October 2015 – The Climate Post

October 29, 2015

Clean Power Plan Publication Triggers Wave of Challenges

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

The recent publication of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan in the Federal Register triggered the filing of lawsuits by dozens of states in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, along with other challenges, including a petition from a U.S. Chamber of Commerce-led industry coalition for a rule review and an immediate stay of the regulation. By Monday, 26 states, 15 trade groups, several labor unions, and a host of individual utilities and companies were suing the administration over the Clean Power Plan. By Tuesday, members in both the House and the Senate introduced Congressional Review Act resolutions to stop them (subscription)—resolutions described by The National Journal as “a bid to undermine international climate talks.”

Clean Power Plan critics—among them attorney generals from West Virginia (Patrick Morrisey) and Texas (Ken Paxton), who are leading the states’ legal challenge—allege that the state-by-state targets aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 represent a federal overreach and will hike utility rates and undercut grid reliability.

“The Clean Power Plan is one of the most far-reaching energy regulations in this nation’s history,” said Morrisey. “EPA claims to have sweeping power to enact such regulations based on a rarely used provision of the Clean Air Act, but such legal authority simply does not exist.” But the EPA and many environmental groups contend that the federal government does have the legal authority to curb power plant emissions, and The Huffington Post noted that in the past the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in the EPA’s favor.

“The power plan is based on a sound legal and technical foundation,” said Acting Assistant Administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation Janet McCabe. “We feel strongly that given our authorities and legal precedents under the Clean Air Act that our application of [Section] 111(d) here conforms with those authorities and that legal precedent.”

As part of its efforts to help states figure out how to implement the regulation, the EPA last week released a memorandum to regional EPA directors that lays out elements to be included in initial plan submittals to the EPA in September, should states desire to extend their deadline for final plan submittals to 2018.

Even while challenging the Clean Power Plan, some states are simultaneously thinking about developing compliance strategies, which could include creation of carbon-trading plans that allow big polluters to buy emissions credits from lesser emitters.

Also published in the Federal Register last week was the final rule regulating carbon dioxide for new, modified, and reconstructed power plants and the proposed federal implementation plan. That plan—to be imposed on states that fail to submit a compliance plan to the EPA—will be the subject of public hearings in November and a 90-day comment period ending January 21.

Draft Climate Deal Text Sent to Paris

On Friday diplomats endorsed the outlines of a proposed global climate deal to be negotiated starting Nov. 30 in Paris. The hope is to come to an agreement— by the summit’s conclusion on Dec.11—that limits warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avoid the most significant effects of climate change. U.N. Climate Chief Christina Figueres said this week that based on some 150 plans submitted thus far, diplomats could only hope to limit warming to just below 3 degrees.

Even when talks start next month, countries that produce 92 percent of greenhouse gases in the world are expected to have submitted national plans. If fully implemented, they would hold temperature rise by the end of the century to 2.7 degrees Celsius.

“There’s nobody out there that wants a 3 degree world,” said Figueres. “Nobody. We are not giving up on a 2 degree world. In fact, we’re staying under 2 degrees. And what we’re doing is we are building a process that is going to get us there.”

But the goal will have to be met without a global carbon price, Figueres said, which could help create an incentive for power plants operators to switch to clean energy.

“[Many have said] we need a carbon price and [investment] would be so much easier with a carbon price, but life is much more complex than that,” she said. “…it’s not quite what we will have.”

There will be—and are—many pricing mechanisms in place around the globe. Many U.S. states are expected to develop trading-ready plans to meet the mandates laid out by the Clean Power Plan.

Report Finds New Highs in Store for Persian Gulf

A new Nature Climate Change study finds that climate change could render some cities in the Persian Gulf too hot for humans to live in—without mitigation measures.

“Our results expose a regional hotspot where climate change, in the absence of significant mitigation, is likely to severely impact human habitability in the future,” authors write.

