Obama needs credit for environmental successes

(Photo of Obama from Flickr and jmtimages)

Despite the failure so far to pass a climate bill in the Senate, or to help forge a final international agreement in Copenhagen, the Obama Administration has, without much fanfare, quietly reversed destructive Bush environmental policy and ramped up green jobs development as it sets a course for a cleaner energy future.

Carl Pope, outgoing executive director of the Sierra Club, told the Mercury News, “This is by far the best first year on the environment of any president in history.” In just one year, he said, the president reversed most of Bush’s anti-environment actions over eight years.

The League of Conservation Voters gave him a B+ for is first year.

Among the accomplishments::

Reversing Bush policies
Fuel efficiency: Instead of fighting California’s request to the EPA to let the state restrict tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions (something many other states wanted too), Obama’s EPA granted permission and then the president announced new federal rules increasing fuel efficiency 40%, from the current average of 25 mph to 35 mph in 2016.

Regulating GHG: Bush avoided taking action on the Supreme Court decision giving the EPA power to regulate GHG under the Clean Air Act. This EPA is now finalizing a Big Polluter Rule, under which is would be able to restrict emissions from sources emitting more than 25,000 tons per year.

Oil and gas drilling: This Administration blocked Bush’s rule to open the California coast and 77 sites near Arches and Canyonlands national parks to drilling. Interior Sec. Ken Salazar also announced major reforms for oil and gas leasing on public lands.

Bisphenol: The Food & Drug Administration said bisphenol-A in plastics poses a significant danger to babies and young children.

Ozone: The EPA announced new health-based ozone standards.

Yellowstone: The Administration negated a Bush rule allowing more snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park.

Funding clean tech through ARRA
Green technologies will get a strong shot in the arm from stimulus funds, with an estimated $80 billion targeted for everything from weatherization and other efficiency measures to public transit and high speed trains to hybrid and electric cars to electrical grid improvements and renewable sources like wind and solar. Only $5B of that money has been released to date, with another $26B committed. The DOE says the delay was needed to establish rules about how the funds could be spent.

Obama is emphasizing the importance of creating jobs for the energies of the future, but the results will also to cut GHG emissions.

Additional actions
In the first year, the Administration also:
• Said it would catalog GHG emissions from large sources.
• Ordered that 500,000 federal buildings and 600,000 federal vehicles cut GHG emissions.
• Began developing standards for more efficient appliances.
• Required federal agencies to consider climate change in environmental reviews.
• Broadened guidelines for mass transit projects to receive federal funds.
• Signed into law a bill to create 2 million acres of new wilderness that bans logging, mining and new roads in federal forests and deserts in 9 states, including Joshua Tree and Sequoia national parks.

The president doesn’t get a lot of credit for all this – and more – because things were so bad in the Bush years, and the news focus has been on the economy and health care. But we are slowly moving forward despite Congress and the big lobbies. That’s why it is so important to defeat Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution to keep the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. Tell your senators to vote no.

(Sources: Sierra Club, mercurynews.com, Center for American Progress, White House blog)

BASIC nations meet to finalize GHG pledges as EU tries to regain climate leadership

(Photo of Chinese coal plant from Flickr and photographer ishmatt)

In preparation for the Jan. 31 deadline for countries to add GHG targets to the Copenhagen Accord, a new power bloc of four big developing countries, Brazil, South Africa, India and China (known as BASIC), will meet Jan. 25-28 in New Delhi to finalize their action plans and talk about how to get other developing countries to do the same.

Meanwhile the European Union meets this weekend in Spain to find a way to reassert its worldwide leadership on climate change.

The BASIC bloc was the one that met with President Obama behind closed doors at the end of COP15 and hammered out the deal that became the Copenhagen Accord. The EU, wanting a stronger agreement, felt marginalized.

Two follow-up UN meetings are planned, in Bonn this June and Mexico in November, to try to finish the business left undone in Copenhagen. The U.S. has indicated it may host the main polluting countries for discussions sometime soon. That could bring together BASIC and the EU.

Problems with the process
In the wake of the climate conference, variously called “chaotic,” “ugly,” and a “near disaster,” many are questioning the UN Framework’s ability to gather all parties and reach agreement on a follow-up treaty to Kyoto.

Copenhagen attracted far too many people (tens of thousands), critics say, and the appearance of 130 heads of state further complicated things. The conference was “too politically charged for the technocrats and way too technical for the politicians,” Ron Bradley, director of international climate change for the World Resources Institute, told E&E TV.

