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October 27, 2014
This graph shows energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rose 2.5 percent in 2013. Image courtesy of the Energy Information Administration.
GAO Says Oil Exports Would Worsen Climate Change
On October 20, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report showing that allowing crude oil exports would result in environmental risks, including the worsening of global warming and threats to surface groundwater sources. The report also found that oil exports could benefit the economy, improving employment, the trade deficit, and public revenue. U.S. oil production is currently booming, resulting in global market changes such as lowered gasoline prices. “Increased crude oil production may increase greenhouse gases and other air emissions because the use of consumer fuels would increase, and also because the crude oil process often involves the direct release of pollutants into the atmosphere,” stated the report. Requested by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), GAO compiled the report by reviewing studies and interviewing stakeholders. It concludes with a recommendation for the Department of Energy (DOD) to reexamine the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), in order to keep up with changing market conditions. From an economic standpoint, Senator Murkowski calls the report “a welcome addition to the growing body of analysis supporting the case for greater oil exports.”
For more information see:
Inside Climate News, Report
EPA Moves to Phase Out Chemicals That Damage Ozone, Climate
On October 17, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule to reduce and phase out domestic production of hydrochloroflourocarbons (HCFCs), chemicals that deplete the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer and have a large global warming effect. The rule reduces domestic production allowances for HCFC-22 to the lowest level yet, with a complete phase-out within five years. The EPA rule also has incentives to encourage the conversion of outdated equipment that still uses HCFCs to more energy-efficient equipment using alternative coolants that cause less global warming. The rule applies to production and consumption of HCFCs used in air conditioning, as well as refrigeration equipment installed prior to 2010 and that is now being phased out under the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty. The Montreal Protocol was enacted to phase out HCFCs internationally, and replace them with non-ozone depleting hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). HFCs have since proven to be highly potent greenhouse gases, and there are currently conversations about using the Montreal Protocol to limit their use. “This is another step forward with the president's Climate Action Plan,” says Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development. “And it helps set up victory with the president's efforts to phase-down HFCs under the Montreal Protocol, which remains the biggest climate prize available to the world in the near term.”
Environmental Protection Agency, Final Rule, Environmental Leader, The Hill
U.S. Presents Agenda for Chairmanship of Arctic Council
On October 22, the Arctic Council began their meeting in Yellowknife, Canada, to discuss climate pollutants, wildlife diversity, emergency preparedness, and marine shipping issues, as well as U.S. priorities when Secretary of State John Kerry assumes Chairmanship of the Council in 2015. This transition signals a major shift in approach to Arctic leadership, from the Canadian chairmanship’s emphasis on northern economic development, to the U.S.’s focus on climate change. During the meeting, U.S. Senior Arctic Official Julie Gourley said the U.S. chairmanship would emphasize climate change, Arctic Ocean stewardship, and improving the economic situation and quality of life for Arctic people. “With this ambitious U.S. Arctic Council agenda, Secretary Kerry has positioned the United States to lead bold initiatives to slow Arctic and global warming and reduce oil spill risks in the region,” commented Carol Browner, a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. The Arctic Council is composed of eight circumpolar member nations and six aboriginal groups and non-arctic permanent participants. Each member nation assumes chairmanship of the council for two years on a rotating basis.
In related news, on October 19, the Clean Air Task Force released a report recommending the use of the Arctic Council meeting to limit methane emissions and black carbon. These short-lived climate pollutants disproportionately cause warming and sea ice melt in the region, and were a major theme at the Yellowknife meeting. The Council needs to work with oil and gas companies in the Arctic, according to Lindsey Griffith, who wrote the report. She gave an array of examples on how this could be done, including regulations on natural gas flaring in Russia; the expansion of existing programs in Alaska which give communities incentive to switch from diesel to renewable power; and action from the International Maritime Organization to outlaw heavy fuel use in the Arctic Ocean. Charles Ebinger, who directs the Brookings Institution’s Energy Security Initiative, says an emphasis on issues like methane and carbon dioxide emissions reductions does not belong at the Arctic Council, as these emissions are a global issue, and important Arctic Council discussions on issues such as oil spills and other emergencies remain unfinished.
Scientific American, Arctic Journal, CAP, Clean Air Task Force
Climate Change Appearing in Politics Across U.S.