It predicts that a 95-degree wet-bulb temperature—the indicator of humidity that matches the temperature of our skin when we sweat—is too hot for extended periods of time. And that temperature could be exceeded in summer months in certain parts of the region.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

October 22, 2015

Climate Treaty Negotiators, U.S. Businesses Look Ahead to Paris

Most countries have now submitted emissions plans ahead of the Paris climate talks later this year, but success in forging a global treaty in Paris is far from guaranteed. Delegations from nearly 200 countries are meeting this week in Bonn, Germany, to pin down details of a draft agreement ahead of the U.N. talks. On the opening day, the dropping of language on financing of climate change and adaptation efforts from the draft text caused concern on the part of developing nations. After countries were invited to reinsert language, the text grew by more than a dozen pages (subscription).

Daniel Reifsnyder, one of the U.N. talks’ chairmen and a senior State Department official, said the Bonn meeting won’t resolve one of the biggest issues of disagreement for delegates—differentiation of developed countries and developing countries’ responsibilities. Progress might be made on other issues, he said, such as “whether there should be a precondition—like submitting a domestic climate plan to the U.N.—to join the agreement and to exercise decision-making rights.”

Looking for a strong outcome at the Paris talks are 81 U.S. companies. On Monday, the White House announced that 68 companies—ranging from banks to energy firms—had joined Alcoa, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and nine other original signatories to the White House-sponsored American Business Act on Climate Pledge. Signatories to the pledge, announced this summer, call for the Paris meeting to advance climate action and have offered up individual promises to cut their greenhouse gases and limit waste.

“Delaying action on climate change will be costly in economic and human terms, while accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy will produce multiple benefits with regard to sustainable economic growth, public health, resilience to natural disasters, and the health of the global environment,” the pledge says.

The White House also said on Monday that it expects a consortium of major investors to announce $1.2 billion in investment capital for companies and projects that can “produce impactful and profitable solutions to climate change.”

Study: Some Cities Already “Sunk” Due to Sea-Level Rise

Some 400 U.S. towns and cities with a collective population of more than 20 million are vulnerable to sea level rise—and some of them may be submerged regardless of efforts to address climate change, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that links carbon dioxide to sea level rise. A new map from Climate Central uses the study data to show how water will flow into U.S. cities under the best and worst climate change scenarios. The map pinpoints which U.S. cities may face “lock-in dates beyond which the cumulative effects of carbon emissions likely commit them to long-term sea-level rise that could submerge land under more than half of the city’s population.”

Lead study author Ben Strauss said that seas could rise 14–32 feet by 2100 in the absence of unchecked carbon emissions but that even with stringent emissions reduction action, it might already be too late for cities like New Orleans and Miami (subscription). Inundation could occur, he said, as soon as the next century, but it could take much longer.

The study finds that decisions made in this century will determine whether Jacksonville, Norfolk, Sacramento, and 11 other U.S. cities with populations greater than 100,000 will be locked in for inundation of at least half of their populated areas.

Strauss emphasized that many cities can be saved with swift action to reduce carbon emissions.

“The most interesting thing to me is there are a great deal of cities where our carbon choices make a huge difference,” he said. “For example, if you look at Philadelphia, under business as usual, land that accounts for more than 100,000 people could be submerged. But you divide that total by 10 with an extreme carbon cut. The very biggest difference of all is for New York City, where you can avoid submergence of land where one and a half million people live.”

September Global Average Temperature Keeps 2015 on Track for Record

Earth is on course to experience its warmest year on record, according to data and patterns studied by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). NASA put 2015’s record-breaking chances at 93 percent. NOAA put them at 97 percent.

The news comes as a JMA data set that tracks global average surface temperatures indicated a big jump in temperatures in September, compared to the 1981–2010 average. September 2015, the second warmest September on record, had a temperature anomaly of 0.50 degrees Celsius, far exceeding the typical margin by which global average temperature records—whether they’re months or years—are set.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

October 15, 2015

Climate Change Gets Attention in Democratic Debate

Four of the five candidates mentioned climate change a dozen times as a major campaign issue during at the Democratic presidential debates this week. Candidates at the Republican debate were largely silent on the issue.

