Month: October 2009

First Things First: The U.S. Senate is looking at new climate change legislation as the COP-15 global talks in Copenhagen approach this December. These two stories have fed off and driven each other all year. That they are happening together offers a clear view of just how stark differences are on what the U.S. should do.

There’s money. Rich nations have it, but are reluctant to part with it. Poor nations want it, to gird climate adaptation strategies and to alleviate energy poverty with low-carbon systems. The U.S. dropped opposition to a new international organization that would oversee climate-related fund transfers from rich to poor countries.

There’s trade. U.S. states dependent on exports and energy-intensive manufacturing fear a loss in their economic competitiveness if the U.S. adopts a low-carbon strategy and key competitors don’t. The U.N.-mediated process in fact excludes developing nations from such a requirement. That’s not changing so quickly, even against the steady background hum that the two-tiered system, for rich and poor nations, is flawed, possibly by Western “sabotage.”

Fortunately, there are also the ministers of the Maldives, willing to inject gallows humor into the proceedings.

Dating Advice for Negotiators: President Barack Obama is unlikely to receive as cool a reception in Copenhagen in December, if he goes, as he did last month when Chicago’s Olympic bid took him to, uh, Copenhagen. John Fortier of the American Enterprise Institute muses in Politico about the differences in public opinion on climate change between the U.S. and Europe. His conclusion is the international climate negotiation version of, “He’s just not that into you.”

At least a handful of senators and executive branch officials are struggling daily to challenge that conclusion by making new policy. Democrats, particularly Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) has discussed the inclusion of nuclear energy provisions in the climate bill with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (D-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). The bill is not expected to pass before the Copenhagen talks, Carol Browner, Obama’s chief climate adviser, said publicly this week.

The White House is expected to regulate heat-trapping gas emissions, despite its stated preference for legislation. A path through the Environmental Protection Agency may be fraught with domestic political risks for the administration and lawsuits over new rules.

Model Universe?: A scientific paper [pdf] published last year by Jim Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and a team that includes several paleoclimatologists came to the tentative conclusion that the world should shoot for a climate stabilization target of 350 parts carbon dioxide for every million parts of air, or 350 ppm. (The preindustrial value was about 280 ppm. We’re currently near 390 ppm.)

A new study looks at economic implications. Frank Ackerman of Tufts University and the Stockholm Environmental Institute has led a team of economists in modeling economic scenarios by which the world stabilizes at 350 ppm by 2200. The researchers use the common Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy (DICE), but make assumptions that treat the possibility of extreme climate change with greater emphasis. They assume a much higher value for the climate’s temperature sensitivity to increased carbon dioxide, a much lower value for the depreciation of the dollar over time, and vary the scale of climate damages.

Is Seeing Really Believing?: A British environmentalist is suing his former employer, a major property company, on the grounds that it violated his religious or philosophical belief that climate change is real and people should alter their lifestyles to eliminate carbon pollution. This approach, that climate change is a belief system, must be maddening to scientists. After all, scientists make a living by collecting and explaining data. Science writers filter it for people less inclined to read peer-reviewed journals. So the notion of “believing”–which is generally not driven by skeptical data collection– runs in the opposite direction how scientists learned about climate change in the first place and how they keep tabs on it. On the other hand, unless you’re collecting and analyzing all the data yourself, which no human being possibly has time for, chances are that on some basic level you end up having to choose to “believe” somebody…

A Passage to India: India has undergone a significant makeover on its public climate rhetoric in the last two months or so. Its central positions haven’t changed. The “per capita principle” remains in effect, the guarantee that Indian per capita emissions will never pass that of rich nations. U.S. emissions are on the order of 20 tons per person. In India that figure is just higher than 1 ton. India will not accept binding emission reduction targets. It will not abide U.S. protectionism in climate policy. There are at least 100 million more Indians without electricity than there are all Americans, in total.

The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledges that the climate threat is real, and is expected to introduce domestic legislation next month targeting fuel efficiency and building codes. India itself may be at risk for some of the most perilous regional changes, in the monsoon that brings the region 70 percent of its precipitation, and in the Himalayan glaciers that feed major rivers–and provide drinking water to 1 billion people.

For the next three weeks Climate Post will be traveling through India–Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Mumbai, New Delhi–speaking mostly with colleagues in journalism, but also with audiences at companies, universities, and NGOs to talk about what we can learn from each other on this global problem. Posts will come as close to their usual “Thursdays at three” as circumstances allow (Perhaps even closer than usual…). Again, circumstances permitting, more frequent updates will come through CarbonNation (http://www.CarbonNation.org), a (much-neglected) personal blog. The trip is sponsored by a U.S. State Department grant.

My goal for this trip is to help build a bridge between journalists and interested observers in the U.S. and India, some kind of electronic journalism “buddy system. Details TK. Feel free help us out: Send questions and comments about all things India here. Let’s try to get them answered and addressed.

See you next week in Kolkata…

Eric Roston is Senior Associate at the Nicholas Institute and author of The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat. Prologue available at Grist.

First Things First: The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a regulation that if approved would force the largest industrial emitters, including utilities, energy-intensive manufacturing, and refineries, to invest in the cleanest available technology for new projects or major renovations. The announcement’s potential importance overshadowed the nearly simultaneous official release of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, the latest “climate” bill that dare not speak its name. These twin events occur as global climate negotiators meet in Bangkok to shrink the disagreements now widely expected to eclipse a comprehensive deal in the Copenhagen talks in December.