The U.S. role
In the United States, much rests on the Senate, which should match the House’s 17% cut by 2020 to meet Obama’s pledge at the conference. Obama got the Senators what they wanted wanted, a pledge from China and agreement to international review, but the Senate still seems unlikely to agree on cap-and-trade legislation before the next election the end of 2010.

It’s also unclear how the U.S. will come up with its share of the agreed-upon $100B annually for adaptation and mitigation in poor countries by 2020. Republicans aren’t happy about sending money elsewhere in a bad economy. Some money could be raised from private sources and some may have to be a diversion of other foreign aid funds, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton suggested recently.

Others countries’ pledges
Leading up to the Jan. 31 deadline to add some meat to the Accord with specific targets, Germany said it will go with its most ambitious plan of cutting 40% by 2020. The EU as a whole committed 20% but will talk about whether to go higher in an effort to re-assert its leadership. There is considerable disagreement among the union, which was a problem for them at Copenhagen.

China has committed to a 40-45% reduction in intensity and India to 20-25%.

South Africa pledged at COP15 to cut 34% intensity by 2020 and 42% by 2025. A new study says that will be difficult for the coal-dominated country to accomplish.

And Brazil just passed a law targeting a 39% cut by 2020, which amounts to a 20% reduction from 2005 levels.

Many countries are likely to miss the Jan. 31 deadline, according to Orbeo, a carbon-market consulting firm. Only about 50 of 194 have signed on so far. Both BASIC and the EU are planning to urge those who haven't done so to make their pledges.

Whether or not countries meet the deadline may well tell how serious they are about fighting climate change. And will help us gauge the success of Copenhagen.

(Sources: Bloomberg, PlanetArk, ClimateWire, Greenwire, E&ETV, London Guardian.)

How to talk about global warming when it's freezing and snowing outside

(Photo of January snowstorm from Flickr and Wobblymol/Loraine Davis)

The snow is piling up, the cold is harsh. So what does that say about global warming? The deniers say it means the Earth is cooling, not warming. Some of your family and friends may be having serious doubts, too, about whether the planet is really heating up. It’s hard to believe when it’s so darn cold outside.

Well, it is heating up. You can tell people that with confidence. We just finished the warmest decade on record. Arctic summer ice has melted at a record pace. Last year was among the 5 warmest years ever recorded.

We don’t always feel that warmth. It varies from place to place and much of the change is in the oceans.

We’re talking long-term, widespread trends here, not specific weeks or months or specific regions. Even more important – what people find hard to grasp – we’re talking miniscule changes. Fractions of degrees that add up.

Climate scientists are saying if the average world temperature rises more than 2 degrees Celsius (4.6 Fahrenheit) over what it was is pre-industrial times, we are in for cataclysmic climate change.

Some folks wouldn’t even be convinced of global warming if this year was 4.6 F above last year. They are looking for changes they can feel – and feel quickly – like a 10-degree difference for a whole season. If the summer averaged 90 instead of 80, they might believe.

It doesn’t work that way. It happens slowly and insidiously. We need to look, as scientists do, at the slow, long-term changes that are, for example, causing early spring run-off of mountain ice followed by drought; lack of freezing temperatures to kill off pine beetle infestations; and wildfires exploding because the dry season is longer.

Climate isn’t the same thing as weather. Weather can vary widely, and right now it is particularly cold in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, due in large part to something scientists call Arctic Oscillation. That – to put it very simply -- is when pressure pushes cold weather further south than usual. AO is extreme right now. Britain and much of Western Europe are feeling the brunt of it, as are China and Korea. At the same time, though, the west coast of Greenland is having warm rain and parts of Africa are unusually hot. Alaska and northern Canada are warmer than usual, too.

So, what the weather’s like in Montana or Buffalo in a given month doesn’t tell us what’s happening the world over. In fact a Nobel-prize-winning scientist at the University of Montana predicted this week that his state and others in the Rockies are looking at more short winters, more beetle infestations and more wildfires. Steve Running says that while Montana used to have 10-12 sub-zero days a year, now has just 3-4.

That’s what it’s about. A matter of degree. Not weather you can see and feel changing year to year. But trends that recorded data reveal. That’s why we need scientists. And why we need to look at the results of the cumulative changes.

Winter will still be with us, and it may seem just as severe. But it isn’t, and you’d better believe it.

(Sources: Dot Earth, Climate Progress , The Guardian, AP, Missoulian.

No new coal plants in 2009; reason to celebrate!

(Photo of defunct Seaholm power plant in Austin, Texas, being turned into civic center, from Flickr and photographer Craig Allen.)

