Aug 28, 2009

UN seeks signatures for action against climate change

NAIROBI, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- The UN is calling for millions of online signatures for a climate petition and launching the first-ever Global Climate Week as part of its "Seal the Deal!" campaign, 100 days ahead of a crucial UN climate change summit in Copenhagen (COP 15) in December.

A statement from the Nairobi-based UN Information Center (UNIC) said on Friday that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is leading the call for communities around the world to take advantage of Global Climate Week from September 21-25 to encourage leaders to seal a fair, balanced and effective agreement on climate change.


"A scientifically-credible deal in Copenhagen can catalyze a transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy which is so essential on a planet of six billion people, rising to over nine billion by 2050," said Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

"As such, it will represent perhaps the biggest and most far reaching stimulus package of 2009 and beyond," he said.

Aug 24, 2009

Udall, McCain: Nuclear power must be part of solution to global warming


ESTES PARK — Bipartisan political leaders strolled through Rocky Mountain National Park this morning studying beetle-kill trees and changing vegetation patterns — and agreed that nuclear power must be part of any comprehensive climate-change legislation.

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, an Eldorado Springs Democrat, and Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona are holding a formal hearing in Estes Park today concerning global warming and its impact on national parks.

McCain called on President Barack Obama to come forward with a climate-change proposal to get the discussion started in Congress.

McCain said he would not support legislation without a nuclear component.

"I agree with Sen. McCain that nuclear power has to be part of the mix," Udall said. "It's clear that if we want to respond to climate change, nuclear energy has to be part of the solution."

McCain and Udall weren't in the park long, but Ben Bobowski, chief of resource stewardship for the park, made sure they saw the impact beetles are having on lodgepole pines. The two also viewed willow trees, which are vulnerable to changes in their environment.

Jul 9, 2009

Declaration of the leaders of the major economies forum on energy and climate

Leaders at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy

World leaders at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy. Photograph: Haraz N Ghanbari/AP

We, the leaders of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States met as the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in L'Aquila, Italy, on July 9, 2009, and declare as follows:

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. As leaders of the world's major economies, both developed and developing, we intend to respond vigorously to this challenge, being convinced that climate change poses a clear danger requiring an extraordinary global response, that the response should respect the priority of economic and social development of developing countries, that moving to a low-carbon economy is an opportunity to promote continued economic growth and sustainable development, that the need for and deployment of transformational clean energy technologies at lowest possible cost are urgent, and that the response must involve balanced attention to mitigation and adaptation.

We reaffirm the objective, provisions and principles of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Recalling the Major Economies Declaration adopted in Toyako, Japan, in July 2008, and taking full account of decisions taken in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007, we resolve to spare no effort to reach agreement in Copenhagen, with each other and with the other Parties, to further implementation of the Convention.

Our vision for future cooperation on climate change, consistent with equity and our common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, includes the following:

1. Consistent with the Convention's objective and science:

Our countries will undertake transparent nationally appropriate mitigation actions, subject to applicable measurement, reporting, and verification, and prepare low-carbon growth plans. Developed countries among us will take the lead by promptly undertaking robust aggregate and individual reductions in the midterm consistent with our respective ambitious long-term objectives and will work together before Copenhagen to achieve a strong result in this regard. Developing countries among us will promptly undertake actions whose projected effects on emissions represent a meaningful deviation from business as usual in the midterm, in the context of sustainable development, supported by financing, technology, and capacity-building. The peaking of global and national emissions should take place as soon as possible,
recognizing that the timeframe for peaking will be longer in developing countries, bearing in mind that social and economic development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities in developing countries and that low-carbon development is indispensible to sustainable development. We recognize the scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2 degrees C. In this regard and in the context of the ultimate objective of the Convention and the Bali Action Plan, we will work between now and Copenhagen, with each other and under the Convention, to identify a global goal for substantially reducing global emissions by 2050. Progress toward the global goal would be regularly reviewed, noting the importance of frequent, comprehensive, and accurate inventories.

We will take steps nationally and internationally, including under the Convention, to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emissions by forests, including providing enhanced support to developing countries for such purposes.

2. Adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change is essential. Such effects are already taking place. Further, while increased mitigation efforts will reduce climate impacts, even the most aggressive mitigation efforts will not eliminate the need for substantial adaptation, particularly in developing countries which will be disproportionately affected. There is a particular and immediate need to assist the poorest and most vulnerable to adapt to such effects. Not only are they most affected but they have contributed the least to the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Further support will need to be mobilized, should be based on need, and will include resources additional to existing financial assistance. We will work together to develop, disseminate, and transfer, as appropriate, technologies that advance adaptation efforts.

