joshwilson – The Climate Post

June 7, 2018

California Regulators Request Meeting as Vehicle Emissions Proposal Moves Forward

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Editor’s Note: The Climate Post will not circulate next week (June 14). It will return on Thursday, June 21.

Members of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) want to meet with Trump administration officials to discuss the federal government’s specific plans to ease the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE standards.

“CARB has participated in a number of high-level meetings with the White House and federal agencies, but we have not been given any specific proposals to respond to, and so remain concerned that the agencies are departing from the evidence and the law, as well as failing to honor our historic partnership,” wrote Steve Cliff, CARB’s deputy executive officer in a letter printed by ClimateWire. “This matter is of vital importance to public health and the environment, and it is essential that we have an opportunity to meet with OIRA [Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs].”

California has vowed to stick to its own, stricter standards authorized under the Clean Air Act despite plans by the Trump administration to weaken fuel economy and tailpipe emissions standards. On May 1, seventeen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals over the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s revisiting of Obama-era vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards last month.

Although it is reported that the new EPA proposal will outline a series of alternatives to the existing standards, the preferred option seems to be a freeze of fuel economy targets at 2020 levels through 2026. EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration submitted their proposal to the Office of Management and Budget recently. It will undergo review before it is published for public comment.

Closing the Global Energy Financing Gap

The path taken to bring reliable electricity to the more than 2 billion people in the world lacking it has major ramifications for development, global power dynamics and climate change. Government-sponsored development finance institutions are key for delivering energy financing to emerging markets—contributing roughly a third of all investment directly—and playing a critical role in reducing investment risks and mobilizing private capital into the clean energy space.

The U.S. government’s little-known development finance institution, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), remains underutilized and lacks core financial tools and capabilities. Legislation to establish a new fully-equipped institution to promote investment in developing countries continues to move closer to passage in Congress. A new policy brief by my colleagues at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and the Energy Access Project at Duke University outlines the energy financing gaps in emerging markets and analyzes how the new tools and authorities proposed under Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development Act (BUILD Act) legislation may equip the new U.S. development finance institution to respond to those financing needs.

The stakes are high, as China has made overseas infrastructure investment a centerpiece of its foreign policy. OPIC’s entire investment portfolio across all sectors is currently less than the $25 billion that Chinese policy banks invested in foreign energy projects in 2017 alone. With domestic coal demand on the decline in China, these same government banks are investing an average of $5 billion per year in new overseas coal facilities.

The policy brief finds that a modernized U.S. development finance institution would increase U.S. global influence, open clean energy investment opportunities for U.S. companies in high-growth emerging markets, and provide a more transparent and market-oriented alternative to Chinese government infrastructure financing.

Trump Administration Eyes Coal Bailout

President Donald Trump ordered U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry “to prepare immediate steps” to stop the closing of coal and nuclear plants, according to a White House statement.

“Unfortunately, impending retirements of fuel-secure power facilities are leading to a rapid depletion of a critical part of our nation’s energy mix, and impacting the resilience of our power grid,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

A leaked plan, published by E&E News, calls for the creation of a “strategic electric generation reserve” to promote national defense and maximize domestic energy supplies. It also requests the direct purchases of electricity or capacity from a list of specific coal and nuclear plants over a period of 24 months.

The leaked memo invokes DOE’s emergency powers under section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, as well as an obscure provision in the Defense Production Act of 1950, enabling the Department to require the performance of private contracts “in preference to other contracts” in order to “promote the national defense.”

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.

March 22, 2018

Study: Cutting Emissions Sooner Could Save 153 Million Lives This Century

A new study suggests that premature deaths linked to air pollution would fall across the globe if nations agree to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels rather than postponing emissions cuts and allowing warming to reach 2 degrees Celsius. The research funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), led by scientists at Duke University, and published in the journal Nature Climate Change finds that targeting the more ambitious of the Paris Agreement’s two temperature goals—although more costly—could avoid 153 million premature deaths.

“The lowest-cost approach only looks at how much it will cost to transform the energy sector,” said lead author Drew Shindell of Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “It ignores the human cost of more than 150 million lost lives, or the fact that slashing emissions in the near term will reduce long-term climate risk and avoid the need to rely on future carbon dioxide removal. That’s a very risky strategy, like buying something on credit and assuming you’ll someday have a big enough income to pay it all back.”

The study is the first to project the number of lives that could be saved, city by city, in 154 of the world’s largest urban areas if nations agree to speed up the emissions reductions timetable and limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The greatest gains in saved lives would occur in Asia and Africa. India’s Kolkata stands to benefit most—seeing 4.4 million fewer early deaths by 2100 by cutting carbon pollution.

