Happy New Year 2024 (and sorry for the forum being offline some hours) /DM
People in D.C. stay snakebit by things too long: Solyndra is long-forgotten outside the Beltway, and every poll shows Americans of all political stripes love solar panels. Heck, there’s a left-right Green Tea coalition pushing for progress in the Southeast. We need you pounding the bully panel, not on the stump but on the roof, day after day — reminding everyone that far more people work in solar than in mining coal.Just maybe, you also could take that new vision and use it to make the climate talks in Paris more than they’ll otherwise be. At the moment they look set to ratify a global temperature increase of 3 or 4 degrees C — that is, to lock us into a kind of slow-motion guaranteed catastrophe. They lack a vision beyond the mediocre (and unenforceable) targets that countries are now producing. But given the changed economics of sun and wind, the talks could be the moment when the world commits to electrifying every house on Earth with a solar panel on the roof. That’s now not only possible, it’s a practical and a moral imperative.
The report puts dollar figures on actions that slow climate change, saying that taking steps now to keep global temperatures down could bring long-term savings for the American taxpayer. According to the report, those savings include: as much as $34 billion on power systems costs in 2050, $3.1 billion in costs avoided as sea levels rise in 2100, and up to $7.4 billion in road adaptation costs in the same year.
Last month, the historically ultra-conservative and oil-rich province of Alberta, Canada, did the unthinkable: It elected a left-wing government. And that new government just made one of its first big moves: It announced a serious clamp-down on climate change.“We need a climate change plan that is bold, ambitious, and will bring Alberta into a new era of responsible energy development and environmental sustainability,” Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said Thursday. “If we get it right, our environmental policy will make us world leaders on this issue, instead of giving us a black eye around the world.”
Climate policy is in the media yet again, but this time it might be different. The set of policy principles released by the Australian Climate Roundtable yesterday are extraordinary for two reasons.First, the principles themselves offer some calm common sense in an arena that has been dominated by ferocious partisan politics and dramatic policy reversals. They could therefore offer a way to break the current policy deadlock and re-establish a bipartisan approach to climate change.Second, the principles are the product of a highly unusual alliance of ten organisations, representing business, unions, environmentalists, and the community. It is unusual that such disparate groups can sit down together to talk, and downright extraordinary that they can agree on a common set of principles. So what is going on here?
In a jampacked day for international climate action, Brazil, the United States, and China — three of the world’s top 10 greenhouse gas emitters — all announced new goals Tuesday. The commitments came in different forms and units, ranging from forest hectares to renewable energy gigawatts — but collectively appeared to represent a new and major step forward towards addressing climate change and cleaning global energy systems.President Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, leaders of the western hemisphere’s two most populous countries, released a statement Tuesday pledging to pursue strong climate change action and cut their emissions. That included an ambitious joint goal for each country to get 20 percent of their electricity by the year 2030 from renewable sources — not including hydropower. In addition, Brazil pledged to restore 12 million hectares of its forests by 2030 (equivalent to 120,000 square kilometers), even as it pursues “policies aimed at eliminating illegal deforestation.”
Our organization, Citizens' Climate Lobby, recently sent 800 volunteers to meet with more than 500 House and Senate offices in Washington. This was our opening in those meetings:"We're here to talk about a policy that can grow the economy, add jobs, increase our competitiveness with China, and make our air and water cleaner."That policy, our volunteers would go on to explain, is to place a gradually rising fee on carbon and return the revenue to households. They also shared the results of a nonpartisan study that found that such a policy would cut CO2 emissions in half within 20 years, while adding 2.8 million jobs to the economy and saving 13,000 lives annually because of reduced air pollution.So what happened when our volunteers engaged Republicans in this conversation?In most instances, there was keen interest, active listening, productive discussions and -- in some cases -- expressions of support for our proposal. In very few instances, however, was there pushback from the staff or member of Congress about the science of climate change.In meeting after meeting with Republican offices, the unspoken agreement seemed to be: "Let's not argue about the science; let's talk about solutions and where we might find common ground."
