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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Brought to you by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute Administration Ordered to Release Overdue Global Warming Plan On August 21, U.S. District Judge Saundra Armstrong in Oakland, California, said that the administration violated a 1990 U.S. law requiring the government to produce climate change research plans every three years and climate change assessments every four years. She ordered a summary of the research plan to be produced by March, 2008 and the assessment by May. The administration "unlawfully withheld action" required under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, said Armstrong. The last research plan was in 2003, and the last assessment was published in 2000. Greenpeace International and two other environmental groups sued in November seeking a court order to produce the reports. Kristin Scuderi, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said "Though the court imposed certain deadlines, they are consistent with currently planned schedules. Whether to appeal the court's ruling is under discussion." Click on the following links for more information:
Western Climate Initiative Launches Regional Climate Goal California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and five other Western governors, joined by two Canadian provincial leaders, pledged August 22 to enforce a regional cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Under the Western Climate Initiative, the leaders agreed to slash emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-warming pollutants to 15 percent below 2005 levels in their states and provinces in the next 13 years. That is about the same percentage as California's commitment under last year's global warming law. Overall, the region would cut emissions by 350 million metric tons over that time period. The states that have signed up are Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Utah. Canadian provinces British Columbia and Manitoba have also joined the effort. Several states and provinces are official "observers," still considering whether to commit to the initiative's stringent goals. "Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution," Schwarzenegger said in announcing the accord. "Our collective commitment will build a successful regional system to be linked with other efforts across the nation and eventually the world." Click on the following links for more information: In an August 24 Financial Times of London commentary, Nobel Laureate Mario Molina (who was awarded the prize with Dr. Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen in 1995 for their work in discovering the destructive impact of CFCs on the stratospheric ozone layer) urges the Parties to the Montreal Protocol to strengthen their treaty next month at the 20th anniversary meeting to secure significant ozone and climate benefits. According to Molina, the ozone treaty can do a great deal to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, because CFCs and the other chemicals that deplete the ozone layer are also powerful greenhouse gases. Molina says the Parties should accelerate the phase-out of hydrofluorocarbons (HCFCs) in a way that promotes energy efficiency and climate change objectives. HCFCs were intended as "transitional" chemicals to replace the more damaging CFCs, which were phased out from 1987. But the use of HCFCs has soared in developing countries. This is threatening to delay the ozone layer's recovery and hinder efforts to combat climate change. According to some experts, the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is inadvertently creating a perverse incentive that has created windfall profits for HCFC-22 producers — effectively acting as a subsidy that is driving the expanded production of HCFC-22. The production of HCFC-22 results in emissions of trifluoromethane (“HFC-23”), an unwanted by-product that is a “super greenhouse gas,” 11,700 times more powerful at warming the planet than CO2. Click on the following links for more information:
UN Launches Climate Change Website The United Nations (UN) has launched a new website, the “Gateway to the UN System's Work on Climate Change,” which highlights the work of the various agencies of the UN system on climate change. The site includes recent climate news, webcasts, fact sheets, IPCC reports and other publications. “The new website makes it easier for Internet users to find information on climate change from across the United Nations system,” said UN spokesman Yves Sorokobi. The UN is currently assessing the most up-to-date science on climate change, so as to develop projects that would assist people at the grass-roots level to adapt to the consequences of climate change. Click on the following links for more information:
UNFCCC Chief: Rich 'can pay poor to cut carbon' The UN's binding global climate agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, currently requires industrialized nations to reduce the majority of greenhouse gas emissions themselves. Recently Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), suggested that rich nations should be absolved from the need to cut emissions if they pay developing countries to do it on their behalf. This suggestion has angered environmental groups, who say climate change will not be solved unless rich and poor nations both cut emissions together. Mr. de Boer said the challenge was so great that action was needed now. "We have been reducing emissions and making energy use more efficient in industrialized countries for a long time, so it is quite expensive in these nations to reduce emissions any more. But in developing nations, less has been done to reduce emissions and less has been done to address energy efficiency, so it actually becomes economically quite attractive for a company, for example in the UK, that has a target to achieve this goal by reducing emissions in China," said de Boer. Mike Childs from Friends of the Earth said, "This proposal simply won't deliver the cuts we need in time. The scientists are telling us that we need to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) by 50-80 percent by 2050. Unless rich countries start to wean themselves off fossil fuels right away this won't happen." Click on the following link for more information:
GHG Emissions Pact Reached in San Bernardino County San Bernardino County, one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation, will be required to measure how much it contributes to global warming and set targets to begin cutting its greenhouse gas emissions in the next 2 1/2 years, according to a legal settlement announced August 21. California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, Jr. said that the settlement with San Bernardino County, which is expected to grow by 500,000 people by 2030, "sets the pace for how local government can adopt powerful measures to combat oil dependency and climate disruption." County Supervisor Gary Ovitt said that the county could make improvements in several areas suggested by Brown, including regional transportation centers, energy-efficient building designs, methane recovery in landfills and wastewater treatment plants to create electricity. "Improving those areas will decrease our dependence on fossil fuels," Ovitt added. Click on the following links for more information:
Some Climate Offsets of Questionable Value The market for "voluntary carbon offsets" now encompasses dozens of sellers and thousands of buyers, including individuals and corporations, and is estimated to be a $55 million industry. Carbon offset providers offer to cancel out, by funding projects that reduce pollutants, greenhouse gas emissions from the activities of their customers. According to some experts, carbon offsets are an unregulated market in which some improvements bought by customers are only estimated, extrapolated, hoped-for or non-existent. Some offsets support projects that would have gone forward anyway. Others deliver results difficult to measure. Critics say that offset sellers usually have good motives. But the market is confusing enough that, this month, the Federal Trade Commission said it would look into whether consumers are being adequately protected. In the case of trees being planted as carbon offsets, researchers say that it's hard to know what is being offset because the impact of a tree depends on species, location and other factors. If the tree burns or is chopped down, the benefit disappears. Click the following links for more information:
Eighty-one Percent of Energy Consumers are Concerned about Climate Change In a survey conducted by Energy Insights, an IDC Company, 81 percent of respondents indicated concern about climate change. When survey participants were asked specifically about their concern regarding the effects of climate change, 51 percent of respondents said they are very concerned and 30 percent said they are somewhat concerned. Only 5 percent indicated they are not concerned at all about climate change. Regarding what they think is the single most important energy-related issue facing the United States today, respondents were divided, with 17 percent selecting climate change. The most common choice was gasoline prices (29 percent), and dependence on foreign oil was second (25 percent). When asked whether they have taken action in the last 12 months to limit their carbon dioxide emissions to help reduce climate change, well over half of respondents (64 percent) reported having done so. The majority said they have used less heat and air conditioning (63 percent), washed clothes in colder temperatures (59 percent), and replaced standard light bulbs with CFLs in the last year (52 percent). Energy Insights surveyed 498 members of the Energy Insights National Residential Online Panel, all of whom were U.S. residents. Data was collected using an online survey in June 2007. On August 22, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat estimated—in a 216 page report—how much it would cost to return greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to today’s levels by 2030, which may not be sufficient to avoid some of the adverse consequences of climate change. The UNFCCC found that about $148 billion of projected global annual investment in the energy generation sector should be channeled to renewables, nuclear energy, hydropower and systems to capture and store carbon dioxide, in order to cut emissions to the desired level. The report also found that industry must invest $36 billion a year in energy efficiency by 2030 to achieve such a result. In addition, investment of between $35 billion and $45 billion a year would be needed on research and development into new technologies. This would mean government research and development budgets would need to double, and private sector investment would need to be stepped up. Click on the following links for more information: Quick Links * SUBSCRIBE to our newsletters and other products * ARCHIVE: Past issues of the newsletter are posted on our website under "publications" * SUPPORT EESI: This newsletter and EESI's other valuable work in energy, climate change, agriculture, transportation and smart growth are made possible through financial support from people like you. Please donate now.
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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