The researchers ran computer simulations of future emissions of carbon dioxide and associated pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter under three scenarios: accelerated emissions reductions and almost no negative emissions over the remainder of the 21st century, slightly higher emissions in the near term but enough overall reductions to limit atmospheric warming to 2 degrees Celsius by century’s end, and near-term emissions reductions consistent with a level that would limit atmospheric warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The researchers then calculated the human health impacts of pollution exposure under each scenario using well-established epidemiological models based on decades of public health data on air-pollution-related deaths.

Groups Press FERC to Revisit Energy Storage Decision

In February, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) unanimously approved rules to remove barriers to batteries and other storage resources in U.S. power markets, a potential game-changer for integration of renewables onto the grid. Monday, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), and others filed separate requests asking FERC to reconsider this storage order. Some said that the proposal infringes on state authority.

“NARUC seeks clarification because the final rule specifies that states will not be allowed ‘to decide whether electric storage resources in their state that are located behind a retail meter or on the distribution system are permitted to participate in the [regional transmission organization/independent system operator] markets,’” the NARUC’s rehearing request said. “This statement should be deleted from the final rule.”

FERC oversees the regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) that run wholesale electricity markets. In doing so, FERC establishes market rules that “properly recognize the physical and operational characteristics of electric storage resources” in its February decision after finding in November 2016 that existing market rules created barriers to entry for those resources. Under the rules, grid operators can use technologies such as batteries and flywheel systems to dispatch power, to set energy prices, and to offer capacity and ancillary services.

Although FERC’s rule directs regional grid operators to set a minimum size requirement for energy storage resources to participate in their markets that doesn’t exceed 100 kilowatts, it deferred issues about aggregations of smaller distributed energy resources to a technical conference in early April. MISO asked for clarification regarding the minimum size of storage for wholesale market participation, bid parameters, and a six-month extension on the order’s deadlines.

Pruitt May Release Measures to Restrict Science Used in Regulations

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt may have plans to propose measures to limit exactly what data and studies the EPA can use in pollution rules. The idea would be to cease using scientific findings whose data and methodologies are not public or cannot be replicated.

Pruitt hinted at these intentions in a closed door meeting at the Heritage Foundation and in recent media interviews, saying “we need to make sure their [EPA] data and methodology are published as part of the record. Otherwise, it’s not transparent. It’s not objectively measured, and that’s important.”

Although formal plans have not been released, interviews indicate that Pruitt’s new rules would require EPA regulators to consider scientific studies that make the underlying data and methodology available to the public. The same rules would govern studies funded by the EPA. It is unclear whether the EPA would apply the directive to regulations now in place or only to new regulations. The former could affect several regulations at the EPA, including some wide-ranging air-quality regulations based on two studies from the 1990s that do not reveal their data.

Some critics, like Yogin Kothari of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy, say the move could undermine environmental laws. “It’s just another way to prevent the EPA from using independent science to enforce some of our bedrock environmental laws, like the Clean Air Act,” said Kothari.

Steve Milloy, who served on Trump’s EPA transition team and attended the meeting at the Heritage Foundation, said Pruitt’s plan could come “sooner rather than later.”

A similar proposal was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in March 2017 as the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment (HONEST) Act, which would prohibit the use of “secret science” at the EPA. It’s since been referred to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

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 6, 2016

European Union Ratification Pushes Paris Agreement into Effect

European Union (EU) environment ministers on Friday approved ratification of the Paris Agreement. The approximately one-month EU ratification process means that the requirements for a 30-day countdown for the agreement to take effect will be met in November.

“Today is an important day not only for our action on climate but also for unity we have demonstrated,” said László Sólymos, EU Environment Council president and the Slovak minister for the environment. “This means that EU and its member states will add their weight to trigger the entry into force of the Paris Agreement.”

Thus far, 61 countries representing 47.79 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions have joined the Paris Agreement. Ratification of the agreement is complete when 55 countries accounting for 55 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions sign on. The decision of the EU’s Environment Council to fast track ratification on behalf of the EU’s 28 member states, including the U.K., increases the share of ratifying nations’ emissions by 12 percent.

The Paris Agreement, signed by nearly 200 nations last December, aims to limit global warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times and to attempt to hold it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The move by the EU came a day after seven distinguished climate scientists led by Robert Watson, a former chairman of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, asserted in a report that the opportunity to meet the 1.5 Celsius goal “has almost certainly already been missed” and that even the 2 Celsius pathway would be irrevocably lost absent increased emissions cuts under the Paris Agreement.

“If governments are serious about trying to achieve even the 2 degree goal, they will have to double and re-double their efforts—now,” Watson said. “I think it is fair to say that there is literally no chance of making the 1.5 C target.”

According to Watson and the other report authors, the world could experience 2 Celsius of warming—the point at which many scientists believe climate change will become dangerous—as early as 2050.