The year 2009 was a “coal-free” year. No new coal-fired power plants started construction in the U.S. Thanks go to the Sierra Club’s anti-coal campaign and other environmentalists who have gone to court and protested new plants every step of the way.

Last year 26 U.S. new coal plants were defeated or abandoned, following on the heels of 2 dozen stopped in 2007 and 2008.

In addition to hard work by enviro groups, the cause was helped by the economic slump (which reduced need), a lower price for natural gas (a cleaner alternative), uncertainty about pending climate legislation (to put a price on carbon) and EPA regulation of greenhouse gases, as well as increased interest in clean, renewable sources like wind and solar.

Coal provides power for nearly half the electricity in the U.S., though in the past year its share declined from 49% to 45%.

Grassroots antipathy against coal has grown, not only because it emits the most global warming gases (twice as much as natural gas), but also because of its mining procedures (mountain top removal is becoming more common) and disposal problems (toxic coal ash), as well as health concerns about sulfur dioxide, mercury and nitrogen oxide.

A recent Washington Post poll showed about two-thirds of the public support federal regulations to reduce power plant emissions.

In 2001, 150 new plants were on the drawing board. But since then, 111 have been stopped or dropped. Today, there are 90 proposals. Some companies are saying they are looking at other sources of power. Duke Energy, for example, may steer clear of coal after it completes plants underway in Indiana and North Carolina. And Progress Energy is closing several coal-powered plants in N.C.

Coal use in general is down about 10% over the past year, according to the Energy Information Administration, which forecasts it will bounce back 4% in 2010.

One new plant was given a permit in Michigan the last week of the year, though it still needs certification of necessity. In exchange, the company, Consumers Energy, will close three old plants – with the stipulation it can keep two of them running if the need is there when the plant is finished in about 7 years. The new plant will cut sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury 80-90%, the company maintains. Environmental groups will continue to fight the plant.

EIA sees U.S. electricity demand increasing 26% by 2030, and says coal’s share will remain about the same – at 45.7%. On the other hand, the Electric Power Research Institute forecasts coal’s share in 2030 at 38%, with natural gas and alternative sources growing.

You can view the Sierra Club’s anti-coal campaign map and actions being taken in each state.

(Sources: ClimateWire, Reuters PlanetArk, Sierra Club, EIA,
Detroit Free Press.)

No new coal plants in 2009

No new coal plants last year! Reason to celebrate

The year 2009 was a “coal-free” year. No new coal-fired power plants started construction in the U.S. Thanks go to the Sierra Club’s anti-coal campaign and other environmentalists who have gone to court and protested new plants every step of the way.

Last year 26 U.S. new coal plants were defeated or abandoned, following on the heels of 2 dozen stopped in 2007 and 2008.

In addition to hard work by enviro groups, the cause was helped by the economic slump (which reduced need), a lower price for natural gas (a cleaner alternative), uncertainty about pending climate legislation (to put a price on carbon) and EPA regulation of greenhouse gases, as well as increased interest in clean, renewable sources like wind and solar.

Coal provides power for nearly half the electricity in the U.S., though in the past year its share declined from 49% to 45%.

Grassroots antipathy against coal has grown, not only because it emits the most global warming gases (twice as much as natural gas), but also because of its mining procedures (mountain top removal is becoming more common) and disposal problems (toxic coal ash), as well as health concerns about sulfur dioxide, mercury and nitrogen oxide.

A recent Washington Post poll showed about two-thirds of the public support federal regulations to reduce power plant emissions.

In 2001, 150 new plants were on the drawing board. But since then, 111 have been stopped or dropped. Today, there are 90 proposals. Some companies are saying they are looking at other sources of power. Duke Energy, for example, may steer clear of coal after it completes plants underway in Indiana and North Carolina. And Progress Energy is closing several coal-powered plants in N.C.

Coal use in general is down about 10% over the past year, according to the Energy Information Administration, which forecasts it will bounce back 4% in 2010.

One new plant was given a permit in Michigan the last week of the year, though it still needs certification of necessity. In exchange, the company, Consumers Energy, will close three old plants – with the stipulation it can keep two of them running if the need is there when the plant is finished in about 7 years. The new plant will cut sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury 80-90%, the company maintains. Environmental groups will continue to fight the plant.

EIA sees U.S. electricity demand increasing 26% by 2030, and says coal’s share will remain about the same – at 45.7%. On the other hand, the Electric Power Research Institute forecasts coal’s share in 2030 at 38%, with natural gas and alternative sources growing.

You can view the Sierra Club’s anti-coal campaign map and actions being taken in each state.

(Sources: ClimateWire, Reuters PlanetArk,Sierra Club, EIA,
Detroit Free Press.)