“This debate shows that climate has become a central issue, right up there with income inequality and broader economic concerns,” said Paul Bledsoe, a climate official under the Clinton administration. “It’s a stunning evolution, one that also shows Democrats see climate change has a profound GOP vulnerability in the general election.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley touted their own efforts to combat climate change. “I’m the only candidate, I believe, in either party to do this—to move America forward to a 100 percent clean electric grid by 2050,” said O’Malley.

Sanders brought up his push for legislation that puts a price on carbon, and he identified climate change as the main threat for the country—repeating Pope Francis’s message that it was a moral issue.

“The scientific community is telling us: if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy, the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be inhabitable,” Sanders said.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, saw climate change as an economic opportunity.

“I’ve traveled across our country over the last months listening and learning,” Clinton said. “And I’ve put forward specific plans about how we’re going to create more good-paying jobs: by investing in infrastructure and clean energy, by making it possible once again to invest in science and research, and taking the opportunity posed by climate change to grow our economy.”

Group Calls for Tougher Action on Climate Change

Twenty countries most at risk of climate change due to arid, landlocked, mountainous, or low lying terrain have formed a new group to demand tougher efforts to curb climate change. The Vulnerable 20 (V20), which held its inaugural meeting in Lima, Peru, last week, is calling for significant mobilization of finance for climate action ahead of a climate agreement set to be negotiated in Paris later this year, and it will share and scale up its own members’ innovative approaches to such finance.

The action plan by the V20 countries—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Kiribati, Madagascar, Maldives, Nepal, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Tanzania, East Timor, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Vietnam—seeks to “strengthen economic and financial cooperation and action to address climate change risks and opportunities” as well as to promote a shift to a low-carbon global economy.

The V20 contributes only 2 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions but asserts that since 2010 it has recorded more than 50,000 annual deaths and suffered an estimated annual decrease in GDP of 2.5 percent attributable to climate change.

“We established this group recognizing the power and potential of finance as an integral tool in solving [climate change],” Cesar Purisima, the Philippines’ finance minister and chair of the V20. “Unified in our vulnerability, the economic threats and difficulties arising from climate change, and heightened sense of urgency on the issue, we stand together on the front lines of a battle we most certainly cannot afford to lose.”

V20 expects to both raise and manage climate monies, and it will establish a public-private “climate risk pooling mechanism,” an insurance-like fund for recovery from extreme weather events and disasters.

Without an effective global response, said Purisima, the V20’s annual economic losses due to climate change would exceed $400 billion by 2030.

New York Set to Explore Linkage with Carbon Markets

Last Friday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced four major actions by his state to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One is becoming a signatory to Under 2 MOU—a memorandum of understanding among states, provinces, and cities worldwide to help keep Earth’s average temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius, as measured against pre-industrial levels. Another is engaging partners in the nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in exploring the possibility of linking their power sector-only cap-and-trade program with California and Quebec’s economy-wide carbon markets and with Ontario’s cap-and-trade program, which may join California, Washington, and Quebec in the Western Climate Initiative as soon as 2017.

“Connecting these markets would be more cost-effective and stable, thereby supporting clean energy and driving international carbon emission reductions,” a release stated. “New York State will also engage other states and provinces to build a broader carbon market and further drive an international discussion that encourages government action on carbon emissions.”

ClimateWire reported that carbon trading among states is considered a key mechanism to comply with the Clean Power Plan, which regulates greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, and acting EPA air chief Janet McCabe has said that interstate trading, for which RGGI is regarded as a model, could help states maintain an affordable and reliable power supply (subscription).

RGGI members are expected to meet through 2016 to discuss both the future of their program, currently slated to end in 2020, and the program’s use as a possible compliance mechanism for the Clean Power Plan.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

October 8, 2015

U.N. Releases Draft of Negotiating Text for Paris Climate Talks

On Monday the United Nations unveiled a first draft of the negotiating text for climate talks later this year in Paris. That text has been reduced from more than 80 pages to 20 and will be further revised in Bonn, Germany, Oct. 19–23, to advance a final global climate deal in Paris.