Poll: Deep Distrust of Climate Scientists, Political Divide on Climate Change

Climate scientists have a problem. A new Pew Research poll finds that most Americans doubt their consensus on global warming and don’t have “a lot” of trust in them to provide accurate information about the issue. According to the in-depth survey on “the politics of climate” released Tuesday, only 27 percent of Americans agree that “almost all” climate scientists say that human behavior is mostly responsible for climate change—a figure Pew contrasted with a 2013 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report stating with 95 percent certainty that human activity is the main cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century. Only one-third of those surveyed said that climate scientists understand “very well” whether global climate change is occurring.

Like other Pew surveys conducted from 2006 to 2015, the new survey finds that one of the strongest predictors of views on the causes, cures, and urgency of climate change is party identification: among the one third of Americans who say they care a great deal about climate change, 72 percent are Democrats and 24 percent are Republicans. Approximately three quarters of Democrats believe climate change is mainly a result of human activity; fewer than a quarter of Republicans concur.

“People on the ideological ends of either party—that is, liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans—see the world through vastly different lenses across all of these judgments,” the report found.

The Pew survey also found no strong correlation between scientific knowledge and views on climate issues.

“To the extent that science knowledge influences people’s judgments related to climate change and trust in climate scientists, it does so among Democrats, but not Republicans,” wrote Pew researchers. “For example, Democrats with high science knowledge are especially likely to believe the Earth is warming due to human activity, to see scientists as having a firm understanding of climate change, and to trust climate scientists’ information about the causes of climate change. But Republicans with higher science knowledge are no more or less likely to hold these beliefs. Thus, people’s political orientations also tend to influence how knowledge about science affects their judgments and beliefs about climate matters and their trust in climate scientists.”

The political divide on solutions to climate change is as great as it is on causes: More than three quarters of liberal Democrats but less than a quarter of conservative Republicans said restricting emissions from power plants could make a big difference. A similar divide was evident in views on the usefulness of an international agreement to limit carbon emissions.

The survey did identify one area of agreement: more than 80 percent of Americans all across the political spectrum support greater use of wind and solar power, a view attributable to financial, health-related and environmental motivations.

EPA Data Says Power Plant Emissions Down

Greenhouse gas emissions from United States power plants dropped a little more than 6 percent last year compared to 2014 levels, according to data provided by 8,000 facilities and suppliers to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. These reporters account for about half of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Released annually, the data details emissions by industrial sector, geographic region and individual facilities. It found that in 2015, reported emissions from large industrial sources were 4.9 percent lower than 2014, and 8.2 percent lower than 2011. Petroleum and natural gas facilities were the second largest stationary source of emissions, reporting 231 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions—1.6 percent lower in 2015 than in 2014, but 4.1 percent higher than in 2011.

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.

July 28, 2016

Pending Deal on Montreal Protocol Amendment Second Only to Paris Agreement

World climate leaders meeting in Vienna have laid the foundation for an amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the global treaty that phased out ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The amendment would address climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the refrigerant chemicals that replaced CFCs but that can trap heat in the atmosphere at levels a thousand times higher than carbon dioxide and that can “undo much of our progress in reducing other carbon emissions under the Paris Climate Agreement,” said Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy in a blog post.

Under the current draft of the agreement, expected to be concluded in October in Kigali, Rawanda, more affluent nations would virtually eliminate HFCs by the 2030s,whereas poorer nations would do so about a decade later.

McCarthy told Bloomberg BNA that the seriousness with which countries are taking the amendment owes in part to regulatory actions that the United States has taken under its Significant New Alternatives Policy program to drive the market for HFC alternatives.

“That’s what the SNAP program does,” McCarthy said. “So it has effectively driven domestic action that is putting the U.S. in a leadership position. We fully expect that with the actions we’ve already taken, that we’ll be able to meet the reductions that the international community will be embracing [under a Montreal Protocol amendment].”

An agreement to reduce HFC use would be the biggest single measure to curb climate change since governments adopted the Paris Agreement, thereby pledging to keep global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit that increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The HFC amendment can help avoid 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming by century’s end compared with business-as-usual growth, reports Climate Change News.

Speaking Friday at the conference of parties to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the conference was as important a gathering as another he hosted on combatting the Islamic State. “What you are doing here right now,” he said, “is of equal importance, because it has the ability literally to save life on this planet.”

Climate Change and the U.S. Presidential Election

Last week, delegates to the Republican National Convention approved a party platform that downplayed use of renewable energy and rejected the Paris Agreement, a carbon tax, and other action on climate change. This week, delegates to the Democratic National Convention addressed climate change as a “real and urgent threat.”

In their party platform, Democrats described climate change as “too important to wait for climate deniers and defeatists in Congress to start listening to science” and said government officials must take any steps they can to reduce pollution.