3. We are establishing a Global Partnership to drive transformational low-carbon, climate-friendly technologies. We will dramatically increase and coordinate public sector investments in research, development, and demonstration of these technologies, with a view to doubling such investments by 2015, while recognizing the importance of private investment, public-private partnerships and international cooperation, including regional innovation centers. Drawing on global best practice policies, we undertake to remove barriers, establish incentives, enhance capacity-building, and implement appropriate measures to aggressively accelerate deployment and transfer of key existing and new low-carbon technologies, in accordance with national circumstances. We welcome the leadership of individual countries to spearhead efforts among interested countries to advance actions on technologies such as energy efficiency; solar energy; smart grids; carbon capture, use, and storage; advanced vehicles; high-efficiency and lower-emissions coal technologies; bio-energy; and other clean technologies. Lead countries will report by November 15, 2009, on action plans and roadmaps, and make recommendations for further progress. We will consider ideas for appropriate approaches and arrangements to promote
technology development, deployment, and transfer.

4. Financial resources for mitigation and adaptation will need to be scaled up urgently and substantially and should involve mobilizing resources to support developing countries. Financing to address climate change will derive from multiple sources, including both public and private funds and carbon markets.
Additional investment in developing countries should be mobilized, including by creating incentives for and removing barriers to funding flows. Greater predictability of international support should be promoted. Financing of supported actions should be measurable, reportable, and verifiable. The expertise of existing institutions should be drawn upon, and such institutions should work in an inclusive way and should be made more responsive to developing country needs. Climate financing should complement efforts to promote development in accordance with national priorities and may include both program-based and project-based approaches. The governance of mechanisms disbursing funds should be transparent, fair, effective, efficient, and reflect balanced representation. Accountability in the use of resources should be ensured. An arrangement to match diverse funding needs and resources should be created, and utilize where appropriate, public and private expertise. We agreed to further consider proposals for the establishment of international funding arrangements, including the proposal by Mexico for a Green Fund.

5. Our countries will continue to work together constructively to strengthen the world's ability to combat climate change, including through the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate. In particular, our countries will continue meeting throughout the balance of this year in order to facilitate agreement in Copenhagen.

Jul 8, 2009

Developing Nations Rebuff G-8 on Curbing Pollutants


L’AQUILA, Italy — The world’s biggest developing nations, led by China and India, refused Wednesday to commit to specific goals for slashing heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting the drive to build a global consensus by the end of this year to reverse the threat of climate change.

As President Obama arrived for three days of talks with other leaders of the Group of 8 nations, negotiators for 17 leading polluters abandoned targets in a draft agreement for the meetings here. But negotiators embraced a goal of preventing temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and developing nations agreed to make “meaningful” if unspecified reductions in emissions.

The mixed results underscored the challenges for Mr. Obama as he tries to use his first summit meeting of the Group of 8 powers to force progress toward a climate treaty. With Europe pressing for more aggressive action and Congress favoring a more restrained approach, Mr. Obama finds himself navigating complicated political currents at home and abroad.

If he cannot ultimately bring along developing countries, no climate deal will be effective.

The debate over warming dominated the opening of the summit meeting, but the G-8 nations also tackled the global economic recession, Middle East peace, the war in Afghanistan and development in Africa. Mr. Obama invited his colleagues to a nuclear security conference in Washington in March and prepared to announce a $15 billion program to combat world hunger. And in a statement, the leaders said they “deplore postelectoral violence” in Iran, and they pressed Tehran for a diplomatic solution to the standoff on its nuclear program.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France told reporters late Wednesday that the major powers would give talks with Iran until September to make progress; but “then we will have to take decisions,” he said.

Mr. Obama put climate change front and center by scheduling a meeting on the sidelines of the main summit talks on Thursday and inviting nine other nations that, along with the G-8, pump out 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. American officials called the results a step forward in the arduous process intended to lead to a worldwide climate treaty at a conference in Copenhagen in December.

But the impasse over the 2050 targets demonstrated again the most vexing problem in reaching a consensus on climate change: the longstanding divisions between developed countries like the United States, Europe and Japan on one side, and developing nations like China, India, Brazil and Mexico on the other.

