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March 19, 2018
FEMA has removed any mention of climate change from its quadrennial strategic planning document. Pictured above, flooding as a result of severe rainfall from Hurricane Harvey in Houston, TX. Image courtesy of wikimedia.org.
With an April 1 deadline approaching, EPA must decide whether the 2009 Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards should remain in place or not. In a March 13 interview with Bloomberg News, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said that California’s actions “shouldn’t and can’t dictate to the rest of the country what these [vehicle emission] levels are going to be." California has been permitted to set more stringent standards than the federal government since 1966 under the Clean Air Act. Pruitt added that the EPA is not “presently” seeking to extend the more stringent CAFE standards beyond 2025. California officials had previously offered to consider easing the state’s current transportation emission standards if the current national standards were to be extended beyond 2025. Some automakers are urging the administration to loosen the CAFE standards, while others support the current standards since they have invested billions to gain a larger stake in the Californian and foreign automotive markets. Overall, the auto industry has expressed a desire for the federal government and California to achieve a consensus on emission standards.
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Bloomberg
On March 15, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) released its strategic planning document for the years 2018 to 2022. One major change is that the document no longer contains any references to climate change, despite counting “rising natural hazard risk” among the greatest threats to buildings and infrastructure. In addition, the document does not mention sea level rise, global warming, or extreme weather events in its “Emerging Threats” section. The absence of climate change as a factor in worsening hurricane and wildfire seasons contradicts findings from other federal agencies that greenhouse gases are likely contributing to the increasing severity of these disasters. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, there were 16 weather and climate disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion each in the United States in 2017. The version of the document released during the Obama administration directly addressed climate and called for the agency to incorporate those risks into its long-term planning. FEMA Administrator Brock Long, a Trump appointee, has previously expressed doubt about whether climate change is happening.
NPR, Bloomberg
On March 12, the U.S. National Academies publicly released a draft of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. The legally mandated report was compiled by the federal Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The report examines how climate change is affecting states, regions, and different economic sectors. The last edition of the report was issued in 2014, while the updated version is expected later in 2018. The content has been reviewed and approved by a panel at the National Academies. Review committee chair Robin Bell of Columbia University said, “We had 16 experts review [the report], go through it in detail, see if it meets the congressionally mandated requirements, and we agree that it did.” The fundamental climate science in the report is based on the USGCRP’s Climate Science Special Report, issued in late 2017. While the special report did not encounter any political meddling, concerns remain that the draft report may be challenged, given its detailed accounting of impacts on communities and industries.
Washington Post
The Horn of Africa is becoming hotter and drier more quickly than any time over the past 2,000 years, with its cyclical precipitation patterns proving less reliable than in the past. Over the last two decades, four major droughts have taken their toll on the region, dramatically affecting millions of the world’s poorest inhabitants. The risk of famine has become even more acute, with 12 million people relying on food aid and 650,000 children under the age of five severely malnourished across the countries of Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. The main source of income in the region is raising livestock, since very little food can be grown in the harsh conditions. The droughts have taken a toll on local herders, who are losing their animals more quickly than they can afford to replenish them. Some residents have turned to charcoal production to make money, but this is further depleting the few trees that have survived. The lack of water and resources has sometimes led to conflict among the herders, leading them to expand their range even further for basic necessities.
New York Times
A draft report, prepared for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and other agency officials, seeks to advise the agency on how to involve young people in future climate policymaking. The report must still be approved by EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC). NEJAC helped establish the report’s authorship group of 15 youth representatives, aged 19-29 and drawn from across academia, environmental groups, and local government. The group was tasked with submitting recommendations to EPA on how to engage young people on climate resilience and suggest ways to develop youth-led projects to deal with climate-related health issues. Samantha Shattuck, a public health specialist and group co-chair, said the group hoped other federal agencies may be able to incorporate the report’s lessons as well. The authors wrote, “Youth need the capacity and knowledge to more critically assess and address climate justice challenges in the future, and engaging them effectively will aid in the development of future thought leaders in this space to help with growing infrastructure, research, and policy issues.”