“We believe the United States must lead in forging a robust global solution to the climate crisis,” the party platform states. “We are committed to a national mobilization, and to leading a global effort to mobilize nations to address this threat on a scale not seen since World War II. In the first 100 days of the next administration, the President will convene a summit of the world’s best engineers, climate scientists, policy experts, activists, and indigenous communities to chart a course to solve the climate crisis.”

In addition to calling for a tax code that creates incentives for renewable energy, the platform aims to generate half the country’s electricity from clean sources in the next decade.

Inside Climate News presents a chart illustrating just how differently the two parties view climate and energy issues.

Emissions from Commercial Jets Next Up for Regulation

The EPA on Monday proposed an “endangerment finding” under the Clean Air Act for greenhouse gas emissions from certain types of airplane engines.

The proposal—which finds that airplane engines contribute to pollution that endangers public health and contributes to climate change—parallels the 2009 endangerment finding for motor vehicles under another section of the Clean Air Act and follows on the heels of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s proposed regulations to cut carbon from aircraft.

“Addressing pollution from aircraft is an important element of U.S. efforts to address climate change,” said EPA Acting Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation Janet McCabe, noting that aircraft are the third-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

No timetable was set for release of a rule regulating emissions from aircraft, but TheNew York Times reports that it could come in early January.

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.

June 4, 2015

Bonn Climate Talks Look to Shape More Complete Text Ahead of Paris

The next round of international climate negotiations began Monday in Bonn, Germany, and runs through June 11. The main task for the delegates from nearly 200 countries: pare down draft text for a final global climate deal to be negotiated at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris later this year. The 89-page working draft contains differing options and viewpoints. Some countries, reports Deutsche Welle, want to set intermediate goals and others—including Russia, Canada, the United States, and the European Union—have pledged formal emissions cuts.

“No matter how you cut it, the hard work will be done in Paris,” a senior developing country delegate told Bloomberg BNA. “We will reduce the options in Bonn, but the final language will only come in Paris.

Multiple reports question whether the world is on track to meet the goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius. One, by the International Energy Agency (IEA), examines clean energy progress—noting shortcomings.

“Indeed, despite positive signs in many areas, for the first time since the IEA started monitoring clean energy progress, not one of the technology fields tracked is meeting its objectives,” the report said. “The future that we are heading towards will be far more difficult unless we can take action now to radically change the global energy system.”

Others say failure is not an option and note that new mechanisms for future rounds of pledges, perhaps in 2025 and 2030, can hit the mark.

“You don’t run a marathon with one step,” said Christiana Figueres, the United Nation’s top climate change official.

Report Emphasizes Importance of Existing Policies, Clean Power Plan to Meet U.S. Climate Commitment

In preparation for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris later this year, the Obama administration pledged to reduce U.S. emissions 26–28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. According to a new paper by the World Resources Institute (WRI), few policy changes will be required for the United States to meet or exceed that commitment. First among the paper’s 10 recommendations: strengthening the Clean Power Plan, which is projected to be finalized in August.

“While our analysis shows that the Clean Power Plan does not need to be strengthened in order to reduce economy-wide emissions by 26 percent below 2005 levels in 2025 (as long as ambitious action is taken across other emission sources),” write the authors, “doing so would enable the United States to more easily achieve the upper range of its 2025 target and achieve deeper reductions beyond the 2025–30 time frame.”

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions contributed modeling underlying some of the report’s findings. It used a version of the Energy Information Administration’s well-known National Energy Modeling System (DUKE-NEMS), which is maintained by the Nicholas Institute, to model two pathways for longer-term abatement opportunities through new legislation.

“DUKE-NEMS complements WRI’s model by capturing supply-demand interactive effects,” said Nicholas Institute Senior Policy Associate Etan Gumerman. “We used it to explicitly model economic impacts. It helped us establish the level of emissions reductions that are economically achievable using targeted policies, while highlighting the greater emissions reductions that could come from potential climate legislation.”

Other measures recommended by the WRI report are expanding residential and commercial energy efficiency programs, increasing cuts in emissions of the refrigerant hydroflourocarbon, making industrial emissions standards and fuel economy standards more stringent, establishing emissions standards for new airplanes, increasing carbon sequestration in forests, and cutting methane emissions from coal mines, landfills, and agriculture.

Court Sides with EPA on Ozone Ruling

A federal court is siding with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on enforcement of limits on smog-forming pollution, rejecting challenges from states, industry and environmental groups claiming that the EPA was too strict or too lenient in determining areas that satisfied federal ozone restrictions. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ground-level ozone set the allowable level at 75 parts per billion in 2008. In 2014, the EPA had proposed even stricter emissions limits on ozone of 65 to 70 parts per billion.

