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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Brought to you by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute House Energy Committee Releases Third Climate Change White Paper The House Committee on Energy and Commerce and its Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality are issuing a series of Climate Change Legislation Design White Papers as the next step toward enactment of a mandatory, economy-wide climate change program. On February 25, the third white paper, Appropriate Roles for Different Levels of Government, was released for public comment. The white paper discusses key factors for consideration by the Committee in determining what roles are appropriate for each level of government as a part of a comprehensive, national approach to addressing climate change. The paper warns that broad state and regional climate initiatives “may interfere with the efficient functioning of the federal cap-and-trade program” by forcing industry to comply with multiple regulations. Steve Cochran, national climate campaign director at Environmental Defense, said "Though we strongly disagree with some of its conclusions, this paper could be an important examination of the state-federal issues facing the committee as it crafts legislation. Suggesting that states should never move beyond federal policy when it comes to tailpipe emissions ignores a long pattern of success under the Clean Air Act, and could be a recipe for failure on this most urgent of issues." Click on the following links for more information: On February 27, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment held a hearing entitled "Climate Change and Vulnerable Societies: A Post-Bali Overview." Dr. Harlan Watson, Department of State Senior Climate Negotiator and Special Representative, testified that "the United States believes it is important to engage with the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and its Member States and other UNFCCC Parties, and has in place a wide variety of ongoing multilateral and bilateral programs to address their climate change mitigation and adaptation needs. Ambassador Masao Nakayama, Permanent Representative of the Federated States of Micronesia, said, "We are representative of all vulnerable countries around the world, including those in the Alliance of Small Island States, and the many other low-lying coastal countries that face the growing risk of extinction from abrupt climate change and the sea-level rise that it will cause. We need to expand the definition of 'dangerous levels' of anthropogenic climate emissions to include the tipping points for abrupt climate change." Nakayama also said, "We also need “fast start” strategies for adaptation, as the impacts of climate change are already occurring and being felt in Micronesia and other low-lying countries." Click on the following links for more information: On February 26, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing examining how the food service industry can improve its impact on the environment and reduce its contribution to global warming. The Committee explored how large scale food operators such as universities, school districts and corporations can “green” their practices to provide meals that are beneficial to consumers and the environment. The “carbon footprint” of how we grow, raise, transport, package, dispose of and otherwise provide sustenance was discussed. According to the Committee, a 1999 British study showed that the purchase of local apples resulted in an almost 3,000 percent reduction in energy use and 87 percent lower carbon dioxide emissions than apples imported from New Zealand. When food waste rots it releases methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that landfills account for 34 percent of all methane emissions in the United States. Click on the following links for more information: The International Energy Agency (IEA) says the US government needs to move more quickly on plans to boost automobile fuel efficiency standards, improve efficiency of power plants and take hard action on heat-trapping greenhouse gases. IEA said many European nations as well as Japan and China currently have stricter standards in place than the new US Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for cars and light trucks that won't take full effect before 2020. "That's not very fast or ambitious enough," IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka told reporters at a briefing. "If these kinds of efficiency gains can be achieved outside the United States, then why not here?" IEA also said US utilities should make more use of existing technology that uses ultra-supercritical pulverized coal plants, which could reduce emissions by 20 percent; enact a requirement for utilities to derive a set percentage of their power from renewable sources; and extend tax credits for installing solar panels and wind turbines. Click on the following link for more information:
Antarctic Glaciers Surge to Ocean UK scientists working in Antarctica have found some of the clearest evidence yet of instabilities in the ice of part of West Antarctica. The new evidence comes from a group of glaciers covering an area the size of Texas. Throughout the 1990s, according to satellite measurements, the glacier was accelerating by around 1 percent a year. Julian Scott of the British Antarctic Survey found this season that the glacier seems to have accelerated by 7 percent in a single season, sending more and more ice into the ocean. One possible culprit could be a deep ocean current that is channeled onto the continental shelf close to the mouth of the glacier. There is not much sea ice to protect it from the warm water, which seems to be undercutting the ice and lubricating its flow. The researchers say that if the glacier does continue to surge and discharge most of its ice into the sea, the Pine Island Glacier alone could raise global sea level by 25 centimeters. Click on the following link for more information:
Energy Executive Calls for Action Plan on Climate Change In a February 26 Op-Ed, chairman and CEO of Exelon Corporation John Rowe said the United States should not wait for a new president before taking action on addressing climate change. Rowe said, "First, we need enactment of a mandatory, economy wide cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Even more than government regulation, meaningful action on climate change requires economic transformation and competitive markets to drive investments in energy efficiency, natural gas and nuclear energy, innovations in renewables, and carbon sequestration. The energy industry must lead by example and reduce its own carbon footprint, and we must help our customers better manage their energy use." Rowe concluded by saying, "We need to allow the marketplace, through its innovation, job creation and economic development help us build the low-carbon future we all desire." Click on the following link for more information: Click on the following link for more information:
Sumatran Forests Destruction Driving Climate Change, Species Extinction A study by World Wildlife Fund, Remote Sensing Solution GmbH and Hokkaido University analyzes the connection between deforestation and forest degradation, global climate change, and population declines of tigers and elephants. The study found that in central Sumatra's Riau Province nearly 10.5 million acres of tropical forests and peat swamp have been cleared in the last 25 years. Forest loss and degradation and peat decomposition and fires are the cause of average annual carbon emissions equivalent to 39 percent of annual UK emissions. Sumatra has Indonesia's highest deforestation rate, substantially driven by the operations of global paper corporations. The study found that carbon emissions are likely to increase as most future forest clearance is planned for areas with deep peat soils. Click on the following links for more information:
Rising Air Temperatures Cause Surface Ice Loss in Greenland A NASA study published in the January issue of the Journal of Glaciology shows that warming air temperatures have led to a rise in the surface temperature of massive ice sheets in Greenland, further fueling the loss of the island's ice at the surface and throughout the mass beneath. Greenland's ice sheet could raise the sea level by approximately 23 feet if the entire ice sheet were to melt. Though it is unlikely that the entire ice sheet would melt, loss from Greenland's ice mass has already contributed to approximately two millimeters per year of sea level rise during the 20th century. The NASA scientists, with the use of satellite technologies, reported a relationship between changes at the surface and below. Dorothy Hall, a senior researcher in Cryospheric Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the study, said "The relationship between surface temperature and mass loss lends further credence to earlier work showing rapid response of the ice sheet to surface meltwater." Click on the following link for more information:
Climate Change Affects Marine Snail Survival Dr. Gretchen Hofmann, marine biologist from the University of California, Santa Barbara, plans to sequence the genome of the pteropod—one of the world's smallest sea creatures, growing no bigger than the size of a lentil. The pteropod, with its translucent shell, could help scientists understand how marine animals will respond to the stresses of climate change. Dr. Hofmann’s team has collected thousands of the mollusks from Antarctica, and she hopes to find genes and molecular pathways that might predict how the shelled creatures will respond to warmer and more acidic waters. The research suggests that as ocean waters increase in acidity, the pteropods’ calcium carbonate shells become thinner and may eventually disappear. It is unclear whether it will be able to survive, since the shell protects the creatures from predators. Hofmann said, “it's a tiny, very fragile shell and we know that their ability to survive and form this shell is very threatened by climate change conditions in the ocean, a situation that's called ocean acidification." The threat to pteropods could have far-reaching effects because "they're incredibly important sources of food for fish," says Dr Hofmann. She and Victoria Fabry of the California State University, San Marcos, will extract DNA from the organism and use a new sequencing method to study its genetic makeup. Hofmann said, "If we know the DNA sequence, we have the 'secret decoder ring' to ask what genes are going off and on in this animal as it responds to the conditions around it in the ocean. One of the things we know about climate change is that it's a double jeopardy situation - not only do we have a more acidic ocean, we know the sea is going to warm." Top Water Suppliers Join Coalition to Fight Climate Change Eight of the top US water providers, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the San Diego County Water Authority, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Denver Water, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the Portland (Ore.) Water Bureau, Seattle Public Utilities and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, formed the Water Utility Climate Alliance (WUCA) in order to develop strategies to deal with climate change. The WUCA members, who supply drinking water for more than 36 million people, joined forces in September to study how rising sea levels, droughts and other effects of global warming are taking a toll on supplies of drinking water. Susan Leal, general manager of the San Francisco commission and chair of the newly formed authority, said “Our systems are facing risk due to diminishing snowpack, bigger storms, more frequent drought and rising sea levels. We need to be organized to respond to these risks—that's why we've formed this alliance.” The WUCA, which plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure over the next 15 years, said it is pushing the US Climate Change Science Program and researchers in the climate change field to improve and refine climate models to apply them at the regional or local level and to ensure that water providers have access to consistent climate data. Additionally, the WUCA called on scientists to coordinate international research efforts and to develop tools for policymaking and planning for abrupt climate changes. Bronson Mack, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said “the whole goal was to wrap our arms around the potential impacts of climate change on water infrastructure and water supplies.” Click on the following links for more information:
World Fishing Grounds Threatened by Climate Change A report released on February 22 by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), entitled "In Dead Water," says the world's major fishing grounds are severely threatened by climate change, as well by over-fishing and pollution. The report found that the seas' absorption of CO2 has brought about warmer water and acidification, which cause a disruption in the ocean circulation system and threaten a dramatic collapse of fish stocks. Lead scientist, Christian Nellemann, said “we seriously fear that if this mechanism stops, we may risk a potential collapse in major fishing grounds in the world and that they will not be able to recover as we have seen in the past.” It was reported that the number of oxygen deficient areas, or marine dead zones, have increased from 149 in 2003 to over 200 in 2006. With 2.6 billion people depending on fish as their main source of protein, the Food and Agriculture Organization stated that climate change and increasing coastal population densities would put 50 million people at risk by 2080. Nellemann said, “We are fishing in deeper waters, farther from shore and with much more advanced technology, but are no long able to catch more fish.” Earlier studies have shown that 90 percent of many of the ocean's big fish, such as tuna, marlin, swordfish, some sharks, cod and halibut, have disappeared from the seas due to industrial exploitation. It was reported that almost all commercially-fished wild species are declining. With 80 percent of it coming from land, stocks are also threatened by pollution. Ken Caldeira, marine scientist at Stanford University, said “What we do over the next decades has the potential to affect ocean chemistry for tens of thousands of years, and marine life for millions of years.” Click on the following links for more information:
Australia: Vulnerable to Climate Change, GHG Emissions to Increase Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change, said the figures were good for the country, and showed an expected emissions cut: "[The analysis] shows that the Rudd Government's policies, such as increasing the use of renewable energy, will trigger much greater emissions reductions in the longer term than had been forecast in 2006 under the previous government." A report by economist Professor Ross Garnaut has warned Australia must take a lead role in fighting climate change or risk becoming the most badly damaged country in the developed world. His report sets an initial guide to the design of an emissions trading scheme. Garnaut said, “Without action we are running towards dangerous points more quickly that a lot of the earlier analysis has suggested.” On February 25, New York State Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, Chairman of the State’s Renewable Energy Task Force, announced 16 Task Force recommendations as part of a roadmap to significantly increase renewable energy generation in New York. The recommendations include more solar energy production, funding the state’s program to get 25 percent of New York's electricity from renewable energy by 2013 and new business incentives targeted to attract renewable energy producers and expand the State’s “green collar” workforce. The Task Force report found that: up to 43,000 new jobs in New York could be created by the renewable energy production; renewable energy and energy efficiency industries could create up to 40 million jobs and generate up to $4.5 trillion in revenue in the United States by 2030; and $1 billion in economic benefits are expected to result over the next 20 years from the roughly $500 million that New York has so far committed in renewable energy funding through the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). Paterson said, “With the world’s climate changing and traditional dirty energy sources causing geopolitical instability, these recommendations will put New York on a path to become part of a global solution.” Governor Eliot Spitzer said, “Increasing the State's supply of clean, renewable energy will stem the flow of dollars out of State to pay for imported energy and will create jobs here in New York.” Click on the following links for more information:
Flooded Village Files Suit, Citing Corporate Link to Climate Change The Alaskan coastal village of Kivalina in the Northwest Arctic is suing Exxon Mobil and 23 other energy companies for damage related to global warming. According to the lawsuit, because of the warming climate sea ice forms and attaches to the coast later in the year and breaks up earlier and is less extensive and thinner, exposing the village to storm waves and surges. Kivalina, located on a shrinking barrier island in the Chukchi Sea, says the energy companies should pay to move the village to safer ground. Cost estimates to relocate Kivalina to the mainland vary between $95 million and $400 million. The legal complaint says some of the companies are guilty of conspiring to "create a false scientific debate" about global warming to deceive the public, saying that trade associations have "formed and used front groups, fake citizens’ organizations and bogus scientific bodies.” The defendants include one coal company, nine oil companies and 14 power companies. Three of the oil companies--Exxon, BP and Conoco Phillips--operate on Alaska's North Slope. Click on the following links for more information: On February 26, Daniel Price, the Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs, told reporters in Paris that the United States would be willing to accept mandatory international limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Price said, "The United States is prepared to enter into binding international obligations to reduce greenhouse gases as part of a global agreement in which all major economies similarly undertake binding international obligations." "An effective framework requires the participation of all major economies, developed and developing alike," said Mr. Price. The major developing economies include China and India, which the Kyoto Protocol exempts from binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Chinese officials recently reiterated their position that global warming is chiefly the responsibility of the developed nations that have been burning carbon at industrial rates for over a century. Critics of the US position say that trying to force China and India into accepting binding commitments of greenhouse gases is neither realistic nor fair. "It isn't going to happen," said Stephan Singer, a climate change expert at the World Wildlife Fund. "Why should they (China and India) do something when the United States has done nothing for the last eight years?" Click on the following links for more information:
Governors' Talks Target Clean Coal, Carbon Tax At the National Governors Association (NGA) February 23-25 meeting in Washington DC, Minnesota Governor and NGA Chair Tim Pawlenty sought consensus with his peers on actions states should take to encourage more renewable energy and conservation, as well as spur the latest technologies to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. An NGA study was released that said, "By 2030, we will be providing only 65 percent of our own energy needs -- 35 percent will come from foreign sources, mostly oil. Our total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are projected to increase more than 25 percent by 2030." At the meeting General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt urged states and the federal government to tax carbon-dioxide emissions or to set up cap-and-trade systems to give the financial markets some long-term certainty about the future economic costs of fossil fuels. Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said renewable power and biofuels could be supplying as much as 16 percent of the global electric and transportation needs by 2030. Click on the following links for more information:
Events March 4-6, 2008 Washington International Renewable Energy Conference
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Fredric Beck This EESI publication is a free, weekly electronic newsletter intended to inform interested parties, particularly the policymaker community, of the latest climate change-related news. Permission for reproduction of this newsletter is granted provided that EESI is properly acknowledged as the source. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute is a non-profit organization established in 1984 by a bipartisan, bicameral group of members of Congress to provide timely information on energy and environmental policy issues to policymakers and stakeholders and develop innovative policy solutions that set us on a cleaner, more secure and sustainable energy path. |
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