CC NEWS FOR APRIL 2017
On March 13 the Sierra Club posted an article by Jason Mark titled, IS THE U.S. GOING TO PULL OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT? AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF IT DOES? He wrote,
“The Trump administration’s promised assault on President Obama’s climate action legacy is well underway. This week, President Trump is expected to sign an executive order directing the Environmental Protection Agency to start unraveling the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s effort to reduce carbon pollution from power plants. The White House is scheming with Big Auto to roll back Obama-era increases in vehicle fuel efficiency as it conspires with Congressional Republicans to undo rules that address oil and gas wells’ leakage of methane, a heat-trapping gas that is about 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Trump’s forthcoming budget even threatens to dismantle the EPA’s Energy Star program, a 20-year-old initiative that encourages the adoption of energy-efficient appliances and home heating and cooling—a program that, historically, has enjoyed bipartisan support since it saves Americans money.
All of this has environmentalists wondering when the other shoe will drop: Are these moves just the first steps toward a feared U.S. retreat from the Paris Climate Agreement?
During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump promised that, if elected, he would “cancel” the Paris Agreement. But during his Senate confirmation hearings, Secretary of State Tillerson argued that the United States should keep “a seat at the table.” According to various reports (see here and here) White House advisors are split on the issue. While svengali Stephen Bannon is said to be arguing for a Paris pullout—a position in-line with his hardline nationalist vision—Tillerson and Ivanka Trump and consigliere/son-in-law Jared Kushner are making the case that the United States should remain a party to the international agreement.
Environmentalists, meanwhile, are feeling a bit left in the dark. “I think my crystal ball broke months ago,” Vicki Arroyo, director of the Georgetown Climate Center, says wryly. “I wouldn’t want to make a prediction.” Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International and a longtime fixture at international climate talks, told me much the same thing: “You know, with this administration, it’s impossible to know anything.”
Still, longtime climate action advocates are trying to remain guardedly optimistic, hopeful that, in the end, reason will prevail and that career diplomats at the State Department will successfully convince the White House to keep the United States within the Paris Agreement. A U.S. withdrawal would be nothing short of a “nuclear option,” in Arroyo’s words, that would erode American credibility and set back U.S. interests on other issues requiring global cooperation. “Aggravating our allies and walking away from an agreement that we helped craft is not a great practice,” Arroyo says. “It would undermine us on other issues that we care about.””
“Though a U.S. exit would be a blow, environmentalists say that global action to reduce greenhouse gas emission will nevertheless continue. The world’s largest emitter, China, remains committed to ambitious climate action; its greenhouse gas emissions have stayed stable or in decline for four years in a row. The European Union member nations and the many countries—think, Bangladesh, Pacific Island nations, poorer countries in Latin America and Africa—that are already experiencing stresses due to climate change also remain committed to fulfilling their Paris pledges. “There is an unprecedented show of unity from nations around the world,” Arroyo says. “Countries are standing together and they are sticking with it [the Paris Agreement]. In a surprising turnaround since [the 2009 climate talks in] Copenhagen, China is taking a lead. It can show international leadership with the vacuum of U.S. leadership.” (emphasis added)
“Trump likes to say that he’s going to “Make America Great Again,” and put “America First.” A withdrawal from global climate agreements would do neither. It would, instead, be a retreat from the U.S.’s moral responsibility to address the climate crisis. It would put the U.S. last, a country playing catch-up to other countries heading toward the clean energy future.”
On March 14 Lydia Saad of Gallup posted a report titled, Global Warming Concern at Three-Decade High in US. When asked if they worried ‘a great deal’ about global warming, the percentage from 2016 to 2017 increased from 36% to 45%. A new high of 62% said that global warming is happening now, and the percentage that believe that global warming poses a serious threat is up to 42%. All three concerns are up significantly since 2015.
NOTE: It is encouraging to me that more Americans are realizing the magnitude of the threat they face - in spite of the efforts to mislead them by a number of wealthy corporations and individuals with a lot of money invested in fossil fuels.