On October 21, an analysis of political advertising in Senate races across the U.S. by Kantar Media and CMAG found that energy and environment are the third most popular issue, behind only health care and jobs. In conservative states, the ads are taking shape as attacks over regulations of carbon dioxide from power plants; in liberal states, ads focus more on skewering candidates for climate change denial. Locally, politicians such as Kristin Jacobs have found great success by tackling climate change in their campaigns. After making climate change a big part of her campaign, Jacobs won her Democratic primary for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives by 76 percent this August – a “shocking” result, said pollster and political consultant Steven Vancore. A liberally-inclined advocacy group, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, found that over 58 percent of Republicans in Congress do not think there is a link between global warming and human activity. Mayor of Carmel, Indiana, Jim Brainard, a Republican, has led his city to reduce greenhouse gases and increase energy and fuel efficiency in buildings and transportation and through LED lighting, etc. (see EESI Briefing). “I don’t think we want to be the party that believes in dirty air and dirty water,” Brainard commented. “The problem in D.C. is that a lot of people are making a lot of money keeping people mad at each other.”
The New York Times, The New York Times
United Nations Climate Negotiations Take Place in Bonn, Germany
On October 23 and 24, United Nations (U.N.) climate negotiators met in Bonn, Germany to finalize details of a climate change package in preparation for the annual two-week Conference of the Parties in Lima, Peru scheduled in December. The negotiations follow U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s New York Climate Summit last month, where over 120 world leaders voiced support for the process. According to Liz Gallagher, a climate diplomacy analyst at E3G, climate diplomats will need to “capture the Ban Ki-moon outcomes and get them into something concrete.” The meeting had two main themes: carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS), and short-lived climate pollutants such as methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Topics of discussion also included financial flows from developed countries to developing countries, mechanisms for reducing levels of carbon emissions, and ambition for emissions reductions targets. U.N. climate chief Christina Figueres said that “2014 has been an extraordinary year of momentum by governments supported by climate action from cities and communities to corporations and the finance sector.”
RTCC, Planet Save
European Union Sets New Target for Emissions Reductions
On October 24 at a European Council summit in Brussels, European Union (E.U.) leaders agreed on a new, more ambitious binding target for greenhouse gas emissions reduction. The 28 member countries agreed to cut emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, and to source a minimum of 27 percent of their energy from renewable power generation. The E.U. also set an “indicative” goal of improving energy efficiency by 27 percent. The renewable energy and energy efficiency goals have both generated doubts about their efficacy, as the renewable goal is only binding at the European Union level with no national accountability, and the energy efficiency goal is not enforceable at any level. The deal was accomplished by offering lower emissions targets for eight countries which rely on fossil fuels, including Poland, which threatened to block the deal unless special accommodations were made for its power generation sector. Herman Van Rompuy, head of the European Council, released a tweet in the early hours of the morning when the deal was finalized, “Deal! At least 40% emissions cut by 2030. World’s most ambitious, cost-effective, fair #EU2030 climate energy policy agreed.”
BBC, The New York Times, The New York Times
E.U. Brings Antitrust Suit Against Honeywell and Dupont for Climate-Friendly Coolant
On October 21, corporate giants Honeywell International Inc. and DuPont Co., came under fire by European Union (E.U.) regulators for allegedly violating antitrust rules in the production of HFO-1234yf, (or R-1234yf), the only vehicle coolant available on the market which meets recent E.U. standards for greenhouse gas emissions. HFO-1234yf is currently used in approximately 2 million vehicles around the world. The E.U. regulators claim the two companies, who are the sole producers of this chemical, may have restricted competition and limited the chemical’s availability and development, based on a series of mutual agreements they signed in 2010. The 2010 agreements were meant to streamline the development process and decrease risk and expense as the companies worked together to create the coolant on schedule for the E.U.’s 2017 deadline. Honeywell and DuPont maintain that they followed all applicable laws in the development and marketing of the chemical. DuPont stated they planned to “fight this every step of the way, as it has no basis in law or fact,” according to a statement. A statement from Honeywell said the E.U.’s complaints were “baseless and conflict with the EU’s own laws that encourage collaboration on development.”
Bloomberg Businessweek, North Jersey.com, Hydrocarbon Processing.com
Companies Taking Action on Climate Change Outperforming Those Which Aren’t
On October 15, British environmental nonprofit CDP, formerly known as the Climate Disclosure Project, released its 2014 Climate Performance Leadership Index (CPLI). According to the report, companies aggressively taking action to meet carbon goals are performing better than their competitors, by nearly 10 percent. “The unprecedented environmental challenges that we confront today are also economic problems. This irrefutable fact is filtering through to companies and investors,” stated CDP’s CEO Paul Simpson. Produced annually since 2010 at the request of investors who represent over a third of the globe’s investment capital, the almost 200 high scoring businesses that made “The A List” include Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and BMW. The index includes companies who lead their respective industries in reporting and managing carbon pollution, including emissions released by their supply chains. Simpson noted that private sector companies are responding to climate change at a faster rate than many governments. Half of the companies of the CPLI have their headquarters in Europe, and 34 of the top scorers were American companies.