While the richest countries have produced the bulk of the pollution blamed for climate change, developing countries are producing increasing volumes of gases. But the developing countries argue that their climb out of poverty should not be halted to fix the damage done by industrial countries.

Jun 22, 2009

FACTBOX-Climate change bill pending in U.S. House

June 22 (Reuters) - Climate change legislation pending in Congress would cost U.S. households only about $175 annually in higher energy and consumer prices, far less than the $3,100 "burden" opponents have claimed would result, according to an estimate by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives hope they can soon pass a climate change bill that would significantly reduce industry emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases associated with global warming.

Here are details of the House Democratic version of the bill:


Here are details of the House Democratic version of the bill:

* U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would be reduced 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels. This is less ambitious than the 20 percent initially sought, but slightly more aggressive than the approximately 15 percent Obama proposed.

The legislation sets further pollution reduction goals -- 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050, with the latter just slightly higher than Obama suggested.

* About 85 percent of pollution permits under the program would be given out, and around 15 percent would be sold. Local electric distribution companies would get 30 percent of all permits for free and would have to protect consumers from electricity price increases.

Other recipients of free permits: 15 percent to cement, steel, glass and other heavy industries; 9 percent to local natural gas distribution companies; 3 percent for firms making electric and advanced technology vehicles and 2 percent for oil refiners.

The free permits are designed to ease industry's burden and prevent large energy price increases for consumers. In 2026, many of the free permits would begin switching to those that much be purchased. Obama wanted all of the permits to be sold, but has indicated flexibility.

* Under "cap and trade," fewer and fewer pollution permits would be available to companies over the next several decades. Also, companies that pollute less than their limit could sell some of their permits to others struggling to meet environmental requirements.

Continued...


Jun 19, 2009

The Carbon Counter


The Carbon Counter

National debt used to be the big number we all lived in fear of. Now it's greenhouse gases.


Climate change is likely to have all sorts of nasty consequences over the next century—among them, according to a brand-new report from the U.S. Global Change Research program, an increase in torrential downpours in the American northeast.

So it was uncomfortably fitting that a major climate-consciousness-raising event took place in just such a downpour. As reporters and dignitaries huddled under leaky tents just outside New York's Madison Square Garden on Thursday, Deutche Bank switched on its mammoth Carbon Counter billboard. The counter, towering 70 feet above busy Seventh Avenue and dramatically visible to hundreds of thousands of commuters who take the train to and from Penn Station, displays a real-time count of heat-trapping greenhouse gases we're pumping into the atmosphere—about 2 billion metric tons every month, added to the 3.6 trillion tons already floating around up there.

Jun 17, 2009

U.S. Senate panel approves comprehensive energy bill

U.S. President Barack Obama has made transforming the country into a leader in clean energy innovation a key goal of his administration. During the campaign, he set a goal to generate 25 percent of power from renewable energy by 2025.

The Senate legislation's mandate is much less aggressive, mandating that power plants meet targets to gradually produce more renewable power, beginning with 3 percent of their output between 2011 and 2013 and rising to 15 percent between 2021 and 2039.

Sanders and other lawmakers have attacked the panel's renewable power mandate as too low, while others have said it will hurt those states without much solar or wind resources.

Jun 16, 2009

New Assessment of National, Regional Impacts of Climate Change

Climate Change ImpactsPDFPrintE-mail

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States: Report Home Page

The most comprehensive, authoritative report on Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States was released on Tuesday June 16th, 2009. This report presents, in plain language, the science and impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. It focuses on climate change impacts on U.S. regions and various aspects of society and the economy such as energy, water, agriculture, and health. A comprehensive series of web-pages were developed that highlight the findings and major conclusions of the report and contain complete downloadable files of the report, as well as a host of additional content on climate change impacts on the U.S

Apr 22, 2009

How to reduce your impact on the planet

from Webware.com by 

Earth Day happens one day a year. But it should spur us to do our best to reduce our impact on the environment for the other 364.

I've picked five sites that provide a framework for how to live your life in a way that's better for the environment. Whether it's car-pooling or simply eating the right foods, you'll find ways to be a more responsible Earthling.

The tools of the trade

Carbon Diet

Though there are countless "carbon calculators" on the Web that try to measure your carbon footprint, the Carbon Diet does it better.