On March 17 the World Resources Institute posted an article by Noah Kaufman titled, Why the Social Cost of Carbon Is Critical for America to Make Sound Policies. He wrote,
“According to reports, President Trump is poised to sign a new directive dropping climate change as a consideration when evaluating government agencies’ actions. The move would also reconsider the government’s use of a metric known as the “social cost of carbon,” which helps analysts assess the economic benefits of climate action and economic costs of inaction.
The social cost of carbon (SCC) assigns a dollar value to the benefits from reducing carbon dioxide emissions and addressing climate change. Examples of such benefits are wide ranging, from preserving crop yields and protecting human health to limiting the risk of flooding to coastal properties. With these estimates in hand, agencies can determine if the benefits from efforts to curb carbon pollution – such as standards calling for more efficient appliances or vehicles -- are worth the investment.
If agencies stop using the SCC, it would prevent the government from using the best available science to inform their decisions and from holding polluters accountable for damages caused by carbon dioxide emissions.
How the Social Cost of Carbon Came to Be
In 1981, President Reagan required federal agencies to quantify the benefits and costs of major regulations before deciding whether to impose them and how stringent to make them. Federal agencies began estimating SCCs following a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that led to the U.S. government regulating carbon dioxide emissions as an air pollutant.
In 2009, the Obama administration brought together a group of technical experts to develop a single set of U.S. government SCC estimates based on the best available science and economics. Because estimates of the SCC are highly uncertain—it requires forecasting how changes in emissions affect the climate, how changes in the climate affect economies around the world, and the value of climate damages occurring around the world over centuries—the U.S. government recommends using a wide range of values, from $11 to $105 dollars per ton of CO2 in 2015.
Why We Need the Social Cost of Carbon
Eliminating the use of the SCC in federal regulations would squelch agencies’ ability to follow President Reagan’s guidance and conduct comprehensive cost-benefit analyses for regulations impacting carbon emissions. After all, without quantifying the benefits, how can we hope to compare the benefits of emissions reductions with the associated costs?
Worse still, the Trump administration could continue using benefit-cost analysis to make regulatory judgments with the assumption there is no value in curbing carbon emissions, despite the mountain of scientific evidence that shows otherwise. Virtually all regulations would then artificially appear too costly to justify, leading to a situation where polluters have license to spew carbon into the atmosphere with no accountability for the damages they cause.
The courts will likely find moves eliminating the SCC to be illegal, because they have ruled (and subsequently affirmed) since 2007 that “the value of carbon emissions reduction is certainly not zero.” In 2016, a Federal Court of Appeals struck down a challenge to the U.S. government’s SCC estimates. The Trump administration will have the challenging task of finding support for such a drastic change to the current U.S. government estimates, while evidence points in the opposite direction. In a recent poll of 1,100 experts on the economics of climate change, 69 percent said the U.S. government’s current “central SCC” estimate of $36 per ton is too low for the benefits of emissions reductions, while less than 10 percent said it was too high.
Following years of study, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently released a report outlining ways to improve SCC estimates and research priorities going forward. Rather than ditching the SCC, the Trump administration could use the findings of this report as a basis for continuing the constructive discussion over the benefits of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and avoiding the risks from climate change. In contrast, eliminating the use of the SCC in federal rulemaking would ignore the recommendations of the country’s top experts and push the Trump administration into a court battle that it has a high likelihood of losing.”
NOTE: While I often quote parts of an article in this blog, this one is so good that I quoted it in its entirety.
On March 20 Reuters posted an article by Emily Flitter titled, Republican green groups seek to temper Trump on climate change. She wrote,
“President Donald Trump's outspoken doubts about climate change and his administration's efforts to roll back regulation to combat it have stirred a sleepy faction in U.S. politics: the Republican environmental movement.
The various groups represent conservatives, Catholics and the younger generation of Republicans who, unlike Trump, not only recognize the science of climate change but want to see their party wrest the initiative from Democrats and lead efforts to combat global warming.
Conservative green groups such as ConservAmerica and republicEn, along with politically neutral religious groups such as Catholic Climate Covenant and bipartisan groups such as the Citizens Climate Lobby, have ramped up efforts to recruit more congressional Republicans to work on addressing climate change since Trump's election.