Marchers carried banners broadcasting a wide range of demands but were united around a single message: that tackling climate change can make society much more fair and equitable.It was the largest march related to climate change in Canadian history, outside of the province of Quebec, attracting more than 10,000 participants according to organizers, though some police estimated the number as high as 15,000.
The White House is unveiling a sweeping effort to increase access to solar power—particularly in low-income communities....As part of the initiative, the Housing and Urban Development Department will dole out technical assistance to affordable-housing organizations as a way of encouraging solar installation. The administration also plans to install 300 megawatts of renewable power in federally subsidized housing.
Sanders and O’Malley are rolling out detailed proposals to slash carbon emissions and transition the U.S. economy to run on wind and solar power instead of coal and oil, challenging Clinton to keep up.At his campaign launch in May featuring 350’s McKibben, Sanders described climate change as a “planetary crisis” and explicitly called for a “tax on carbon” to address it.
Hillary Clinton isn't afraid to talk about global warming—and she wants her fellow Democrats to join her.In closed-door meetings with House and Senate Democrats Tuesday, Clinton jumped at the chance to discuss the hot-button topic in political terms, numerous lawmakers said. Clinton delivered a clear message: Democrats must convince the American public that action to combat Earth's rising temperatures is urgent, and her party can make that case by tailoring their message to different kinds of voters.
Countries are free to set their own targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions which ensures that while there will certainly be a deal at Paris, it will not achieve the internationally agreed goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees celsius – even Ban has conceded that.For Gore, however, that’s not the point of Paris. The agreement is just meant as a kind of cattle prod to get countries moving on the systemic transformation of their economies, away for coal, oil and gas and to energy sources that do not rely on fossil fuels.“Even if it falls a little bit short of the 2-degree threshold it will definitely lend a tremendous amount of momentum to an historic transition that is now well underway, away from carbon based energy and towards renewables efficiency, battery storage and sustainable agriculture and forestry,” Gore said.
In June, Alabama Power, one of the country’s largest electricity providers, filed a petition with the state’s Public Service Commission to add up to 500 megawatts of renewable energy over the next six years. The utility, which serves over 1.4 million customers in Alabama, cited customer demand as a primary reason for adding all this renewable energy — specifically corporate customers.“This program was driven by conversations with customers looking to meet renewable mandates pushed down from their headquarters,” said Tony Smoke, Alabama Power vice president of marketing, in a statement announcing the request. “As a service provider, our focus is to make sure we are providing customers access to choices they want.”
An unprecedented coalition of the UK’s most eminent scientific, medical and engineering bodies says immediate action must be taken by governments to avert the worst impacts of climate change.
With national leaders proving unwilling to act, the governor called on mayors “to light a fire, if I may use that metaphor – in terms of climate change, it’s probably the wrong one.”“We have very powerful opposition that, in at least my country, spends billions on trying to keep from office people such as yourselves and elect troglodytes and other deniers of the obvious science,” Brown said at the conference. New York Mayor Bill De Blasio, speaking after Brown, thanked the California governor for being “the leading voice in the nation” on climate change, and announced his intention to cut greenhouse gas emissions in New York by 40% by 2030, following California’s example.
Prepared under four successive energy ministers, culminating with incumbent Segolene Royal the new rules will see the country adopt a new carbon price, to reach €56 per tonne by 2020 and €100 by 2030.The law also commits the country to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by 2030 on 1990 levels; reduce energy consumption 50 per cent by 2050 compared to 2012; and achieve a 32 per cent of renewable in energy consumption by 2030.
Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist who emerged as the single biggest individual political donor in the 2014 midterm elections, is ramping up his efforts to make climate change a major issue for candidates in 2016.On Friday, Mr. Steyer’s advocacy group, NextGen Climate Action, will announce that for a 2016 candidate to receive its financial backing, he or she must pledge to enact an energy policy that would lead to the generation of half the nation’s electricity from renewable or zero-carbon sources by 2030 – more than tripling the current use of such sources – and 100 percent from clean sources by 2050....Mr. Steyer declined to say how much he planned to spend in the 2016 campaign, but a spokeswoman for NextGen Climate Action said he intended to “double down.” Mr. Steyer spent $74 million in the 2014 midterm elections, donating $67 million to NextGen Climate Action, on a campaign intended to reward candidates who embrace climate change as a major issue, and to punish those who question or deny the established science of human-caused climate change.