When you start using Carbon Diet, you'll be required to input your usage of electricity, natural gas, and vehicle fuel. Simply input your monthly bill amounts and Carbon Diet will do the rest. It then calculates your impact on the environment. You can go back each month to update your usage. As you input more information about your activities, it continuously modifies your impact, displaying graphs and charts to give you a visual outline of what you're doing to the planet.

The best tool on Carbon Diet is its "analysis" feature, which examines your activities and gives you tips toward becoming a more responsible environmentalist. It told me that I need to stop driving so much. I also need to turn the TV off instead of leaving it on for most of the day.

You'll learn a lot from Carbon Diet. It's the best carbon calculator I've seen. Try it out.

The Daily Green

The Daily Green is the best resource for green living on the Web. It delves into healthy recipes, better living, low-impact gardening, and more.

When you first go to The Daily Green, you'll probably have trouble finding what you're looking for simply because there's so much content to consult. If you start with the news, you'll find a host of interesting articles and discussions on topics that relate to the green lifestyle. The section is also filled with articles on political news surrounding environmental concerns.

But the most value you'll get from The Daily Green can be found in the site's "Tips and Advice" tab, which shows you ways to save money with green products. The site also provides advice on how to turn your home green so you become a more responsible environmentalist.

If you want to change the way you eat, The Daily Green also has green recipes. All of the dishes contain organic products, like soy milk and basmati rice. The site claims green food is just as delicious as dishes that don't use organic ingredients. I can't corroborate that claim--the recipes didn't sound all that appetizing to me.

The Daily Green is the perfect destination to immerse yourself in the green lifestyle. It makes you a better inhabitant of Earth.

GoodGuide

GoodGuide is a product recommendation service that helps you find products that are not only better for the environment, but better for you, as well.

With GoodGuide, you can search for over 70,000 products, including food, personal care items, toys, and household goods. The service will tell you which products are harmful to the environment. It will let you know which items are good for your health. And it will inform you about products that are perpetuating some of society's biggest problems.

I searched GoodGuide to find out what kind of impact some of the products I use in my home have. Luckily, most of the products I use were rated highly and have little negative impact on my health or the environment. But I found that some products--even those that are relatively well-known--were produced with sweat shop labor. One toy I found, the Star Wars Mini Basketball Hoop Set, contained harmful chemicals. Without GoodGuide, I would have never known that.

GoodGuide is one of the best services I've ever used. And I've used a lot of services. You need to try it out. You (and society) will be happy you did.

GuideMeGreen

If you really want to reduce your impact on the environment, you need to start supporting green companies. GuideMeGreen's directory helps you do just that.

Whether it's clothing or travel, GuideMeGreen directs you to all the companies in the U.S. that provide a green alternative to some of your favorite brands. That said, the majority of the companies on the site are brands you've probably never heard of. But that doesn't mean they don't provide a service to those who want to go green. Quite the contrary, you'll find that most of the products the companies offer are comparable to the products you use now.

GuideMeGreen is a fine directory that's designed well and delivers on its promise of exposing you to green companies. Though you might not find enough options to replace all the products you currently use, you will probably find a few.

The Nature Conservancy

If you want to do more than change your habits, The Nature Conservancy provides an outlet to do more for your planet. You can donate funds or volunteer through the site to help the organization achieve its goals.

The Nature Conservancy works around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters. It uses scientists to find those areas and partners with local communities to ensure government and private organizations don't use the land for commercial construction.

If you donate funds to The Nature Conservancy, they go toward helping to pay for its operation worldwide. But if you volunteer, you can plant trees native to your area, help clean up preserved lands, and educate the public on the focus of the organization. All the while, you can help achieve the goal of reducing your impact on the planet.

Mar 10, 2009

How to Distribute $646 Billion in Carbon Market Revenues?

By JAMES KANTER
RainforestReutersShould revenues from any potential carbon market in the United States be used to help preserve endangered ecosystems elsewhere?

Under a cap-and-trade system, polluters buy permits, usually from government authorities, to compensate for their emissions. Such a system would raise hundreds of billions of dollars in an economy the size of the United States.

So, what should governments do with that money?

President Barack Obama said in his recent budget proposal that any revenues raised in the United States (estimated at $646 billion between 2012 to 2019) should be used for alternative energy development — and tax breaks for some citizens.

That last bit makes sense, given that companies facing little competition, like big utilities, can easily pass on the costs of buying the permits, which could lead to sharp price increases on everyday goods — and on electricity in particular. Warren Buffett warned about this consequence last night.