Conservative environmental advocates promote what they call "free enterprise" solutions to climate change, like a carbon tax. That stands in contrast to the approach of liberal environmentalists under former President Barack Obama, who backed bans on certain kinds of oil drilling and regulations aimed at discouraging petroleum use.
But whatever their differences, the conservative groups say they have an important role to play.
"Conservatives now have a chance to earn back the trust of Americans on environmental issues," said Alex Bozmoski, director of strategy for republicEn. "They can lead in a completely different direction that actually grows the economy while cutting greenhouse gasses."
The activists' efforts have not swayed anywhere near a majority yet on Capitol Hill. Only 20 or so of the 237 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have spoken out on climate change this year. But they hope to build a big enough bloc in Congress, or enough influence at the White House, to temper Trump's agenda.
Lobbying has yielded some early results: a pro-environment voting bloc in Congress, the Climate Solutions Caucus, for example, has signed on more Republicans in the last two months than in it had in the final year of Obama's administration - its first year in existence.”
NOTE: It’s very encouraging to me to see some younger and better-informed Republicans coming forward to say the climate change is an important problem that needs to be addressed. In my opinion, participation of significant numbers of Republicans and businesses is going to be required if a global scale catastrophe is going to be avoided.
On March 21 the NY Times published an article by Nadja Popovich, John Schwartz, and Tationa Schlossberg titled, How Americans Think About Climate Change, in Six Maps. The maps are the result of congressional district and county opinion studies of adults by the Yale Program for Climate Change Communication over the period 2008-2016. For example when asked if people support strict limits on CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, 69% said yes; in fact a majority in every congressional district were favorable. Most of those asked thought that climate change is happening and is harming people in the U.S., but didn’t think it will harm them personally. The authors see part of the problem is risk perception. They write,
“Global warming is precisely the kind of threat humans are awful at dealing with: a problem with enormous consequences over the long term, but little that is sharply visible on a personal level in the short term. Humans are hard-wired for quick fight-or-flight reactions in the face of an imminent threat, but not highly motivated to act against slow-moving and somewhat abstract problems, even if the challenges that they pose are ultimately dire.” Those who are most concerned tend to live on coasts where they see sea level rise and flooding, or in the West where drought and large wildfires are becoming commonplace.
NOTE: The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication is one of the best sources of public opinion on climate change in the U.S. Its web site has a blog dated Feb. 5, 2016 titled, Act on Climate Change with lots of information in four sections:
Learn more and stay informed.
Reduce your carbon emissions.
Become a citizen scientist.
Take political action.
On March 21 the NY Times also published a paper by Coral Davenport titled, Trump Lays Plans to Reverse Obama’s Climate Change Legacy. It says, ”President Trump is poised in the coming days to announce his plans to dismantle the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s climate change legacy, while also gutting several smaller but significant policies aimed at curbing global warming.
The moves are intended to send an unmistakable signal to the nation and the world that Mr. Trump intends to follow through on his campaign vows to rip apart every element of what the president has called Mr. Obama’s “stupid” policies to address climate change. The timing and exact form of the announcement remain unsettled, however.
The executive actions will follow the White House’s release last week of a proposed budget that would eliminate climate change research and prevention programs across the federal government and slash the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 31 percent, more than any other agency. Mr. Trump also announced last week that he had ordered Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, to revise the agency’s stringent standards on planet-warming tailpipe pollution from vehicles, another of Mr. Obama’s key climate change policies.
While the White House is not expected to explicitly say the United States is withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, and people familiar with the White House deliberations say Mr. Trump has not decided whether to do so, the policy reversals would make it virtually impossible to meet the emissions reduction goals set by the Obama administration under the international agreement.
In an announcement that could come as soon as Thursday or as late as next month, according to people familiar with the White House’s planning, Mr. Trump will order Mr. Pruitt to withdraw and rewrite a set of Obama-era regulations known as the Clean Power Plan, according to a draft document obtained by The New York Times. The Obama rule was devised to shut down hundreds of heavily polluting coal-fired power plants and freeze construction of new coal plants, while replacing them with vast wind and solar farms.”
