Trees & Soil Capture Greenhouse Gases

Doing Nothing Isn’t an Option: How to Avoid the Worst of Climate Change

From an Article by Dr. David Suzuki and Ian Hanington, EcoWatch.com, April 23, 2014

It’s fitting that the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was released during Earth Month. After all, the third chapter of its Fifth Assessment focuses on ways to keep our planet healthy and livable by warding off extreme climatic shifts and weather events caused by escalating atmospheric carbon.

Doing so will require substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions–40 to 70 percent by 2050 and to near-zero by the end of the century. We must also protect carbon “sinks” such as forests and wetlands and find ways to store or bury carbon. The good news is that weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, conserving energy and shifting to cleaner sources comes with economic and quality-of-life benefits.

“There is a clear message from science: To avoid dangerous interference with the climate system, we need to move away from business as usual,” said economist Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of Working Group III, which produced the chapter.

Doing nothing isn’t an option. That would lead to a significant increase in global average temperatures and extreme weather-related events such as storms, droughts and floods, wreaking havoc on our food systems, communities and the natural environment we depend on for our health and survival. Technological measures and behavioral change could limit global mean temperatures to less than 2 C above pre-industrial levels, but only with “major institutional and technological change.”

Because we’ve stalled so long, thanks largely to deceptive campaigns run by a small but powerful group of entrenched fossil fuel industry interests and the intransigence of some short-sighted governments, we must also consider ways to adapt to climate change that’s already occurring and that we can’t stop.

Although carbon emissions are rising faster than efforts to curtail them, there are glimmers of hope. A growing number of networks–including cities, states, regions and even markets–are working together to implement climate plans. And costs of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, are falling so quickly that large-scale deployment is practical. Putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions through carbon taxes or other methods is one critical way to shift investment from fossil fuels to renewables.

Carbon-intensive fossil fuel economies will suffer as renewable energy technologies mature–especially those relying heavily on coal and unconventional oil such as bitumen from tar sands. Canada’s choice: take advantage of the growing worldwide demand for clean energy technology, transit infrastructure and sustainable building techniques or continue to focus on selling our non-renewable resources at bargain-basement prices until climate and food-system destabilization swamps global markets and the world rejects Canada’s high-carbon fuels.

The IPCC found responsibly addressing climate change by pricing carbon and making needed investments is affordable: ambitious mitigation would reduce economic growth by just .06 percent a year. That’s not taking into account the many economic benefits of reducing climate change–from less spending on health and disease to reduced traffic congestion and increased activity in the clean-energy sector. Considering the costs and losses climate change and extreme weather impose on our cities, communities and food systems, we can’t afford not to act.

A clean energy revolution is already underway and, as the world comes to grips with the need to change, it will inevitably spread. As Canadians, we can choose to join or remain stuck in the past. Tackling global warming will require all nations to get on board. That’s because greenhouse gases accumulate and spill over national boundaries. And, according to the IPCC, “International cooperation can play a constructive role in the development, diffusion and transfer of knowledge and environmentally sound technologies.”

As a policy-neutral scientific and socioeconomic organization, the IPCC doesn’t make specific recommendations, but it reviews the available science and spells out in clear, albeit technical, terms that if we fail to act, the costs and losses to our homes, food systems and human security will only get worse.

It’s been seven years since the fourth assessment report in 2007. We can’t wait another seven to resolve this crisis. As nations gear up to for the twenty-first climate summit in Paris in late 2015, where the world’s governments have pledged to reach a universal legal climate agreement, international co-operation is needed more than ever. Let’s urge our government to play a constructive role in this critical process.

——–

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Celebrating Our Small Blue Planet

Geoengineering is Not the Answer to Climate Change

Survey Says Mayors Actively Curbing Climate Change in Their Cities

——–

Tom Steyer, Investment Executive

Response to the Keystone XL Final Environmental Impact Statement

From an Article by Tom Steyer, EcoWatch.com, Februrary 1, 2014

First of all, the northern Keystone XL pipeline is President Obama’s decision, and the State Department’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) is just an input. So we don’t have an answer yet, and the fight is far from over.

I remain hopeful that the President will, in fact, apply the test for Keystone he established in his speech at Georgetown University: that the project cannot be approved if it increases the amount of carbon pollution being put into our air, which it does.

I trust the President is aware of the opportunity for America to show leadership on this critical issue, and that he will be mindful of the importance of doing right by our children by tackling climate change head on.

The FEIS is based on the flawed premise that Canadian tar sands oil will be developed no matter what—a tired talking point pushed by TransCanada and the oil industry. This is no surprise given that the contractor hired to evaluate the environmental risks of the project has direct ties to TransCanada and oil lobbying groups. 

But the truth is that Keystone XL is key to unlocking the Canadian tar sands—and all of the carbon pollution that comes with it. By expanding capacity and reducing costs, Keystone XL would spur investment in the tar sands and enable the oil industry to ramp up production at an irreversible rate, with potentially devastating impacts on the global climate. 

In June, the President drew a line in the sand when he said the pipeline would only be approved if “the project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Keystone XL fails the President’s climate test.

The pipeline also poses enormous economic and environmental risks to America’s heartland, threatening our farms, towns and drinking water. And what do the American people get in return? Higher gas prices in the Midwest, only 35 permanent jobs and none of the profits. If Keystone XL is approved, the real winners will be the oil industry and foreign investors like China who stand to profit from more production of this dirty oil.

