on substance. I think we'll be surprised. Boiling global warming's esoterica into a simple but true choice between "hope" and "cope" might be the key to engaging the masses.

  • So, if you want to make a difference by forcing leaders to lead, here's what you can do:
  • Sign up for one of the mobilizations above. Better yet, sign up for all of them;
  • In a response to this post, alert us to other mobilization opportunities;
  • Help these efforts go viral by alerting your social networks;
  • Follow emerging developments as we approach COP-15, including more opportunities to raise your voice. One source of information is the COP-15 web site.

With opponents of action fighting to maintain a status quo that cannot be sustained, it apparently will take a planetary village to deal with climate change.

– Bill Becker

UK Met Office: Catastrophic climate change, 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 27°F in the Arctic, could happen in 50 years, but "we do have time to stop it if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon."

Posted: 28 Sep 2009 07:41 PM PDT

Finally, some of the top climate modelers in the world have done a "plausible worst case scenario," as Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, put it today in a terrific and terrifying talk (audio here, PPT here).

No, I'm not taking about a simple analysis of what happens if the nation and the world just keep on our current emissions path.  We've known that end-of-century catastrophe for a while (see "M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F — with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20°F").  I'm talking about running a high emissions scenario (i.e. business as usual) in one of the few global climate models capable of analyzing strong carbon cycle feedbacks.  This is what you get [temperature in degrees Celsius, multiple by 1.8 for Fahrenheit]:

Graphic of chnage in temperature

The key point is that while this warming occurs between 1961-1990 and 2090-2099 for the high-end scenarios without carbon cycle feedbacks, in about 10% of Hadley's model runs with the feedbacks, it occurs around 2060.  Betts calls that the "plausible worst case scenario.."  It is something the IPCC and the rest of the scientific community should have laid out a long time ago.

As the Met Office notes here, "In some areas warming could be significantly higher (10 degrees [C = 15F] or more)":

  • The Arctic could warm by up to 15.2 °C [27.4 °F] for a high-emissions scenario, enhanced by melting of snow and ice causing more of the Sun's radiation to be absorbed.
  • For Africa, the western and southern regions are expected to experience both large warming (up to 10 °C [18 °F]) and drying.
  • Some land areas could warm by seven degrees [12.6 F] or more.
  • Rainfall could decrease by 20% or more in some areas, although there is a spread in the magnitude of drying. All computer models indicate reductions in rainfall over western and southern Africa, Central America, the Mediterranean and parts of coastal Australia.
  • In other areas, such as India, rainfall could increase by 20% or more. Higher rainfall increases the risk of river flooding.

Large parts of the inland United States would warm by 15°F to 18°F, even worse than the NOAA-led 13-agency impacts report found "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!"

Dr Betts added: "Together these impacts will have very large consequences for food security, water availability and health. However, it is possible to avoid these dangerous levels of temperature rise by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. If global emissions peak within the next decade and then decrease rapidly it may be possible to avoid at least half of the four degrees of warming."

A DECC spokesman said: "This report illustrates why it is imperative for the world to reach an ambitious climate deal at Copenhagen which keeps the global temperature increase to below two degrees."

Betts "presented the new findings at a special conference" today.  "4 degrees and beyond at Oxford University, attended by 130 international scientists and policy specialists, is the first to consider the global consequences of climate change beyond 2 °C."  You can find all the talks here.

The UK Telegraph story is here.  The Guardian story is "Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes:  Study says 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060, Increase could threaten water supply of half world population":

When they ran the models for the most extreme IPCC scenario, they found that a 4C rise could come by 2060 or 2070, depending on the feedbacks. Betts said: "It's important to stress it's not a doomsday scenario, we do have time to stop it happening if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon." Soaring emissions must peak and start to fall sharply within the next decade to head off a 2C rise, he said. To avoid the 4C scenario, that peak must come by the 2030s.

Again, this is not the likely impact for 2060 if we fail to act aggressively, but it is a plausible worst-case scenario that should invalidate all economic cost-benefit analysis done to date (see "Harvard economist disses most climate cost-benefit analyses").

Kudos to Betts and the Met Office for this important, uncharacteristically blunt, and long-overdue analysis.

Nation's largest utility pulls the plug on the Chamber over climate denial. Exelon CEO Rowe says, "Putting a price on carbon is essential, because it will force us to do the cheapest things, like energy efficiency, first."

Posted: 28 Sep 2009 05:24 PM PDT

"The carbon-based free lunch is over. But while we can't fix our climate problems for free, the price signal sent through a cap-and-trade system will drive low-carbon investments in the most inexpensive and efficient way possible," said Rowe. "Putting a price on carbon is essential, because it will force us to do the cheapest things, like energy efficiency, first."

"Inaction on climate is not an option," said Rowe. "If Congress does not act, the EPA will, and the result will be more arbitrary, more expensive, and more uncertain for investors and the industry than a reasonable, market-based legislative solution."

John RoweExelon issued a press release today announcing CEO John Rowe's decision to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  It includes the above excerpts from his speech calling for immediate action by Congress.

More and more utilities have cut the power to the Chamber (see "Will last company to leave the Chamber's Boardroom please turn off the lights!") — though they have been in the dark a long time (see "Chamber admits calling for 'Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century' was dumb — but it still apes the deniers").