“At a campaign-style rally on Monday in the coal-mining state of Kentucky, Mr. Trump told a cheering audience that he is preparing an executive action that would “save our wonderful coal miners from continuing to be put out of work.”
Experts in environmental law say it will not be possible for Mr. Trump to quickly or simply roll back the most substantive elements of Mr. Obama’s climate change regulations, noting that the process presents a steep legal challenge that could take many years and is likely to end up before the Supreme Court. Economists are skeptical that a rollback of the rules would restore lost coal jobs because the demand for coal has been steadily shrinking for years.
Scientists and climate policy advocates around the world say they are watching the administration’s global warming actions and statements with deep worry. Many reacted with deep concern to Mr. Pruitt’s remarks this month that he did not believe carbon dioxide was a primary driver of climate change, a statement at odds with the global scientific consensus.”
On March 28 the Whitehouse issued an Executive Order titled, Presidential Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth.
On March 28 the mayors of 75 American cities sent a social media letter to President Trump, titled, #ClimateMayors Letter to President Trump on Roll Back of US Climate Actions. It said,
“Dear President Trump,
As members of the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda (MNCAA), we represent more than 41 million Americans in 75 cities across our nation — in red and blue states alike. We write to strongly object to your actions to roll back critically important U.S. climate policies including the Clean Power Plan and vehicle fuel efficiency standards, as well as proposed budget cuts to the EPA and critical federal programs like Energy Star.
Climate change is both the greatest single threat we face, and our greatest economic opportunity for our nation. That is why we affirm our cities’ commitments to taking every action possible to achieve the principles and goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, and to engage states, businesses and other sectors to join us.
As Mayors, we work with our constituents face-to-face, every day, and they demand that we act on climate to improve quality of life and create economic growth. As public servants and stewards of public funds and infrastructure, we also cannot ignore the costs of inaction. That is why we are also standing up for our constituents and all Americans harmed by climate change, including those most vulnerable among us: coastal residents confronting erosion and sea level rise; young and old alike suffering from worsening air pollution and at risk during heatwaves; mountain residents engulfed by wildfires; farmers struggling at harvest time due to drought; and communities across our nation challenged by extreme weather.
Climate action is also an investment in our economy and job creation — electric vehicles, solar power, energy efficiency and battery storage are all avenues to restoring our nation’s manufacturing base and create good, middle class jobs. Recently, thirty MNCAA cities demonstrated how we can accelerate markets and drive economic growth by issuing a formal Request for Information for the potential acquisition of nearly 115,000 electric vehicles for our municipal fleets.”
NOTE: A list of the names and cities of the 75 mayors who co-signed the letter is listed at the end.
On March 30 Congressmen Ted Deutsch (FL-22) and Carlos Curbelo, the co-Chairs of the the Climate Solutions Caucus, issued a joint press release titled, Bipartisan Climate Caucus Reaches Thirty Four Members from Across the Country, Evenly Split between Democrats, Republicans. They annunced that the caucus recently accepted 10 new members to reach a total of 34 - 17 from each of the major parties. They wrote, “Americans from across the political spectrum are demanding that Congress put politics aside to act on climate change,” said Congressman Deutch. “The remarkable growth and diversity of this Caucus sends a clear signal to the White House and the American people that Congressional Democrats and Republicans are ready to work together on paramount issues like climate change. I look forward to working with my Caucus colleagues to explore bipartisan legislative initiatives to address the growing challenges of climate change.”
NOTE: Although 34 is only a small fraction of the members of the House, the Caucus announcement does show that a growing number of members of Congress from both parties realize that climate change is a serious and growing problem and that many of their constituents want effective action - whatever Trump and members of his administration may say.
The following items are from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), Carol Werner, Executive Director. Past issues of its newsletter are posted on its website under "publications"
at http://www.eesi.org/publications/Newsletters/CCNews/ccnews.htm
EESI’s newsletter is intended for all interested parties, particularly the policymaker community.