“Virtually every petitioner argues that, for one reason or another, the EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously in making its final [National Ambient Air Quality Standards] designations,” the opinion states. “But because the EPA complied with the Constitution, reasonably interpreted the Act’s critical terms and wholly satisfied—indeed in most instances, surpassed—its obligation to engage in reasoned decision-making, we deny the consolidated petitions for review in their entirety.”

Ground level ozone—the main ingredient in smog—forms when chemicals in fossil fuel emissions react with sunlight and air.

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.

March 8, 2012

More than 100 Coal Plants Shutting—But How Much Difference Will It Make?

chapel — The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Editor’s Note: This is the last edition of The Climate Post with writer Mason Inman. Watch for the Post’s return March 22 with a new writer, the Nicholas Institute’s Director of Strategy and Operations, Jan Mazurek.

After public pressure, Chicago will shut two aging coal-fired power plants, and the owner of one of the power plants, Midwest Generation, may shut its other four coal plants in Illinois. Since the start of 2010, more than 100 coal plants have been slated for early retirement.

A major reason for coal plants shutting has been public opposition to pollution from coal. Also, looming requirements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for stringent pollution controls could take a toll on the coal industry, while boosting the market for pollution control devices. One huge coal plant in New Mexico lost a legal battle with the EPA to avoid having to install a more effective type of pollution-control equipment.

But what really has the coal industry “frightened” is cheap natural gas, the result of a boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of shale deposits. But demand for natural gas may soon grow, since more natural gas vehicles are already in the works, and an announcement by President Obama that he’ll expand tax credits for alternative vehicles to include those powered by hydrogen and natural gas.

How Clean is the Clean Energy Standard?

Meanwhile, Sen. Jeff Bingaman introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012, which would force the largest utilities to meet targets starting in 2015 that by 2035 would ramp up to require 84 percent clean energy—defined as sources that create less greenhouse gases than modern coal plants. If enacted, which analysts rated as unlikely, the law would benefit natural gas, at least initially, but several renewable energy groups endorsed the bill.

However, last month a study led by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold found that switching from coal to gas would lead to only a slight drop in warming by the end of the century, so achieving “substantial reductions in temperatures” compared with use of coal would require “rapid and massive deployment” of very low-emissions energy such as solar and wind.

This fits with an analysis last year from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, whose lead researcher concluded switching to natural gas “would do little to help solve the climate problem.” Such findings led activist Bill McKibben to argue natural gas is not a “bridge fuel,” but rather “a rickety pier extending indefinitely out into a hotter future.”

Meanwhile, plans are under way to expand exports of U.S. coal with new shipping terminals in the Pacific Northwest and a “tremendous increase” in capacity at a Louisiana port. At CERAWeek, a major meeting for the oil and gas industry, the most popular discussion about U.S. natural gas is the “prospect of exporting it,” an issue Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said the administration is “looking at closely.”

China Puts on the Brakes

The growth of China’s coal production is expected to slow down—part of a general slowing for the country in 2012.

In the annual meeting of China’s parliament, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced a lower target for economic growth—7.5 percent, the lowest in seven years—and would shift from an export-focused economy to instead emphasize domestic consumption.

Wen also said the country will “put an end to blind expansion in industries such as solar energy and wind power”—possibly referring to oversupplies of wind turbines and solar panels. China’s wind industry has exploded from six turbine manufacturers in 2004 to more than 100 today, leading to manufacturing capacity that’s larger than the demand and a large number of projects awaiting connections.

China had “imbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable development,” Wen said. The country had missed half its major targets for energy conservation and environmental protection, largely because they “have not transformed the economic development model,” said Zhang Ping, minister of the National Development and Reform Commission.

The government also announced it will create stricter laws for air pollution, and an official said two-thirds of Chinese cities would likely fail to meet the new standard.

Hockey Stick in a Knife-Fight

Climate researcher Michael Mann has been under attack by Virginia’s Attorney General, Kenneth Cuccinelli, who has been trying to force Mann’s former employer, the University of Virginia, to release documents on Mann’s work so he could “determine whether or not fraud had been committed.” But the Virginia Supreme Court turned down Cuccinelli’s request, which the Union of Concerned Scientists called “a victory for science in Virginia.”

Mann has become a lightning rod for his research on ancient climates and for creating the famous “hockey stick” graph showing rising temperatures in recent decades—a tale recounted in his new book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.

He said scientists are in a tough position, because they’re in a “knife-fight” with climate change skeptics, but scientists “can’t play by the rules of knife-fighting ourselves.”

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.