Okay, enough puns.  Here's the background, from Wonk Room:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the largest lobbying force in the nation, promoting a right-wing agenda as the "voice of business." The Chamber claims that a cap-and-trade program to limit global warming pollution would "strangle the economy" and has even called for a "Scopes monkey trial" on the science of global warming.Today, Exelon CEO John Rowe announced that his company — the largest electric utility company in the United States — would not renew its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of its opposition to global warming action. In his keynote address to the annual conference of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), the nation's largest association of energy efficiency experts, Rowe said that the Chamber's multi-million-dollar campaign against clean energy legislation is incompatible with Exelon's commitment to climate change leadership. As Rowe said when he accepted a leadership award from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce in 2008:

Exelon has staked out an industry-leading position on the issue of climate change and, in the spirit of Daniel Burnham, we have launched our own "not so little plan" to eliminate the equivalent of our entire carbon footprint by the year 2020. I do not know if it will stir men's souls, but I hope it will stir policymakers and others in our industry to action.

Confirming Exelon's decision to ThinkProgress, a spokesperson explained that "Exelon is a big supporter of climate legislation." Exelon is the third energy company to sever ties with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the past week, joining Pacific Gas & Electric and PNM Resources.

Energy and Global Warming News for September 28: G20 leaders agree to phase-out fossil fuel subsides; China sees emissions trading in next economic plan

Posted: 28 Sep 2009 03:21 PM PDT

G20 Leaders Agree to Phase Out Fossil Fuel Subsidies

World leaders gathered in Pittsburgh for the Group of 20 summit agreed Friday afternoon to phase out fossil fuel subsidies over time, approving language that does not outline a specific timetable for the phase-out and makes clear that poorer citizens may still receive help in paying their energy bills.

But the wording of the statement, championed by the Obama administration, signals the world's most influential nations are taking an initial, tentative step away from the fossil fuels that power their economies.

"We commit to rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption," the statement said. "As we do that, we recognize the importance of providing those in need with essential energy services, including through the use of targeted cash transfers and other appropriate mechanisms. This reform will not apply to our support for clean energy, renewables and technologies that dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

The United States and many other countries around the world provide financial aid — in the form of both direct payments and tax breaks — to help produce oil, natural gas and other fuels that produce carbon dioxide, which has contributed to rapid climate change over the past half century. According to the Environmental Law Institute, the U.S. government provided $72 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry between 2002 and 2008.

China Sees Emissions Trading in Next Economic Plan

China plans to include a pilot emissions trading system in its five-year plan for economic development until 2015, the Environment Ministry said on Sunday, but declined to comment on whether it would cover carbon dioxide.

The government is already experimenting with small-scale schemes to tackle acid-rain causing sulphur dioxide and other pollutants using market mechanisms.

It has been coy about the potential for expanding these, or adding greenhouse gases to the list of pollutants that can be controlled and traded, but is apparently keen to at least continue exploring their potential.

A trial system for trading in permits to pollute was listed as one of four main emissions reductions goals in official comments about a blueprint for growth in China from 2011 to 2015, which bureaucrats are still thrashing out.

China is now the world's top annual emitter, and President Hu Jintao pledged at the United Nations to take on a "carbon intensity" goal that would oblige it to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each dollar of its economic output.

Many carbon traders hope this could pave the way for a market like the one currently used in Europe, and have been rushing to secure a potentially lucrative foothold in China even though it is unclear how easy it will be to make money there.

Religious Groups Push For Climate Change Legislation

When Orthodox Jews met with top White House adviser David Axelrod and a handful of U.S. senators this month as part of an annual lobbying effort, they talked up climate change legislation as a way to improve security for the United States and Israel. "America's reliance on imported oil from the Arab Middle East has been a grave concern for a very long time," says Nathan Diament, public policy director for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. "The Jewish community is interested in energy independence."

But the Jewish delegation also based its case for a climate change bill, which cleared the House earlier this year, on another premise: the Bible. "We are getting ready to read Genesis and the creation story in our synagogues in a few weeks," Diament says. "Our responsibility to tend the garden is part of our understanding of the Torah and of our worship." Indeed, some Jews have begun referring to their green activism as "creation care," a term coined by environmentally inclined evangelical Christians.

As environmental interests begin pressing the Senate to pass major climate legislation before next year's midterm elections, groups and activists from across the spectrum of American religious traditions have emerged as an integral part of the effort. Some denominations and faith-based organizations are planning grass-roots campaigns around the bill for this fall. The White House's faith-based advisory council has convened a climate change task force. And Pope Benedict XVI's environmental proclamations, including writing recently that "the environment is God's gift to everyone," have earned him the nickname the "green pope."

At a time when many senators are skittish about adopting the House climate bill's cap-and-trade provision because of fears it could further slow the economy, religious activists may prove crucial to building support, or at least dampening opposition, among important religious constituencies. Religious conservatives, for instance, generally oppose more government regulation. And many African-Americans, among the most religious demographic groups in the country, worry about cap-and-trade's impact on manufacturing jobs. Faith-based environmentalists have responded to such doubts with a moral case that climate change will disproportionally affect the world's poor by causing food shortages, drought, and coastal flooding. "The faith community talks about climate legislation differently than scientists or environmentalists," says Cassandra Carmichael, director of the Washington office of the National Council of Churches. "We frame it in terms of the people impacted, which can bring in legislators who hadn't thought in those terms."

n the House, religious activists helped to narrowly pass a climate bill in June. A group called the American Values Network, founded by the religious outreach director for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Burns Strider, bought Christian radio ads promoting the bill in conservative congressional districts. The progressive group Faith in Public Life funded polling that showed most evangelicals and Catholics support efforts to combat climate change. Religious lobbyists, meanwhile, won a provision in the House bill guaranteeing that houses of worship are eligible for federal subsidies for retrofitting energy-inefficient buildings.

The stepped-up environmental efforts of religious groups in Washington have paralleled a grass-roots effort among religious Americans to green their congregations. An ecumenical group called GreenFaith recently launched a program to certify green houses of worship. Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a tool kit to help churches, synagogues, and mosques earn its Energy Star ratings for their facilities. The Obama administration is reportedly considering the idea of a faith-based office at the EPA to expand its work with religious communities.