Brian Gardner, the editor of the report, said: “Investors currently face a stark choice. Either they will experience impairments to their holdings in fossil-fuel companies should robust regulatory action on climate change take place, or they will face substantial losses across the entire portfolio of manageable assets should little mitigation of climate risk be forthcoming. Charting a path away from these two options should be a strong motivation for long-term investors to engage with companies in their portfolios and to shift investments towards a profitable, low-carbon future.”
In the coming months, Hillary Clinton's campaign is planning to release a series of proposals for dealing with global warming. Her first installment is out Sunday evening, and it calls for a large increase in renewable power.
@bradplumer: If you added Hillary's proposal for renewables to existing nukes, 50% of US electricity would be zero-carbon by 2027: http://t.co/fCOClO4QsN
@rebleber: Tom Steyer statement on Clinton's plan: "an ambitious framework" http://t.co/2eLRRCSWWu
Major companies, including tech giants Apple, Microsoft and Google have teamed up with the White House to urge international governments to reach a strong climate change agreement in Paris this December.They're taking action. On Monday, more than a dozen large companies announced a new partnership with the White House to expand renewable energy use and cut greenhouse gas emissions and water use. The companies, which also include Cargill, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, UPS and Walmart, agreed to back a strong international climate change agreement that is to be negotiated in Paris in early December....By signing the "American Business Act on Climate pledge," the companies are voicing "support for a strong outcome in the Paris climate negotiations," according to the White House.The corporate support for climate change action could affect the climate talks in Paris, since this is a new, influential corporate dynamic on the international stage. The tech companies who have signed on today together represent $1.3 trillion in revenue, based on 2014 data, according to a White House fact sheet.As part of the pledge, each company agreed to take additional action to reduce their emissions.In sum, the announcements total "at least $140 billion in low-carbon investment and more than 1,600 megawatts of new renewable energy," the White House said.Apple, for example, which already runs all of its U.S. operations on renewable energy, said it will bring an additional 280 megawatts of "clean power generation" online by the end of 2016 through investments in several states as well as in Sichuan Province, China.
@EPWBoxer: Boxer, @SenatorReid, @SenWhitehouse, @SenBrianSchatz , and @SenMarkey Speak on #ClimateChange http://t.co/wH3SmF4u0O #WhatstheGOPClimatePlan
The Obama Administration’s final Clean Power Plan rule is expected in early August. This study is the second one in a number of days to spell out how complying with the rule could end up saving customers money on their energy bills. Another study published by the energy research firm Synapse Energy Economics last week found that energy bills in 2030 could be $35 per month lower under a “Clean Energy Future” scenario as compared to business-as-usual. These studies are significant not only for their research value, but also because they push back on the oft-employed talking point that the Clean Power Plan — and renewable energy deployment in general — will cause electricity rates to skyrocket.“As energy is used more efficiently, non-competitive power plants can be retired, construction of new coal plants can be deferred, and transmission and distribution infrastructure investments can be delayed, all of which would lower rates and therefore lower the energy bills of all consumers,” Brown said. “This is a counter-intuitive finding to some who keep hearing from critics that have claimed that it will significantly increase the electricity bills of American families.”
Three hundred sixty-five companies and investors sent letters on Friday to more than two dozen governors supporting the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to significantly reduce carbon emissions from power plants, urging even the most recalcitrant states to recognize the economic and environmental benefits of the new rules....Our support [of the Clean Power Plan] is firmly grounded in economic reality," the companies wrote. "Evidence shows that emissions reductions can be achieved without long-term economic harm or damage to the reliability of our electricity system." The letter also said that businesses need "clear and consistent" climate policies to manage risk and transition to a clean energy economy."The rhetoric is out there that the Clean Power Plan is bad for business, but that is absolutely not the case," Mark Buckley, vice president of environmental affairs at Staples Inc., told InsideClimate News. The office supply store has invested in renewable energy and increased energy efficiency for nearly 14 years. "We've only seen benefits from this strategy," Buckley said.Letters were sent to governors in 29 states that had at least 10 companies participating in the campaign headquartered or operating there. Several of the carbon rules' biggest opponents made the list, such as Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin, all three of which are challenging the legality of the EPA plan in court. Texas, another recipient, has signaled it might also sue when the rules are finalized.