March 1, 2012

Rising Oil, Gasoline Prices Push Politicians and Reporters to Utter “Nonsense”

In a major speech on energy at the University of Miami, President Obama said rising gasoline prices are a “painful reminder” of the need for alternatives. He was on the offensive, trying to counter criticisms of the GOP presidential candidates—including Newt Gingrich, who promised he’d get gasoline down to $2.50 a gallon.

Countering calls to “drill, baby, drill,” Obama called the GOP candidates’ ideas “bumper sticker” strategies, “not a plan.” Reiterating his call for an end to oil and gas tax breaks, Obama called them “outrageous” and “inexcusable.”

Also, some Democrats called for dipping into the U.S. strategic oil reserves to try to bring down prices. However, this notion seemed based on the misconception that the availability of oil in the U.S. has a big influence on the price.

Rising oil prices, argued Bloomberg columnist Caroline Baum, “tap into a barrel of nonsense,” making people “go all wobbly in the head.” Backing up that idea is Media Matters’ laundry list of misconceptions common in energy reporting, which concluded that the only way to become less vulnerable to oil price spikes is to “use less oil. Period.”

Move To Natural Gas—But Will It Help?

In his speech, Obama announced a new $30 million research grant to boost the number of vehicles running on natural gas.

Natural -gas-powered trucks are becoming more popular among big fleets, refueling stations are spreading, and some companies are creating better storage tanks for compressed natural gas.

This push for natural gas vehicles is “the hottest energy fad in Washington” according to a Wall Street Journal editorial titled “Boone-Doggle,” since the fad has been spurred in part by petroleum billionaire T. Boone Pickens and his “Pickens Plan.”

Two former U.S. officials argued for a twist on the natural gas vehicle, calling for cars that can run on methanol, an alcohol that can be “efficiently and inexpensively produced from natural gas,” according to an MIT report.

Globally, natural gas vehicles have increased exponentially, with most of the growth in the past decade in Asia and Latin America.

However, a new climate modeling study by Nathan Myhrvold, former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft, found that switching from coal to natural gas would do little to slow global warming.

Meanwhile, in the Washington Post, a bipartisan group of current and former Congressmen, called for taxes on greenhouse gas emissions as a way to fight climate change, lower oil imports and raise revenue that could help spur clean energy industries and reduce the debt. Beyond the authors of this op-ed, there may be further bipartisan support for such a plan.

EPA Greenhouse Gas Limits Face Appeals Court

In federal court this week, energy industry groups challenged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

One line of argument being used is the science on climate change is not settled, so the EPA should not be allowed to regulate greenhouse gases. By putting climate science on trial, it’s been dubbed the “Scopes trial for climate change.”

The plaintiffs are also arguing that in issuing the “tailoring rule,” which limits greenhouse gas rules only to the biggest emitters, the EPA overstepped its bounds.

The judge hearing the case found the tailoring argument strange, saying that if the alleged harm is regulatory burden, but the remedy is a heavier regulatory burden, then the plaintiffs’ argument “doesn’t even make good nonsense.”

Gene Therapy for Climate Change

Climate Central lampooned geoengineering—ideas for planetary-scale projects to cool Earth—with its own set of not-so-serious proposals, including giving Maalox to livestock.

A research project at the Mote Marine Laboratory sounds like it might be another of these far-fetched plans, but it’s for real. A geneticist is investigating gene therapy for coral reefs—or, more specifically, for the bacteria that live symbiotically with the corals—to help them adapt to climate change.

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.

February 23, 2012

Climate Researcher Lied to Get Documents, Triggering Ethics Debate

A top climate researcher—Peter Gleick, head of the Pacific Institute—admitted he lied to obtain documents from the Heartland Institute, which he then leaked to media and revealed the organization’s plans to challenge the scientific consensus on climate change.

Gleick resigned from the board of the National Center on Science Education, and stepped down as chairman of the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) taskforce on scientific ethics.

His admission has triggered an ethics debate in the climate community, with ethics expert Dale Jamieson calling Gleick’s actions “unethical” but adding, “relative to what has been going on on the climate denial side, this is a fairly small breach of ethics.”

Cognitive scientist Stephan Lewandowsky argued that “revealing to the public the active, vicious, and well-funded campaign of denial … likely constitutes a classic public good,” against which the ethics of Gleick’s deception have to be weighed.

The president of the AGU said the organization was disappointed with Gleick, whose actions were “inconsistent with our organization’s values.” NASA climate researcher Gavin Schmidt said “Gleick’s actions were completely irresponsible.” Bryan Walsh of Time argued Gleick’s actions “have hurt … the cause of climate science.”

In the U.K., a freedom of information act request for details on the funder of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate change skeptic group, was denied by a court on the grounds the foundation is not influential enough.

PTC Could Equal Permanent Tax Credit

The Production Tax Credit (PTC) that aids wind energy is set to expire at the end of 2012, but some legislators are fighting to save it, with Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado arguing that “every minute counts” in trying to forge a deal.