On March 28, President Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to begin undoing several more of the Obama administration's climate change policies. The order's most prominent target is the Clean Power Plan, which required states to meet individual carbon emission reduction goals and is a key policy in the U.S. effort to meet its obligations under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. "My administration is putting an end to the war on coal," said Trump at the signing of the order at EPA headquarters, at one point turning to a group of coal miners in attendance and declaring, "You're going back to work." The order instructs federal regulators to stop using the "social cost of carbon" in their economic analyses of future environmental rules. (emphasis added) Trump's signature also lifted a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, halted rules limiting methane leaks from oil and gas facilities, and rescinded multiple presidential memos meant to integrate climate action across numerous federal agencies. The EPA's underlying endangerment finding naming greenhouse gas emissions a threat to public health and U.S. involvement in the Paris Agreement both went unaddressed in the order, but are viewed as major targets by the administration.
For more information see:
NOTE: The social cost of carbon (SCC) is the estimated economic damage to society of each additional ton of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. Those costs could be in health care, premature death, property damage or crop loss. The EPA and other federal agencies have been using an estimate of $38/ton CO2 to show which regulations save society money, though some economists estimate much higher numbers.
On March 28, President Trump signed an executive order eliminating the Clean Power Plan (CPP), claiming the regulatory repeal would revitalize the dying domestic coal industry. Yet, regulations imposed by the CPP are not the primary reason behind the coal industry's decline. Rather, the rise of natural gas and cost competitive renewable energy are at the root of this trend. While rescinding the CPP may slow the decline of coal in the short term, it will neither protect coal miners from further job losses, nor reverse the long term recession of the coal industry. Workforce automation poses a major threat to coal miners, and even if the industry rebounds, employment opportunities may not follow. Many American corporations have publicly pledged to power their operations entirely with renewable resources, while investors remain bullish on clean energy despite the administration's position. State laws and federal tax credits for wind and solar, extended in 2015 with Republican support, will also contribute to the "solid growth of renewables over the next three to four years," according to analyst Ethan Zindler of Energy Finance.
For more information see:
While the federal government has begun to shift its attention away from clean energy development, states have taken the opposite tack. Within the last year, there have been hundreds of clean energy bills introduced into state legislatures, revealing a bipartisan push for an increase in renewable energy that will benefit both the environment and state economies. State approaches vary, with some pledging to run entirely on renewable energy by mid-century, while others have pursued smaller, short-term goals. Most of the proposed bills are aimed at growing the clean energy sector, and while some of the proposals were in opposition to renewables, those have already begun to fizzle out. Many of the proposed bills call for increasing renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which involves mandating electricity to come from clean energy sources. So far, 29 states have an RPS and eight additional states have voluntary energy targets in place. Legislation emphasizing energy efficiency improvements through utilities, home improvements, and building codes have also gained favorability.
For more information see:
The city of Phoenix has undergone substantial growth, resulting in its neighborhoods becoming more paved with heat trapping asphalt and more reliant on air conditioning. The city receives only eight inches of rain a year and already features temperatures that routinely exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Phoenix's development choices have amplified the problem through the creation of a local "urban heat island effect," as only 11 percent of the city is covered by trees. Climate change has the potential to exacerbate these factors further, with temperatures potentially reaching 130 degrees F in the latter half of the century. "My colleagues and I wonder about the future habitability of Phoenix all the time," said David Hondula, a climatologist who researches the effect of heat on health at Arizona State University. Phoenix has taken steps toward climate mitigation by expanding the public transit systems, replacing fleets of vehicles with electric cars, and setting goals for reducing carbon emissions. However, the Republican-led state legislature has opposed local-level actions to combat climate change.