The many proposals in parentheses—referencing items still to be negotiated—include details and a deadline for a long-term goal for reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions: to keep the increase in worldwide temperatures since pre-industrial times below 2 degrees Celsius. On the basis of the 146 climate pledges made thus far that goal is unobtainable, according to Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis produced by four research organizations. It indicates that, if implemented, those pledges would result in aggregated global warming of 2.7 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.

The pre-amble of the draft agreement recognizes the relationship among climate change, poverty eradication, and sustainable development and takes into account the vulnerabilities and needs of the least-developed countries. It also notes issues on which disagreement may arise: time frames, the extent to which commitments to the agreement are binding, and building of climate resilience in the poorest and the most at-risk countries.

The draft indicates a potential increase in financing by rich countries of emissions reduction efforts in poor countries. Some $100 billion per year from both public and private sources has already been promised by 2020. It leaves other details, such as the role of carbon markets, unclear, and reference to a zero emissions goal has been removed.

Other key points in the draft: The potential agreement would reflect “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances,” and it might require countries to communicate—and be prepared to tighten—their emissions goals every five years.

India Commits to Reduction in Its Carbon Emissions Intensity

On Oct. 1, the date by which countries had agreed to announce emissions reductions pledges ahead of the U.N. climate talks in Paris, India, the world’s third largest carbon polluter, announced its plan to reduce its rate of greenhouse gas emissions and to ramp up its production of renewable energy.

Unlike other major polluting economies, India did not commit to an absolute reduction in carbon emissions levels. Instead, it committed to reduce the intensity of its fossil fuel emissions 33–35 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, while producing 40 percent of its electricity from non-fossil-fuel sources by the same year. In that timeframe, according to the terms of the pledge, India’s economy would grow roughly sevenfold, compared with 2005 levels, but its carbon emissions would grow only threefold.

Despite its commitment to renewable energy, India plans to expand coal power to satisfy its energy needs.

Although its pledge was not conditioned on financial contributions from wealthier countries, India does want a technology transfer as well as aid from the Green Climate Fund, which solicits donations from wealthy countries to help poor countries adapt their economies to lower-carbon technologies. Germany has already responded, announcing that it will give India $2.25 billion to develop a clean energy corridor and solar projects.

Among notable emissions reduction pledges from the 51 submitted last week is that of Brazil, which became the first major developing economy to announce an absolute cut: 37 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 and 43 percent by 2030.

Report: Energy Industry Must Prepare for Global Warming-Related Extreme Weather

The World Energy Council (WEC) warns that the energy industry needs to prepare for extreme weather events caused by global warming. According to its Road to Resilience report, such events have more than quadrupled—from 38 in 1980 to 174 in 2014—and are expected to become regular occurrences, increasing the likelihood of power supply disruptions.

“We are on a path where today’s unlikely events will be tomorrow’s reality” said WEC Secretary General Christoph Frei. “We need to be smarter and imagine the unlikely. Traditional ‘Fail–Safe’ systems, based on predicted events, no longer operate in isolation. New ‘Safe-Fail’ systems, which recognize that unexpected weather events are occurring and that systems which go down need smarter, not stronger, solutions. This new approach is essential if we are to cope with new weather patterns and phenomena such as the more powerful El Niño currently experienced in many parts of the world.”

The WEC report touts modular designs and autonomous networks like micro-grids to avoid the energy system interdependence that stalled recovery from events such as Hurricane Sandy as well as a wide energy mix to prevent infrastructure vulnerability to long-term shifts in climatic conditions.

The report, which will be presented at the G20 meeting in Istanbul, calls on the private sector to increase financing for reducing that vulnerability and on governments to develop a regulatory framework to help the sector come up with ways to boost infrastructure investment and to define required levels of resilience.

One key finding of the report: The costs of resilience are neither included nor counted as beneficial in the financing of energy infrastructure, but tailored financial instruments can convert system risks into investment rewards.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

October 1, 2015

China Announces Cap-and-Trade Program

On his visit to Washington last week, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced that his country, the world’s biggest carbon polluter, will launch a national cap-and-trade scheme in 2017. The move would make China the world’s biggest carbon market and could strengthen global efforts to put a price on carbon.