Quartz, Bloomberg, E&E Publishing, CDP, Report
Well-Known Climate Change Whistleblower Dies
On October 18, Rick Piltz, founder and director of Climate Science Watch, passed away. According to Climate Science Watch, Piltz has been an “educator, writer, and policy analyst and advocate” for climate science in government, nonprofit and academic sectors since the 1970s. He is possibly best remembered for his service as senior associate of the United States Global Change Research Program from 1995-2005, from which his 2005 resignation to “protest the Bush Administration’s political interference with climate change communication,” was widely publicized. Piltz went on to found Climate Science Watch, a “nonprofit public interest education and advocacy project,” later that same year. On the Climate Science Watch website, colleague Nicky Sundt left a short tribute to Piltz. “I can think of no greater tribute to Rick than to commit ourselves to ‘speak truth to power,’ as Rick used to say. Let us furthermore rededicate ourselves to moving our communities, businesses, organizations, and governments to effectively and urgently address our climate crisis,” Sundt wrote.
Climate Science Watch, Climate Science Watch, NY Times
U.S. and China Cooperation Could Help Fight Climate Change
On October 21, Climate Action Tracker (CAT) released a report saying that the United States and China can reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 by 20 percent and 16 percent, respectively, by adopting each other's best practices. In an emailed statement, CAT, a project examining global efforts to combat global warming, said, “China has more efficient cement plants than the U.S., whereas the U.S. has more efficient iron and steel plants. Both can improve significantly to reach current best available technology.” The United States and China are the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, accounting for over a third of total emissions. According to the project, the U.S. and China could help close the emissions gap by 23 percent if they adopted best practices, such as reducing coal use or electricity consumption. The emissions gap refers to the difference between emission cuts required to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels and the emissions cuts likely to be achieved with current policies. Bill Hare from Climate Analytics, one of the three resource groups involved in the project, said that adoption of best practices would put the U.S. and China “on the right pathway” to keep warming below the international agreed upon target.
Bloomberg, The Straits Times, Report
Study Shows Increasing World’s Access to Electricity Has Small Impact on Climate Change
On October 19, a study on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from household electricity in India was published in Nature Climate Change. The study found that connecting rural households and making improvements to electricity access increased India’s overall emissions by only three to four percent over the past three decades. Lead-scientist of the study, Shonali Pachauri from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria, said, “This study shows that climate impacts of expanding access are in fact very small.” From 1981-2011, the percentage of homes connected to electricity grew from 25 percent to about 70 percent, an increase in access for 650 million people. Researchers say better electricity access increases wealth and participation in the economy, which can indirectly grow emissions – in this case, combined indirect and direct emissions from better electricity access amounted to11 to 25 percent of total emissions growth in India. While the increase in emissions in India is a very small piece of global emissions, the study says developing countries still need to begin reducing the carbon intensity of their electric power generation. Pachauri commented, “Expanding low-carbon energy technologies in developing countries would bring many co-benefits beyond climate mitigation.”
Innovations Report, The Economic Times, New Scientist, Study
Temperatures in Alaska Rising due to Arctic Sea Ice Loss
A study published in the Open Atmospheric Science Journal found that over the past 34 years, temperatures in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the United States, have increased by 1.51 degrees Celsius on average. Barrow’s warming is greatest during the month of October, when its average temperature was 7.2 degrees C increase over the 1979 average for that month. Gerd Wendler, lead author of the study, commented, “I think I have never, anywhere, seen a large increase in temperature over such a short period.” The research was conducted by scientists at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who analyzed monthly and yearly data of temperatures in Barrow from 1979 to 2012, and found that temperature trends were directly linked to sea ice levels. The study stated that the month with the greatest amount of ice loss is October, correlating with a large temperature increase. The researchers suggest the correlation is due to winds from the North, which capture stored heat from the water once its ice cover is gone and then release this heat into the atmosphere. Wendler said the diminishing sea ice levels around the Arctic Ocean after the annual maximum melt are the reason for the rise in temperatures; “You cannot explain it by anything else.”
The Guardian, Study
Headlines
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1. Washington Post Editorial Board Calls for Methane Regulations
2. Company Behind Keystone XL Receives Award for Climate Change Action
3. How Real Estate Development in Miami May Help the City Adapt to Climate Change
4. Putting a Layer of Compost on Rangeland Creates a Substantial Carbon Sink
5. North Dakota Official Says Methane Will Be Largest Challenge Facing Oil Industry
6. Few States Preparing for Climate Change
7. 2014 on Track to Be Warmest Year on Record
8. Link Between Climate Change and Violence
Authors: Brendan Ingargiola, Angelo Bardales, Emily Jackson and Carlos Villacis
Editor: Laura Small
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