Zero to 60(Votes) in 5.4 Seconds?: The EPA’s proposed regulation imposes restrictions on industrial facilities that emit more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. This threshold exempts small businesses and other concerned institutions (ie, large new schools). The Los Angeles Times characterizes the move as a “warning shot to Congress” that the EPA is ready to move if lawmakers are not. The Washington Post lede looks outward, suggesting that the EPA action and Senate bill could influence the COP-15 talks. The rules apply to as many as 7,500 industrial facilities, including 4000 power plants, all of which under the Clean Air Act must meet requirements for emissions of a registered pollutant. They could take effect in 2011.

The Senate climate bill tweaks the legislation that barely passed the House of Representatives in late June. The bill, sponsored by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.), would lead to 20 percent emissions cuts below 2005 levels by 2020. It girds against disruptive price swings in the market for greenhouse gas emission permits by letting the EPA auction credits to dampen demand. [For relevant Nicholas Institute policy material, click here.] The new bill also empowers a single federal agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, with preventing fraud and “excessive speculation,” an important consideration after last year’s Wall Street shenanigans and consequent chaos. The key Senate committee, Environment and Public Works, has internal rifts far more serious than anything in memory.

The government has been presenting a menu of options increasingly unattractive to private stakeholders opposing national climate policy. And lately it seems like one option is less desirable than the next, particularly to business interests. Enter the climate lawsuit: A court ruling of potentially great consequence snuck under many newspaper editors’ radar. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of eight states, New York City, and green NGOs, allowing lawsuits charging emissions from coal-burning utilities as a public nuisance.

Drip, Drip, Drip…: Three companies have quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in recent weeks, charging the influential voice of business with retarding the national climate debate. Nike’s exodus follows PNM Resources, PG&E’s, and Excelon’s, which also came this week. General Electric remains in the Chamber, the world’s largest business association, but a GE spokesman said, “The Chamber does not speak for us on climate legislation.” The Chamber and its members, along with the National Association of Manufacturers, are key voices of opposition to climate legislation that has been proposed. (Duke Energy quit the NAM in August.) The big question is, would a larger exodus send a political signal to the Senate that industrial opposition to a U.S. carbon program has eroded to the point where lawmakers can strike the deals necessary to put one in place?

However the voices of business organize themselves in the climate debate over the next few months, longer term trends are much clearer. Business schools around the world are internalizing carbon-constrained business and building curricula accordingly [including Duke].

Not So Radioactive: Nuclear power remains a sticking point in the U.S., but not in India and China. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pledged to boost India’s nuclear capacity 100-fold by 2050, to 470 gigawatts, with (“untested”) fast breeder reactors. A longtime nuclear power supporter, China would like to increase its nuclear energy production 10 times by 2020, from 11 plants now in operation.

China may announce in Copenhagen its intention to establish a cap-and-trade system. The Guardian cites Philippe Chauvancy, the head of climate exchange at BlueNext, which is working with China to develop standards for voluntary emission reduction products. The article might overstate the speed at which this system might get up and running, given the complexity of building standards and acquiring know-how to certify carbon credits. More likely, China may run pilot emissions trading systems on sulfur dioxide and water pollution.

Do-It-Yourself Climate Change: If the major economies enacted the most aggressive suite of climate proposals, how might they soften climate change by 2050? A new climate model attempts to bridge the gap between discussions on the international stage and scientific predictions about the mitigating effects of aggressive energy policy. C-ROADS started as an MIT doctoral dissertation in 1997, and has been developed into a tool that can project, in real time, the climate results of a given suite of policy. The model’s developers have been shopping it around the world, recently introducing it to Chinese climate experts, so that policymakers can better understand the potential implications of plans and decisions at moments in time up to 2100. The Climate Interactive Web site offers “Climate Bathtub Animation” for viewers playing the home game.

What life in the U.S. might look like in 2050 is hard to say, even with a nimble new climate model. The Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s business section grapples with this statement, prompted by a chat with Steven Koonin, undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy. John Funk’s article points out the proverbial elephant in the room of climate politics: the risks and cost of inaction. the Nature blog Climate Feedback frames the question as an either-or, asking, “If we are trying to keep global warming to 2 degrees Celsius or less but 4 degrees is possible even within some of our lifetimes, which world do we prepare for?”

The Climate Archipelago: The many specialities and sub-specialities, topics and subtopics within the climate change conversation really might be imagined as a vast group of islands, each barely visible from the others. Residents of one island might know their own really, really well, but not others’. The several islands of climate skepticism are well-represented in the blogosphere.

Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit is one of the few rigorous sites that actually scrutinizes scientific data, searching for malfeasance and incompetence. McIntyre has earned headlines over the last few years by raising questions about some prominent studies, and laudably forcing a correction or two. But it’s good to keep in mind that disputing one line of evidence of global warming–kicking it out of the climate archipelago–still leaves all the other islands untouched: There are many, many lines of evidence suggesting that human industrial activity is changing the climate. The scientists at RealClimate.org, often the target of Climate Audit’s audits, respond to McIntyre’s recent work, pointing out that climate change is sufficiently well-documented that even “a statistical quirk or mistake” doesn’t erase climate risk–or reduce the size of the archipelago.

Eric Roston is Senior Associate at the Nicholas Institute and author of The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat. Prologue available at Grist.