For more information see:
After months of consternation about the future of the Paris Agreement from which the Trump administration is considering a withdrawal, the treaty's supporters have adopted a more positive perspective on its successful implementation independent of the U.S. decision. Although President Trump's rebuff of climate action could cause other countries to waiver on their commitment to the agreement, some key proponents argue that no U.S involvement would be a better alternative to constant interference from an administration fundamentally opposed to the deal. The agreement requires a consensus for decision-making and Christiana Figueres, the UNFCCC's Executive Secretary during the Paris negotiations, asserts that a U.S.-free Paris Agreement could provide a clearer path toward consensus. China and the European Union are two parties who could assert greater influence over future negotiations and implementation of the treaty if the United States pulls back. The best scenario would be for the United States to remain fully committed to the accord, but its success, says Johan Rockstrom of Stockholm University, may be more likely without "a negative giant in the room."
For more information see:
As the U.S. Reverses Course on Climate Policy, China Moves to Fill the Void
As the Trump administration continues to remove key cogs in the Obama administration's climate action plan, China is moving ahead with its transition toward cleaner energy resources, setting in motion a role reversal on international climate leadership. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, "All sides should move with the times ... and earnestly take proactive steps to jointly push the enforcement of [the Paris Agreement]." Meanwhile, China's government has prioritized climate mitigation by moving to improve air quality, integrating more renewable electricity into the grid, and setting up a national cap and trade system. China currently consumes as much coal as the rest of the world combined. Law professor Alex L. Wang of the University of California-Los Angeles, observed, "Trump's rejection of regulatory action on climate change creates a vacuum in global climate leadership that China can now seize," adding America's actions do not affect the "underlying drivers" motivating China to act.
For more information see:
Solar industry jobs have doubled in Cleveland, Ohio over the past year, driving around half of the entire state's total job growth in solar. "Ohio is the heavyweight among its neighboring states," said Andrea Luecke, president and executive director of the Solar Foundation in Washington, DC. Solar jobs in Cuyahoga County rose to 1,043 within the last year, more than doubling the previous year's count. Around 60 households will be installing rooftop solar panels as part of a local solar cooperative for the county. "In 10 years a rooftop that doesn't have solar will look out of place," said Mike Foley, head of Cuyahoga County's Department of Sustainability. This growth in the solar industry has beneficial effects on other sectors of the economy as well. "One solar-related job supports 1.31 jobs elsewhere in the Ohio economy, while every $1 spent on solar generates an additional $0.87 in spending throughout the state," Luecke stated. In 2015, Ohio experienced a 21 percent increase in solar industry employment, as the state's coal mining sector saw a matching decline over the same period.
For more information see:
Palm Beach, FL, home of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, is expected to be overtaken by nearly seven feet of sea level rise by the end of the century. Current residents of the 16-mile strip of real estate say they are already witnessing the effects of rising waters and have turned to pumping stations, higher sea walls, and a $100 million project to halt beach erosion. In addition, the town has commissioned a study to assess its vulnerability to future climate impacts. Scientists have described South Florida as "ground zero for climate change impacts" in the United States. One group of scientists wrote to the President, "Many of Florida's waterfront properties (including yours) are vulnerable to even minor increases in sea level, because of erosion and storm surge." Regarding the projected increase in sea level, Harold Wanless, chairman of the geological sciences department at the University of Miami, said, "I can't imagine that Donald Trump's properties will be viable for more than 30 years."
For more information see:
As climate change leads to increased storm severity and rising oceans, it has become clear that coastal residents will need to take action in the near future. Historically, this has included the construction of sea walls, levees, and elevated infrastructure, but a "managed retreat" presents another option. At its core, managed retreat is a well-coordinated relocation of people and assets away from danger zones, which works both to protect coastal inhabitants and also allow for the restoration of coastal habitats to their natural state. A new study, published in Nature Climate Change, examined 27 cases of managed retreat around the world and estimated that 1.3 million people have had to relocate due to storms, flooding, earthquakes, and tsunamis over the past 30 years. However, this pales in comparison to the 70-190 million people expected to be displaced by sea level rise alone by the end of the century. The study also provided a framework for assessing whether a retreat may succeed based on the balance of various factors, including who initiates the action and whether it benefits the broader society.
For more information see:
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New Castle County Congregations of Delaware Interfaith Power and Light
New Castle County Congregations of Delaware Interfaith Power and Light
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