Month: September 2019

Politics and Policy

Greta Thunberg, whose emotional address to the UN Climate Action Summit went viral this week, was recognized by the judges of Sweden’s annual Rights Livelihood awards for “inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action reflecting scientific facts”.  Unfortunately, the Summit accomplished little, although Thunberg’s remark about “fairy tales of eternal economic growth” raised the ire of some.  Many others agreed with her, however.  For example, both Canadian economist and author Peter Victor (Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster) and Canadian writer Naomi Klein (On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal) argued that we must overcome the idea of investing for endless growth to stop climate change.  In anticipation of the Summit, both Al Gore and John Kerry published opinion pieces.  Meanwhile, at a meeting of the Southern States Energy Board in Louisville, Kentucky, chairman and host, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin (R), said Thunberg was “remarkably ill informed.”  Robinson Meyer’s article about her in The Atlantic certainly doesn’t confirm that.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) called on governments to overhaul the rules of the international trade and monetary systems so all countries could carry out the necessary mass investments to decarbonize their economies.  UNCTAD secretary general Mukhisa Kituyi said meeting the UN sustainable development goals “requires rebuilding multilateralism around the idea of a global Green New Deal, and pursuing a financial future very different from the recent past”.  Data firm IHS Markit compiled the first global benchmark for carbon emissions pricing, based on trading under the three most liquid trading schemes: the EU’s, and two from the U.S. (California and RGGI). 

Early in the week, Trump administration officials threatened to withhold federal highway funding from California, arguing that the state has not shown what steps it is taking to improve its air quality.  But California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) responded “We won’t be intimidated by this brazen political stunt,” only to be accused on Thursday of “failing to meet its obligations” to protect the environment.  EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said his agency is “limited” in regard to its “statutory authorities to address the issue” of climate change.  On Friday, hundreds of thousands of people around the world took part in another wave of strikes to demand urgent action on climate change.  New research suggests that banks are shielding themselves from climate change at taxpayers’ expense by shifting riskier mortgages — such as those in coastal areas — off their books and over to the federal government.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said on Tuesday it was forming a climate change task force to better understand how businesses are responding to the issue.  A substantial number of corporations moved ahead with vows to address climate concerns and used the U.N. Climate Summit as a venue for unveiling their targets.

While more than 60 countries have said that they will try to reduce their net carbon emissions to zero by 2050, they accounted for only 11% of global emissions in 2017.  Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) has introduced the bipartisan Market Choice Act which would replace the federal gasoline tax with a tax on carbon emissions from sources of fossil fuel combustion.  Many argue that a carbon tax is not very effective at reducing carbon emissions from transportation.  Jonathan Marshall addressed that criticism at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby website.

Climate and Climate Science

On Wednesday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate.  A good short summary was provided at Science, while Carbon Brief provided an in-depth summary of the key findings.  The Washington Post also covered the release.  The Arctic, of course, is part of the cryosphere, so Richard Hodgkins summarized what has happened there this year and what its impacts will be on the rest of us.  On Monday, Carbon Brief examined the many factors contributing to sea level rise.  Arctic sea ice reached its summer minimum extent for 2019.  This year was the joint-second lowest in the 40-year satellite record, tied with 2007 and 2016.

A study published in the journal Scientific Reports found more than 65,000 lakes, like those on the Greenland ice sheet, on the surface of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.  This is surprising because East Antarctica is much colder and suggests that parts of the East Antarctic ice sheet may be highly sensitive to climate warming.

The IPCC Sixth Synthesis Report (AR6) is not due until June 2022 and like its predecessors, it will rely heavily upon modeling to determine what will likely happen in the future.  An editorial in the journal Nature Climate Change provided a brief look at where the modeling effort stands and considers the interesting findings concerning equilibrium climate sensitivity.

U.N. officials have warned that increasing numbers of farmers in drought-stricken Honduras could be forced to leave their homes unless support is ramped up to help them better cope with extreme weather and climate change.

China’s Ministry of Natural Resources said on Thursday that coastal sea levels were 48 millimeters (1.9 inches) higher last year than the 1993-2011 average, with winter ice floes shrinking.  In addition, average recorded temperatures in December last year were 1.7°C (3.1°F) higher than normal.