To avoid such struggles over regular renewals of the PTC, President Obama proposed a new corporate taxation plan that would make the subsidies permanent, as well as make permanent a research-and-experimentation tax credit that expired Jan. 1.

High Oil Prices a Drag

Since the start of the year, oil prices have been on the rise, putting a drag on economic recovery in the U.S., pushing up consumer prices and causing overall inflation—risking a repeat of early 2011, when high oil prices nearly pushed the country back into recession.

President Obama was scheduled to speak about the issue Thursday, and White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the rise in prices—despite a drop in domestic consumption and rise in production—“tells you that there are other things beyond our control.”

The threat high oil prices pose to economies across developed countries could trigger the International Energy Agency to release more oil from strategic reserves, as was done in spring 2011, argued Reuters analyst John Kemp.

The rising oil prices have U.S. consumers wondering why. The prices, experts said, have stayed high because of rising consumption in emerging markets, as well as the threat that Iran’s oil exports may be cut off. An International Energy Agency official said that other countries would be able to make up for a loss of Iran’s exports, which had been 2.2 million barrels a day, and to boost production, Saudi Arabia may restart its oldest oil field.

In response to the European Union’s decision to embargo Iranian oil, Iran halted oil shipments to Britain and France, and possibly other European countries. Major shipping countries are refusing to pick up Iranian oil, with one shipping executive saying it would be like “getting leprosy.”

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said he would get gasoline down to $2.50 a gallon. However Bryan Walsh said no president can deliver that—at least without making the U.S. economy tank.

Tar Sands Tussle

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would require approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry diluted tar sands from Canada to Texas, which President Obama had earlier nixed.

The European Union held a vote on whether to ban imports of oil made from Canadian tar sands, but it ended in a deadlock.

The amount of tar sands is small compared with the amount of natural gas and coal in the world, so the tar sands alone don’t pose a major threat to the climate, argued a study in Nature Climate Change.

Some took this to mean that Canada’s tar sands are “not so dirty after all.” However, study leader Andrew Weaver—a climate modeler at the University of Victoria in Canada—argued that use of tar sands is “a symptom of the bigger problem of our dependence on fossil fuels,” and policy makers should avoid commitments to infrastructure supporting fossil fuel dependence.

Meanwhile, another study of tar sands sites found levels of air pollution—in particular nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide—were comparable to air above a large power plant.

Small Feet, Large Footprint

A new report on the carbon footprint of a diminutive creature—shrimp—shows they’re worse than cattle, at least when raised in aquaculture. When coastal mangrove forests are cleared to create shrimp farms, it’s the “the equivalent of slash-and-burn agriculture,” said study leader Boone Kauffman.

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.

February 16, 2012

Leaked Documents Describe Plan to Push Climate Change Denial in Schools

Leaked documents purportedly from the nonprofit Heartland Institute include efforts to cast doubt on climate science. The site DeSmog Blog received the documents from an anonymous informant calling himself “Heartland Insider.”

The Heartland Institute gave mixed responses to the documents, calling them both “stolen” and “fake,” but only specifically calling one document, titled “2012 Heartland Climate Strategy” a “total fake.”

Nonetheless Think Progress confirmed that two of the main projects mentioned in the documents are real, including an effort to develop curricula for K-12 education that would cast doubt on climate science.

New York Times blogger Andrew Revkin said the Heritage Institute is using a double standard in being outraged about this leak, while celebrating the “Climategate” leak of emails from researchers.

Climate researcher Judith Curry of Georgia Tech—who has been branded a “heretic” by her colleagues for raising questions such whether there’s actually a consensus on climate change—said one of the most interesting things about the Heartland Institute is that it has been “so effective with so little funds.”

Last month, the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, directed by well-known climate skeptic Bjørn Lomborg, announced it will shut because the Danish government cut its funding.

New Budget to Boost “Clean Sources” of Energy

With the announcement of the Obama administration’s proposed 2013 budget, the President called again for an end to $40 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas companies over the next decade. However The Hill said this is “largely a political statement” because Congress is unlikely to support the end of these tax breaks.

The budget request calls for doubling the share of electricity from “clean sources.” It would increase funding for renewable energy, nuclear power, and technologies to reduce emissions from coal, including a 29 percent increase for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, bringing its budget to $2.33 billion.

Meanwhile, U.S. regulators approved plans for a new nuclear power plant for the first time in 30 years, to be built in Georgia. Work is proceeding, with hopes of having the reactors—a new type never used in the U.S.—running by 2016, but the plant is encountering opposition.

No Guarantees

The proposed U.S. budget includes no money for the U.S. Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program, which gave funding to now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.