@insideclimate: Poll commissioned by Tom Steyer's group NextGen says 70% of voters in key swing states support goal of at least 50% clean energy by 2030.
You can’t judge [the U.S.] CO2 commitment or any country’s commitment on whether it is sufficient to keep the world below 2°C — because none of them are. As I explained in February and again in July, that’s because 2°C will require deeper and deeper commitments for 2040 and 2050 and beyond until total global emissions hit zero and then beyond that until they go negative. No major country is prepared to take on such long-term obligations, especially given the last quarter-century of relative inaction by so many major countries — especially ours.
@business: GOP presidential candidates attack Obama's Clean Power Plan, but offer no proposals of their own
The agency is betting that conservation and renewables will turn out to be not just the cleanest, but the cheapest energy investments in the decades to come.The wager is that coal's muscles will continue to atrophy, while solar and wind energy providers will continue to flex theirs."Our country's clean energy transition is happening faster than anyone expected, even last year when we proposed the rule," McCarthy said.
@bmcushing: Don’t wanna read 1,560 pages? @bradplumer just Vox-plained the crap out of the #CleanPowerPlan. Real wonky goodness: http://t.co/ojasy12qAX
My point yesterday, which I still believe today, was that you shouldn’t hail or denounce a plan as the strongest ever if it just continues current trends—and that the Clean Power Plan, as EPA acknowledged above, expects to do less than continue current trends. It projects fewer coal retirements and fewer emissions reductions. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones and other writers argued that I was being too harsh, because the reductions over the last decade were expanded by a recession and a fracking boom, and because coal retirements will be harder now that the oldest and most obvious targets have been retired. In this view, if the Clean Power Plan merely prevents too much backsliding—and helps Obama push for a global climate deal in Paris—it will provide a huge service. And a tougher plan could certainly face a tougher time in Congress and in the courts.
Following President Obama’s announcement of his landmark climate change regulations, many of the nation’s news outlets have weighed in on the Clean Power Plan. From Des Moines to New York City, editorial boards at news publications large and small have shared their thoughts on the EPA rule.A wide majority of editorials in the first week applauded the new regulation and climate action overall. As reflections of their communities, however imperfect, local and national newspapers offer insight into the public’s views. Most offered strong support for the step, citing the plan’s impact on combating climate change, improving public health and spurring the clean energy revolution. A handful critiqued the plan.
All Iowa kids will now have access to a world-class science education that includes learning the scientific evidence about human-caused climate change,” said Dr. Maria Filippone, a parent of an Iowa seventh-grader, according to a statement from the advocacy group Climate Parents. Filippone said learning about climate science “will help them develop solutions to the largest problem facing their generation.”...Parents across the country have found different ways of talking about climate change with their children, and some start early. Now, instead of sporadic lessons in earth science classes, from grades 8-12, Iowa’s public high school students will now be learning about the evidence that leads the vast majority of scientists to the conclusion that human activity causes climate change.
Addressing a crowd of scientists in the East Room of the White House, President Obama ticked through a list of threats that confronted the world since he took office: economic calamity, terrorism, nuclear weapons.“But I am convinced that no challenge poses a greater threat to our future and future generations than a changing climate,” he said. “I believe there is such a thing as being too late. That shouldn’t make us hopeless. It’s not as if there’s nothing we can do about it. We can take action.”...As the speech concluded, Obama got emotional, his voice softening. “I don’t want my grandkids not to be able to swim in Hawaii or not to be able to climb a mountain and see a glacier because we didn’t do something about it. I don’t want millions of people’s lives disrupted and this world more dangerous because we didn’t so something about it. That’d be shameful of us.”