Energy

Last week I provided information about Duke Energy announcing plans to attain net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.  It joined 21 other power companies that have pledged to lower their carbon footprints since 2018.  However, many of them plan to keep large coal-fired power plants open for decades to come and/or plan to build new natural gas power plants.  Consequently, some energy analysts are skeptical of the companies’ ability to meet their pledges.  Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced that the state will contribute $20 million to a Dominion Energy plan to replace diesel-powered school buses with electric buses and Ivy Main commented on the “cascade of clean energy announcements” recently in Virginia.  Meanwhile, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, and Southern Co. have spent more than $109 million lobbying lawmakers and officials since the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was unveiled five years ago.

Writing at Yale Environment 360, Michael Standaert reported that growth of wind and solar in China is slowing as government funding for green energy falters and upgrades to the transmission infrastructure lag.  With China’s CO₂ emissions again on the rise, experts worry the world’s largest emitter may fall short of key climate goals.  At the same site, Bruce Lieberman addressed the question: “How to reconcile people’s love affair with their vehicles and society’s need to reduce carbon emissions?”.

For years, the oil and gas industry downplayed the connection between fossil fuel burning and climate change.  Today, however, nearly every major fossil fuel company has acknowledged that carbon emissions help drive global warming, even as President Trump questions the connection.  The latest Energy Trends data confirm that coal accounted for just 0.6% of the UK’s power mix between April and June, marking the first quarter since the 19th century in which coal fell below 1.0% of total generation.

New energy efficiencies in the transportation, building, and industrial sectors can reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by 50%, according to a report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Bolivia will try and capitalize on its large lithium reserves to set up an industrial ecosystem around batteries and other storage technologies

Potpourri

Teenage girls are stepping up for the climate much more than boys.  A survey of more than 100 U.S. climate strike organizers and nearly 200 participants in the Washington, DC, strike found that 68% of the organizers and 58% of the participants were female.  Unfortunately, regardless of gender, teenage activism is accompanied by a lot of harassment and “climate change anxiety.”  David Roberts had a piece in Vox about Greta Thunberg and the seeming ineffectiveness of troll attacks against her.  Although I missed it last week, David Wallace-Wells published a profile of Thunberg in New York Magazine.  Billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick announced on Thursday the second-largest donation ever to an American university: $750 million to the California Tech for environmental study, much of it focused on technological solutions to combat climate change.  At Yale Climate Connections, Amy Brady interviewed author Amitav Ghosh about his new cli-fi novel Gun Island.  Newsweek published a lengthy interview with authors Katharine K. Wilkinson (Between God & Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change) and Robin Veldman (The Gospel of Climate Skepticism: Why Evangelical Christians Oppose Action on Climate Change) about what evangelical Christians think about climate change.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

Joni and I are pretty well settled in our new home, so it is time for me to return to compiling the Roundup each week.  I would like to send a big Thank You! to Joy Loving for filling in for me while I was occupied with other things.  I greatly appreciate it.

Politics and Policy

The Trump administration on Thursday officially revoked California’s authority to set its own emission standards but the state filed a lawsuit on Friday and is preparing for a lengthy legal battle over the issue.  Also on Thursday, Senate Democrats released a report outlining dozens of times the Trump administration has censored or minimized climate science at agencies across the federal government.

The U.N. is convening a climate summit on Monday, September 23, in part to determine whether the world’s nations can muster the resolve to slash carbon emissions as rapidly as scientists say is needed.  Only countries that have promised meaningful new pledges will be allowed to speak, muzzling the U.S.  In advance of that summit, an international group of experts has published the Exponential Roadmap: the 36 most viable solutions to halve greenhouse gas emissions globally by 2030.  They also say that strong civil society movements are needed to drive such change.  Unfortunately, humanity doesn’t have a very good track record, as illustrated in a feature for Nature, where Jeff Tollefson “shows how little progress nations have made towards limiting greenhouse-gas emission”.  He also compares current pledges to what would be needed to meet global climate goals and highlights the gap between these insufficient aims and current progress.  Nevertheless, Bill McKibben could still paint a hopeful picture of the future, as could Jeff Goodell.

Climate Home News deputy editor Megan Darby had a feature entitled “Net-zero: the story of the target that will shape our future.”  A group of more than 500 major institutional investors, which together manage $35 trillion in assets, called Thursday for governments to boost efforts to tackle climate change, warning that failure to do so could have serious economic consequences.  In addition, on Wednesday over 200 investors representing some $16.2 trillion under management called on companies to do their part in halting the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

On Tuesday, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam issued an executive order calling on state agencies and public institutions to create a plan that will make Virginia’s electric grid solely dependent on carbon-free energy sources by 2050.  On the same day, Duke Energy announced that it would accelerate its carbon reduction goals and hoped to hit “net zero carbon emissions” by 2050.  The New Democrat Coalition, made up of moderate congressional Democrats worried about the infeasibility of passing sweeping climate legislation like the Green New Deal, released an 11-page outline of principles on Wednesday, along with a list of bills to back them up.