Despite the uproar about Solyndra, an audit of the loan guarantee program found that the investments were actually safer than Congress had expected. Nonetheless, the audit recommended changes to loan guarantees to improve management and oversight.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu warned more recipients of loan guarantees may go bust, but that they have always known there are “inherent risks in backing innovative technologies.”

Feed-In Tariffs’ Fate

Feed-in tariffs and other subsidies for renewable energy are in turmoil as countries rearrange their systems. The U.K. is changing to a dynamic tariff that adjusts as the cost of solar panels falls, to avoid a bubble in installations and ballooning costs for the program.

Germany is expected to cut its solar feed-in tariff—and some analysts said the cuts could be deeper than expected. Two different proposals from the Ministry of the Environment could both hurt the industry; in retaliation, three German states reportedly said they’d block these measures.

Taiwan is also lowering its solar feed-in tariff, and the U.K. is proposing to do the same for small wind turbines.

The United States has lagged behind Europe and East Asia in implementing feed-in tariffs, but two new places in the U.S. are considering starting such programs: the state of Iowa and the city of Palo Alto, in California’s Silicon Valley.

Weather Trumps Turbines

A headline about a new study in the U.K.’s Daily Mail reading “Wind farms can actually INCREASE climate change…” received a lot of attention, but the Guardian argued the claim has now grown into a myth.

The research did show that wind farms could affect microclimates, and there are reasons to think they could have beneficial effects on crops.

But even if turbines can affect microclimates, a new study suggested powerful hurricanes could topple offshore wind farms planned along the United States’ Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.

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.

February 9, 2012

Maldives President and Climate Advocate Forced at Gunpoint to Step Down

Maldives leader Mohamed Nasheed, called the “world’s most environmentally outspoken president” because of his calls for drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions, was forced to resign—at gunpoint, he claimed. He had used stunts such as an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight his island nation’s vulnerability to sea-level rise.

His resignation followed weeks of protests and was apparently motivated by internal politics unrelated to his environmental views.

Global Warming behind Europe’s Winter

Global warming could be behind the Arctic blast that recently hit Europe, killing more than 200. The unusually small ice cover over the Kara and Barents Seas has changed wind patterns, pushing frigid air into Europe.

Meanwhile, most of the U.S. has been enjoying an especially mild winter—although Alaska has had one of the coldest and snowiest on record, and the Bering Sea’s ice grew to its second-highest on record in January.

Meteorologist Jeffrey Masters said it’s not clear if global warming is the culprit behind the U.S. weather, but “… over the last couple of years, it’s really not the atmosphere I know anymore.”

When the Los Angeles Times reported on the warm winter without mentioning the possible influence of global warming, climate scientist Michael Mann called it “journalistic malpractice.”

However, the media is too often the scapegoat, with politicians and the economy having a bigger influence on public opinion about climate change, according to a new study.

“Fracking” Study Raises Greenhouse Gas Worries

A new study, which sampled the air around sites where hydraulic fracturing is being used to extract natural gas from shale, revealed more gases—mainly methane—escape into the air than previously thought. Although natural gas is usually touted as being better for the climate than other fossil fuels, the study indicated these leaks could erase much of that benefit.

Geoengineering Gets More Scrutiny

Tycoons including Bill Gates and Richard Branson have funded research and reports on geoengineering—proposed planetary-scale projects to fight climate change—raising concerns about the power of vested interests.

Research into geoengineering is a small but fast-growing field. One recent study found that sunlight-blocking particles could cool the planet, but would change regional climate patterns, so would not be able to keep the climate as it is now. Another recent study found that such geoengineering could help food production by limiting heat stress, while retaining the boost in growth from higher CO2 levels.

Wind Power Struggles Ahead

Wind turbine installations in 2011 were up 6 percent over the year before, a slight increase compared with the rapid growth before the 2008 recession. Less than half of the installations were in Europe or North America, and Asia led the growth.

The world’s largest turbine manufacturer, Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems, has been flagging: it lost $220 million in 2011—four times more than expected—and a number of senior officers left, most recently the chairman.

In the U.S., wind-power advocates have been fighting for offshore turbines along the Atlantic for decades, and now the federal government is aiming to speed permits after a positive environmental review. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said, “We’ll have those leases issued by the end of 2012.”

Hair, No—But Grass, Yes

Reports from a few years ago that Nepalese teenagers made a solar panel from hair was apparently a hoax, but now MIT researchers have done something that seems equally unlikely: making solar panels from grass clippings. The new study described how to fairly cheaply isolate a key part of the molecular machinery behind photosynthesis, and then apply it to a metal or glass surface to create a photovoltaic panel. The researchers are trying to make it simple enough that anyone can hack together a solar panel using grass clippings and a bag of cheap chemical powder.

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.