Mr. Buffett’s point is reinforced by the experience in Europe, where some of the most coal-intensive utilities raised prices and earned windfall profits — even when the permits were issued free.

But when it comes to contemplating what to do with the money from a cap-and-trade system, there are broader equity issues to consider – like how much to help poorer, neighboring countries adapt to the effects of climate change created by emissions from the rich world.

David Cleary, the director of conservation planning for South America atThe Nature Conservancy, has suggested using some carbon market revenuesto support initiatives south of the American border.

First, Mr. Cleary says the United States should follow the example of the Germans, who channel a small proportion of cap-and-trade revenues to development projects abroad.

Second, he says that American companies should be able to meet some of their requirements to hold permits by generating credits from projects, based in South America, that seek to offset greenhouse gases.

“South of the border, there are millions of hectares of threatened grasslands and tropical forests, and millions of people — farmers, indigenous peoples, communities of every kind — living in and around degraded ecosystems they’d love to be restoring. It shouldn’t be beyond the bounds of human ingenuity to put this particular two-and-two together and bolt a hemispheric dimension onto a U.S. cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.”

Mar 1, 2009

Obama’s Backing Raises Hopes for Climate Pact


March 1, 2009

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Until recently, the idea that the world’s most powerful nations might come together to tackle global warming seemed an environmentalist’s pipe dream.

The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, was widely viewed as badly flawed. Many countries that signed the accord lagged far behind their targets in curbing carbon dioxide emissions. The United States refused even to ratify it. And the treaty gave a pass to major emitters in the developing world like China and India.

But within weeks of taking office, President Obama has radically shifted the global equation, placing the United States at the forefront of the international climate effort and raising hopes that an effective international accord might be possible. Mr. Obama’s chief climate negotiator, Todd Stern, said last week that the United States would be involved in the negotiation of a new treaty — to be signed in Copenhagen in December — “in a robust way.”

That treaty, officials and climate experts involved in the negotiations say, will significantly differ from the agreement of a decade ago, reaching beyond reducing greenhouse gas emissions and including financial mechanisms and making good on longstanding promises to provide money and technical assistance to help developing countries cope with climate change.

The perception that the United States is now serious has set off a flurry of diplomacy around the globe. “The lesson of Kyoto is that if the U.S. isn’t taking it seriously there is no reason for anyone else to,” said Bill McKibben, who runs the environmental organization www.350.org.

This week the United Nation’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, will make the rounds in Washington to discuss climate issues. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is organizing a high-level meeting on climate and energy. Teams from Britain and Denmark have visited the White House to discuss climate issues. In China, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made climate a central focus of her visit and proposed a partnership between the United States and China. And a special envoy from China is coming soon.

But a global treaty still faces serious challenges in Washington and abroad, and the negotiations will be a test of how far the United States and other nations are prepared to go to address climate change at a moment when economies around the world are unspooling. The global recession itself is expected to result in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as manufacturing and other polluting industries shrink, lessening the pressure on countries to take action.

“The No. 1 thing will be for everyone to see that the U.S. is on an urgent and transformational path to a low carbon economy — that would have a galvanizing effect,” said John Ashton, the British foreign secretary’s special representative for climate change.

The Obama administration has said that it will push through federal legislation this year to curb carbon dioxide emissions in the United States — a promise that Mr. Obama reiterated Tuesday in his speech to Congress.

The Kyoto Protocol has been a touchstone of the environmental movement. Thirty-seven developed countries, including Japan, Australia and nations in the European Union, ratified the accord, agreeing to reduce or limit the growth of carbon dioxide emissions by specified amounts. President George W. Bush, pressed by the Senate, rejected the accord, because countries like China were not also subject to mandatory emission levels. China and India also refused to ratify the protocol.

At the tail end of his administration, Mr. Bush made tentative overtures toward China and other countries on climate matters. In 2007, he convened a meeting of countries that were major emitters of greenhouse gases. Later, in bilateral economic talks, China and the United States agreed that they would cooperate on clean technology development and some other climate issues.

But Kyoto was shaped largely by climate scientists and environment ministers, not the higher-level officials now laying the groundwork. And even many who participated in the earlier accord now say they see it as weak and naïve about political and economic realities. Of the countries that signed, more than half are not on track to meet their targets according to 2008 United Nations data, including Germany, Ireland and Canada.