Scientific American
Relief organizations are utilizing climate attribution science to better understand the changing nature, intensity, and frequency of extreme weather events. These insights can assist organizations in determining where and when to stockpile emergency supplies and inform the selection of appropriate shelter designs for withstanding intense conditions. Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Crescent Climate Center, said, “Increasing extremes mean we need to be prepared for a wider range of risks, including rising uncertainties.” He added that the Red Cross has been promoting the development of “forecast based financing,” which would activate aid based on a forecast generated before a disaster’s impacts are actually felt. Following Hurricane Haiyan, the Red Cross and Red Crescent collaborated with the Philippines to use climate science and attribution studies to create setback zones for high-risk areas. Van Aalst explained, “We need to know [the risk], how could this happen, and how can we prevent it next time.”
InsideClimate News
The world’s cities produce roughly 60 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions, but the technology to detect and measure urban emissions is a relatively recent development. Various cities have hosted CO2 monitoring projects for more than 10 years, but the devices are only placed in a single location, making it difficult to analyze emission variations across different urban landscapes. A new study carried out in Salt Lake City, featuring an emissions sensor network covering multiple locations, has shown that high density urban areas emit less than sprawling suburban areas. The data showed that emissions are dependent on population density and population growth, with new housing developments constructed in areas with fewer than 1,000 people per square mile resulting in significant emission increases. Areas with more than 5,000 people per square mile saw a much lower increase in emissions relative to their population growth. The study also found that “on-road emissions increased when rural areas were developed into suburban areas.”
ArsTechnica
The Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (Tropomi), a satellite launched by the European Space Agency (ESA), has begun identifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cities and industrial facilities in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. Tropomi will ultimately be able to map out the planet’s emissions every 24 hours and provide the highest resolution images of these pollutants to date. Josef Aschbacher, director of ESA’s Earth observation programs, said the program would be “valuable for helping to put appropriate mitigation policies in place.” A second satellite, called Claire, was launched in 2016 by the Canadian company GHGSat. Claire has been using the detailed data from Tropospheric to pinpoint sources of methane leaks from industrial sources. These satellites can help public and private entities to identify, verify, and reduce GHG emissions. Industrial sites, such as landfills and power plants, could be notified when rogue emissions emanate from their operations, while data could be sold to government and environmental groups to monitor progress in emission reductions. The satellites could be also used to track GHG emissions from companies under future cap-and-trade programs.
Researchers have found that warmer temperatures are leading to longer allergy seasons. Depending on how future greenhouse gas emissions progress, pollen counts of all plant varieties could double by 2040 in some parts of the United States. Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said that the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations from the preindustrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm) to today’s 400 ppm have corresponded with a doubling of pollen production for ragweed. Higher CO2 concentrations have been found to cause plants to generate more pollen. Plants release their pollen in response to environmental signals, such as temperature, precipitation, and sunlight. Different plants release pollen across different seasons (spring, summer, and fall), meaning an overlap in these periods due to temperature changes could lead to fewer periods of relief for allergy sufferers. Around eight percent of American adults suffer from hay fever caused by pollen allergies, with treatment costing the country between $3.4 and $11.2 billion annually in direct medical expenses.
Vox
Researchers are projecting that climate change will alter the makeup of the New England region’s forests this century. Today’s New England-Acadian woodlands consist of a blend of deciduous and coniferous stands. Historically, the deciduous species have dominated in more temperate climates, while the conifers held the more alpine regions. However, under certain climate scenarios, the region’s coniferous trees could lose 70-100 percent of their current range to deciduous varieties by 2085 due to increases in temperature and precipitation, plus shifts in timber harvesting practices. This change would likely alter the way the forest cycles nutrients and stores toxic metals in the soil, since coniferous trees are able to keep these materials in the ground longer. Daniel Horton of Northwestern University said, “Many facets of climate change directly and indirectly influence forests and forest health. Increasing temperatures may extend the growing season, shifting pollination and leafing cycles, and potentially exposing trees to more pests and/or pests that are typically only tolerant of warmer climates.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Suit Filed After U.S. Government Neglects to Submit Emissions Report in Accordance with Paris Agreement
Agricultural Sector in Developing World Saw $96 Billion in Damages Over a Decade Due to Extreme Weather
Report: Climate Change Deemed a “Net Negative” for Insurance Industry
Twenty-Two National Science Academies Call Upon Governments to Accelerate Climate Action
Scientists to Conduct Small-Scale Field Test of Geoengineering Technology in New Mexico
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