The planned emissions trading program will consolidate China’s seven existing regional carbon markets and cover industries not currently regulated for carbon in the United States: iron and steel, chemicals, building materials, and paper manufacturing.

China has yet to announce specifics of its cap-and-trade plan, which will face political and technical challenges. “The devil of course is in the details,” said Timmons Roberts, a professor of environmental studies at Brown University. “It really does matter what the actual cap is.” He added that limits leading to a pre-2030 emissions peak would be a huge move.

Frank Jotzo, the director of the Center for Climate Economics and Policy at the Australian National University in Canberra and a close tracker of developments in China said the national emissions trading scheme will have a major signaling effect. “The world’s second-largest economy puts in place a price on carbon emissions, and this will be noted the world over,” he said. “If successful, it can grow into playing a major role in facilitating China’s objectives for a cleaner energy and industrial system.”

Jinping’s announcement occasioned this ironic observation in The Atlantic in reference to Republicans’ rejection of a cap-and-trade proposal in Obama’s first term, which led to enactment of climate control policy through regulation of the electric power industry in the form of the Clean Power Plan: “China, the largest self-avowedly communist nation in the world, has created a market to reduce its carbon emissions. And the U.S., the anchor of global capitalism, will limit them through government command-and-control.”

China also made a substantial financial commitment to help poor countries fight climate change—$3.1 billion.

U.N. Sustainable Development Goals Adopted

The United Nations General Assembly agreed to 17 new sustainable development goals, which expand on the eight Millennium Development Goals. The new goals are broken down into 169 specific targets each country has committed to achieve over the next 15 years. They focus on everything from eradicating extreme poverty and climate change to providing energy access for all.

Goal 7 is to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Two targets to put the world on this path are to increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix and to double the rate of improvement of energy efficiency by 2030.

World Energy Council Secretary General Christoph Frei welcomed the agreement on the goals. “The adoption of energy among sustainable development goals is timely, critical, and historic,” he said. “Timely because we need to master the energy transition at a time of greatest uncertainty in the energy sector. Critical because we will not solve energy access or achieve energy efficiency objectives without moving the agenda from those who want to those who can. Historic because the development community for the first time recognizes the fundamental role energy is playing in the achievement of most of the other sustainable development goals.”

Goal 13 is to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. A few targets to get there—integrate climate change measure into national policies, strategies and planning as well as advance the Green Climate Fund—requiring developed countries to follow through on commitments to provide $100 billion by 2020 to aid developing nations’ efforts to adapt and mitigate climate-related disasters.

With the adoption of the 17 goals, attention now turns to the U.N. climate negotiations in Paris—where member states hope to adopt a global climate agreement. In a CNN editorial, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, said all could take a lesson from Pope Francis’s message on climate change.

“Pope Francis, in his recent encyclical, clearly articulated that climate change is a moral issue, and one of the principal challenges facing humanity,” said Ban Ki-Moon, mentioning the Pope’s recent visit to the U.S. where he address the U.N. and Congress. “He rightly cited the solid scientific consensus showing significant warming of the climate system, with the most global warming in recent decades mainly a result of human activity.”

Shell Suspends Arctic Drilling

Royal Dutch Shell suspended its search for oil and gas off the coast of Alaska for the “foreseeable future,” saying that Arctic oil reserves were insufficient and that the regulatory environment was too unpredictable to continue.

“Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the U.S.,” said Marvin Odum, president of Shell USA. “However, this is a clearly disappointing exploration outcome for this part of the basin.”

Although the decision was celebrated by some environmental activists who had protested Shell’s decision to drill offshore, it should give people on both sides pause, Mike LeVine of Oceana told U.S. News and World Report.

“Meaningful action to address climate change is almost certainly going to mean we can’t keep looking for oil in remote and expensive places,” he said. “Rather than investing in programs like this, we need to figure out how to transition away from fossil fuels and toward sustainable energy.”

Alaska House of Representatives member Ben Nageak told the Associated Press that the state must act quickly to find another source to fill its 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

“We stood on the cusp of another economic boom that could have propelled our young people and their children to better futures,” Nageak said. But “a draconian and poisoned federal government” shut it down.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.