“In Kyoto we made a lot of promises to each other, but we hadn’t done the domestic politics,” Mr. Ashton said, “and that is why Kyoto — though a valuable step forward — has ultimately been so fragile.”

The talks on the new treaty, said Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “provides an opportunity to fill this gap that we’ve seen, and this time perform up to expectations.”

The 1997 protocol was a narrow accord about the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses linked to global warming. The new agreement will need to address how those reductions can be achieved in a way that takes account of their effects on energy supplies and economies — especially at a time of global recession.

Negotiating the treaty when countries are under extreme economic stress presents challenges, Mr. de Boer acknowledged. Politicians in Italy and Canada have complained that it will be difficult to clean up industries to meet their Kyoto goals because of the economic downturn. But others say a global industrial recession, in which emissions tend to drop anyway and countries are poised to spend billions to stimulate economies, is the time to craft a global effort to combat global warming.

With developing countries like China and India emerging as major carbon dioxide emitters in the past few years, experts said that if the new treaty was to be effective, every nation would have to accept emissions limits. “If one part of the world acts and the other does not, that doesn’t really generate a climate benefit,” said Mr. de Boer, who is responsible for organizing the December meetings.

Developed countries would most likely get binding numerical targets, as some did in Kyoto. Developing countries, which were exempt under Kyoto, would probably be given less stringent goals, though it is not clear if these will be longer-term numerical targets or some other mechanism that ties allowable emissions to economic growth.

Mr. Obama has said the United States will lead the effort, but over the next months, he will have to show what exactly that means. A good first step, environmentalists say, would be to commit to trying to limit warming to two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial temperatures, an ambitious goal that the European Union has adopted but that the Bush administration steadfastly avoided. It could also pledge to reduce emissions by 50 or 80 percent by 2050.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that humans could largely adapt to two degrees of warming, but that a greater temperature increase could cause far more serious consequences, from a dangerous rise in sea levels to mass extinctions.

Climate experts added that the United States did not need to have in place national legislation to limit greenhouse gasses, a process that could take months, to negotiate in Copenhagen. “It’s not just about analyzing a piece of legislation,” Mr. Ashton said. “It’s about the feeling you get if you’re a leader sitting in Beijing. It’s like love; you know it when you feel it.”

A more complex issue is whether negotiators will retain the system of trading carbon credits that is central to the Kyoto Protocol, a kind of global commodities market for carbon.

That system allows developed countries that produce more than their allotted share of emissions to balance their emissions budget by investing in projects that curtail emissions elsewhere. Such projects might include the cleaning up of a coal power plant in China, planting trees in Africa or converting pig manure to electricity in the Netherlands. The same cap and trade concept is now used in Europe’s emissions.

But as the European Union and the countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol have tried such projects over the past few years, problems have emerged. Most notably, it is hard to determine the emissions-reducing value of carbon credit projects, making it easy to game the system. The new treaty, experts say, will also have to broaden Kyoto’s focus beyond industrial emissions to activities like airline travel, one of the fastest-growing sources of carbon emissions. In the end, it will also have to include financial mechanisms and technical assistance to help developing countries cope with climate change.

“This is not just about emissions but about creating a massive investment in a new global energy economy” that includes forests, oceans and the transfer of technology, said Angela Anderson, director of the Pew Environment Group’s Global Warming Campaign.

American negotiators were limited in Kyoto by a Senate resolution saying that the United States would not accept numerical caps unless China did as well. But Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said, “There has been a sea change in the Senate,” and he added that he believed that there were enough votes — Democratic and Republican — to ratify a strong treaty.

What is unclear is whether politicians will be willing to commit to large enough changes to have a significant effect on global warming. “The Bush administration set the bar very low,” Mr. McKibben said.

Andrew C. Revkin contributed reporting.

Feb 16, 2009

Dark Green Doomsayers

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Dark Green Doomsayers

Sunday, February 15, 2009; Page B07

A corollary of Murphy's Law ("If something can go wrong, it will") is: "Things are worse than they can possibly be." Energy Secretary Steven Chu, an atomic physicist, seems to embrace that corollary but ignores Gregg Easterbrook's "Law of Doomsaying": Predict catastrophe no sooner than five years hence but no later than 10 years away, soon enough to terrify but distant enough that people will forget if you are wrong.

Chu recently told the Los Angeles Times that global warming might melt 90 percent of California's snowpack, which stores much of the water needed for agriculture. This, Chu said, would mean "no more agriculture in California," the nation's leading food producer. Chu added: "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going."