Potpourri

A solid majority of American teenagers is convinced that humans are changing Earth’s climate and believe that it will cause harm to them personally and to other members of their generation.  Inspired by sixteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, students and others all over the world participated in the Global Climate Strike on Friday.  Bill McKibben gave 23 reasons for participating.  Thunberg and three other teenagers appeared before the House Climate Crisis Committee and a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Wednesday, with Thunberg telling the lawmakers to “listen to the scientists.”  McKibben also had a rather long piece in The New Yorker in which he addressed the question “What if the banking, asset management, and insurance industries moved away from fossil fuels?”  The Economist devoted its September 19 print edition primarily to climate change.  In an editorial to accompany the issue, the editors state that “to conclude that climate change should mean shackling capitalism would be wrong-headed and damaging.” 

Climate and Climate Science

The summer of 2019 was tied with that of 2016 as the hottest on record in the Northern Hemisphere, according to NOAA data released Monday, with a temperature anomaly of 2.03°F (1.13°C) above the 20th-century average.  What’s remarkable about 2019′s record warmth is that it came in the absence of a strong El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean.  Globally, the June-through-August period was the second warmest such period on record with an average that was 1.67°F (0.93°) above the 20th-century average.

Two new modeling studies published in the journal Nature provided a more optimistic view of the future.  One showed that it should be possible to rapidly shut down coal-fired power plants lacking air pollution control devices without causing a spike in global warming due to the reduction of aerosol emissions.  The other suggested that the need for negative emissions (i.e., removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere) to hold temperature increases below 1.5°C is an artifact of the logic employed in modeling studies.  Using the logic framework presented in the study, the authors show that the need to rely on negative emission scenarios will likely be much less than previously thought.

Another paper in the most recent issue of Nature reported on the growth in thickness and area of giant ice slabs beneath the surface snow at middle elevations in Greenland.  They prevent meltwater from percolating into the deeper snow and hasten its runoff to the sea.  As a consequence, Greenland is contributing two to three times as much meltwater to sea level rise than previously thought.

An intensifying marine heat wave in the northeastern Pacific Ocean has raised concerns about a repeat of “The Blob,” which last occurred in 2013-2015, suppressing the growth of small organisms at the base of the ocean food chain and causing wide-spread disruption of fisheries and wildlife.

In Scientific American, Emily Holden wrote: “…the impact of the climate crisis—for patients, doctors and researchers—is already being felt across every specialty of medicine, with worse feared to come.”

Energy

Dominion Energy on Thursday announced plans to build the nation’s largest offshore wind farm off the coast of Virginia — a 220-turbine installation that would power 650,000 homes at peak wind.  Presently, the only off-shore wind farm in the U.S. is next to Block Island in Rhode Island.  Dan Drollete Jr., the editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, visited to see how this experiment in the transfer of European technology has gone.  On a related topic, NIMBY attitudes are having a negative impact on the siting of renewable energy projects.

China’s total planned coal-fired power projects stand at 226.2 GW, the highest in the world and more than twice the amount of new capacity on the books in India, according to data published by environmental groups on Thursday.  Saudi Aramco, is trying to rebrand itself as being environmentally conscious, but it has a long history of obstructionism on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Oil-backed groups have challenged electric companies’ plans to build charging stations across the country, according to utility commission filings reviewed by Politico, waging regulatory and lobbying campaigns against the proposals as a way to fight electric vehicles.

On Thursday, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos pledged to make the company net carbon neutral by 2040 and to buy 100,000 electric delivery vans from U.S. vehicle design and manufacturing startup Rivian Automotive LLC.

Worldwide CO₂ emissions from commercial flights are rising up to 70% faster than predicted by the UN, according to an analysis by the International Council on Clean Transportation.

E&E News asked “Is U.S. shale facing an ‘unmitigated disaster’?”  Experts say the shale oil/gas industry could be headed off a financial cliff and environmental groups are asking who will clean up thousands of wells drilled miles beneath the surface if businesses go bust.  We don’t just rely upon gas and oil for the fuels to power our vehicles.  They also serve as the feedstock and power source for the processes that make the products, from pharmaceuticals to shampoo, that are inherent to modern life.  Robert Service explored the question of how we will make those things as we begin to leave hydrocarbons in the ground.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.