No more lettuce for Los Angeles? Chu likes predictions, so here is another: Nine decades hence, our great-great-grandchildren will add the disappearance of California artichokes to the list of predicted planetary calamities that did not happen. Global cooling recently joined that lengthening list.



In the 1970s, "a major cooling of the planet" was "widely considered inevitable" because it was "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950" (New York Times, May 21, 1975). Although some disputed that the "cooling trend" could result in "a return to another ice age" (the Times, Sept. 14, 1975), others anticipated "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age" involving "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation" (Science News, March 1, 1975, and Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976, respectively). The "continued rapid cooling of the Earth" (Global Ecology, 1971) meant that "a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery" (International Wildlife, July 1975). "The world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age" (Science Digest, February 1973). Because of "ominous signs" that "the Earth's climate seems to be cooling down," meteorologists were "almost unanimous" that "the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century," perhaps triggering catastrophic famines (Newsweek cover story, "The Cooling World," April 28, 1975). Armadillos were fleeing south from Nebraska, heat-seeking snails were retreating from Central European forests, the North Atlantic was "cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool," glaciers had "begun to advance" and "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter" (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1974).

Speaking of experts, in 1980 Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford scientist and environmental Cassandra who predicted calamitous food shortages by 1990, accepted a bet with economist Julian Simon. When Ehrlich predicted the imminent exhaustion of many nonrenewable natural resources, Simon challenged him: Pick a "basket" of any five such commodities, and I will wager that in a decade the price of the basket will decline, indicating decreased scarcity. Ehrlich picked five metals -- chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten -- that he predicted would become more expensive. Not only did the price of the basket decline, the price of all five declined.

An expert Ehrlich consulted in picking the five was John Holdren, who today is President Obama's science adviser. Credentialed intellectuals, too -- actually, especially -- illustrate Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."

As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

An unstated premise of eco-pessimism is that environmental conditions are, or recently were, optimal. The proclaimed faith of eco-pessimists is weirdly optimistic: These optimal conditions must and can be preserved or restored if government will make us minimize our carbon footprints and if government will "remake" the economy.

Because of today's economy, another law -- call it the Law of Clarifying Calamities -- is being (redundantly) confirmed. On graphs tracking public opinion, two lines are moving in tandem and inversely: The sharply rising line charts public concern about the economy, the plunging line follows concern about the environment. A recent Pew Research Center pollasked which of 20 issues should be the government's top priorities. Climate change ranked 20th.

Real calamities take our minds off hypothetical ones. Besides, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.

georgewill@washpost.com

Feb 13, 2009

Next Challenge on Stimulus: Spending All That Money

By STEPHEN POWER and NEIL KING JR.


Minnesota's Sage Electrochromics Inc. has been ready for months to move on just the sort of project the Obama administration hopes will bolster the U.S. economy: a $65 million factory that would make energy-saving windows and generate 250 new jobs.

So what's holding it up? The Energy Department, whose fledgling loan-guarantee office has yet to approve a single project, including the proposed Sage glass factory, since the loan program launched in early 2007.

President Barack Obama plans to rely heavily on agencies like the Energy Department to approve contracts and issue loan guarantees and grants at a record clip in the $789 billion stimulus plan.

But there are signs that parts of the federal bureaucracy will need an overhaul to handle the huge workload heading their way. Such worries are apparent at the Energy Department, which will play a key role in Mr. Obama's bid to revive the economy and wean the country off oil.

Associated Press

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, with President Barack Obama, says he plans to speed up spending at the DOE.

The stimulus bill nearing a final vote in Congress could pump as much as $170 billion into projects such as highways, Internet broadband and public-housing repairs. Of that, about a quarter -- or some $40 billion -- could go to the Energy Department. The agency would be under the gun to swiftly hand out money to projects that would modernize the electric grid, build electric cars and make homes and buildings more energy efficient.

The new energy secretary, Steven Chu, has barely moved into his office overlooking the Smithsonian Castle. He says he'll have to transform how parts of his agency work if the president's stimulus plan is to succeed.

"We've got to do it," Mr. Chu said in an interview. "Otherwise it's just going to be a bust."

Other agencies face steep challenges, too. An obscure Commerce Department office with a $19 million budget and fewer than 20 grant officers could end up in charge of $7 billion in grants to expand Internet access in rural areas. A Congressional Budget Office report said it could take eight years for those grants to be issued because the amount of money would "far exceed" the agency's traditional budget and require the deployment of technology that is "not widely available today."

The spending demands could prove particularly taxing at the DOE. The Energy Department has had limited experience pulling off big, transformative energy projects. Most of the department's $25 billion budget goes toward maintaining the nation's nuclear stockpile, cleaning up former weapons plants, and doing basic scientific research.

"DOE is going to have to dramatically change how it does business if it hopes to push all this money out the door," says Karen Harbert, a former senior Energy Department official who now directs the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's lobbying efforts on energy issues. "They are going to need more people, more oversight and more freedom to waive regulations."

History of Delays

The department has a history of delays and of letting costs spiral. It has missed so many deadlines for setting energy-efficiency standards for appliances, for example, that Mr. Obama last week ordered the agency to get it done by August this year. The approval process for guaranteeing loans to energy projects, meanwhile, has dragged on for roughly two years and counting. And last month, the Government Accountability Office cited the agency's "inadequate management and oversight of its contractors" when it put the department on its list of agencies at "high risk" for waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement.

Gregory Friedman, the DOE's inspector general, whose office acts as the agency's in-house watchdog, knows the department's weak spots well after holding the position for more than a decade. The House version of the stimulus bill before Congress gives Mr. Friedman's office $15 million to track how all the new money coming into the DOE will be spent.

"Forty billion dollars is a huge amount of money," says Mr. Friedman of the DOE's potential windfall. "Absorbing the money, making sure it's spent appropriately and gets into the hands of the right recipients...are going to be significant challenges."

A Four-Week Window

Mr. Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose last job was running the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, says one of his first priorities at the DOE is getting projects that are already in the pipeline, like the Sage glass factory, up and running. To agency employees who say such projects need months of additional consideration, "we're saying, 'Tell us what you need to do in order to get them [decided] in four weeks,'" Mr. Chu says.

Sage and more than a dozen other companies have so far labored for more than two years to win loan guarantees through a program authorized by Congress in 2005. Wary of financing projects that might default, the Bush administration took another two years to adopt regulations governing the program. Congress eventually authorized the DOE to issue $42.5 billion in loan guarantees for ventures that many lenders would otherwise consider too risky.

The program is now seen as a test of the department's ability to speed up projects that could both create jobs and help steer the country away from a reliance on oil. But the experience of some of the companies still awaiting their loan guarantees raises questions about whether the DOE will be able to radically change its ways fast enough.

Sage Electrochromics makes windows that can get darker or lighter on command, making rooms easier to cool in summer or warmer in winter. Sage first approached the Energy Department in late 2006 about securing a loan guarantee that would allow the company to build its first commercial-scale glass factory about 40 miles south of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

[department of energy]

In October 2007, Sage was one of 16 companies that won initial approval. The company, which is seeking a $65 million loan guarantee, is now awaiting a ruling from the DOE on whether it will have to pay a fee for the service. After that comes a due-diligence review that will require a team of lawyers, engineers and market researchers, and could cost up to $1 million, according to Sage estimates.

"I'm guessing that we will have the money by the end of the year at the earliest," says Mike Kennedy, Sage's chief financial officer. "There has to be a way to do this faster."

In Massachusetts, Beacon Power Co. has stood in line for 25 months to win approval for a $50 million loan guarantee that would let the company break ground on an electricity-storage plant about 30 miles southeast of Albany, N.Y. The plant would absorb power and feed it back onto the grid when the supply drops, a function that traditional power plants do much less efficiently.

The vetting has been so thorough, says Beacon spokesman Gene Smith, that the company to date has supplied the Energy Department with 96 documents, which together fill six thick, three-ring binders. One of the documents is a draft 87-page environmental-impact study for the proposed two-acre site. That study required Beacon to hire archaeologists to scour the site for signs of prehistoric remains. The team found a mound of debris from a century ago that was deemed of no historic value.

David Frantz, who directs the DOE's loan-guarantee program, said he couldn't comment on specific applications, but said the agency is moving to "significantly shorten the cycle time from application to loan guarantee to ensure good projects get funded quickly."

On Thursday, Andy Karsner, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy under President George W. Bush, told a Senate panel that a combination of "bureaucratic dysfunction," "organizational intransigence," and "institutional barriers" had contributed to the agency's "painfully slow" progress on loan-guarantee applications in recent years.