As I said, our efforts to defeat the Keystone XL pipeline will continue. I hope President Obama will take a hard look at the facts before he makes a decision on this enormously risky project. In his State of the Union address this week, the President pledged to “act with more urgency” to combat the threat of climate change. His first step should be to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

Visit EcoWatch’s KEYSTONE XL and CLIMATE CHANGE pages for more related news on this topic.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

NOTE: Tom Steyer is an investor, philanthropist and advanced energy advocate. He is also the president of NextGen Climate Action, an organization that acts politically to avert climate disaster and preserve American prosperity. Before retiring from the private sector, Tom founded and was the Senior Managing Member of Farallon Capital Management. He also was a Managing Director and member of the Investment Committee at Hellman & Friedman.

How to Tackle Climate Change Head On 

From the Article by Danielle Baussan and Daniel J. Weiss, Center for American Progress, December 14th

Largely due to destruction caused by recent climate-related extreme weather events in the U.S., there is a new urgency in our nation to adopt additional carbon pollution reduction measures. In 2011 and 2012, 21 such events each caused $1 billion or more in damages. This new evidence demonstrates that our climate change problem is much more imminent and severe than previously thought. Instead of idly waiting for the next devastating storm, flood, drought or heat wave to hit, we should tackle climate change head on by further reducing our carbon pollution.

The World Bank, International Energy Agency and U.N. Environment Programme have all issued reports since the presidential election last month predicting a steep escalation in carbon pollution in the atmosphere over the coming decades. These warnings heighten the necessity of reducing carbon and the other pollutants responsible for climate change. If we don’t take action now, we will inevitably face more devastating changes to our weather, water, land, air and food supply.

The Obama administration has proposed—and should promptly finalize—a carbon pollution standard for new power plants. Additionally, it should develop, propose and promulgate a standard for existing power plants, as they are the single largest unregulated carbon pollution source, comprising 40 percent of total U.S. emissions. The Clean Air Act provides the executive authority to require such emission reductions without congressional action, which would likely be delayed or blocked considering that many congressional Republican leaders adamantly deny the existence of human-induced climate change.

What follows is an introduction to cleaning up carbon pollution using existing executive authority.

U.S. carbon pollution projected to rise over next 30 years

Carbon pollution is the primary greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change. According to the latest projections by the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. is about halfway toward its goal of reducing its carbon pollution by 17 percent of 2005 levels by 2020. The implementation of the Obama administration’s new limits on carbon pollution from automobiles will achieve greater pollution reductions every year. Even with this progress, however, the Energy Information Administration recently projected that carbon pollution from the energy-generating sector—the source of most U.S. pollution—will only be five percent lower in 2040 than it was in 2005 if we stick to current policies.

Legal authority to cut carbon pollution

In 1970 Congress passed and President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act, a pollution-control regime that still exists today. The act developed a flexible regulatory system to limit pollutants from stationary and mobile sources. Twenty years later Congress passed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which increased the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s authority to reduce the pollution responsible for acid rain, airborne toxics, hazardous pollutants, ozone-depleting chemicals and more smog-forming pollutants. Though it has been a long time—22 years—since the Clean Air Act was updated, it is still an effective and flexible tool for responding to new and ongoing scientific and public health challenges. It also produces a huge net economic benefit by reducing health care costs related to air pollution. In fact, the EPA estimates that “direct benefits from the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments are estimated to reach almost $2 trillion for the year 2020, a figure that dwarfs the direct costs of implementation ($65 billion).”

The EPA can develop safeguards for unregulated pollutants

The Clean Air Act allows the EPA to limit air pollutants from stationary sources such as chemical plants, utilities and industrial plants, as well as automobiles and other mobile sources. The act grants the EPA the authority to let states develop individual plans to meet national health standards. It also allows the agency’s administrator to prescribe standards for any individual pollutants if he or she determines that such a pollutant “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” This is known as an “endangerment finding.”

At the turn of the 21st century, the evidence of the public health and economic threats posed by climate change grew. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Republican nominee George W. Bush promised to reduce carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants. Six weeks after taking office, however, he broke that promise. His administration essentially ignored any concrete steps to reduce the carbon pollution responsible for climate change in its May 2001 National Energy Plan devised by Vice President Dick Cheney—who largely consulted with Big Oil, coal and utility companies.

The Supreme Court decides that gaseous carbon compounds can be pollutants

In the wake of Bush administration inertia, states that were concerned about their growing vulnerability to damages from climate change sued the EPA under the Clean Air Act to force the government to take action. In 2007 the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and as such, the agency’s administrator must consider whether these pollutants “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” If the administrator finds that this is the case, he or she has the authority to limit pollutant emissions.

The Obama administration makes a carbon pollution endangerment finding

In December 2009 the Obama administration’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, adhered to the recommendation of agency scientists and finally made the endangerment finding for six major greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. Jackson noted that the “impact on morbidity and mortality associated with higher temperatures” provided support for “a public health endangerment finding.”

Carbon pollution limits will apply only to the largest emitters

The Supreme Court decision and subsequent endangerment finding paved the way for the EPA to develop the first limits on carbon pollution from stationary sources, such as power plants and oil refineries, under the Clean Air Act.

This work began with the so-called “tailoring rule,” which limits carbon pollution reduction permits to only the largest industrial sources. Without the tailoring rule, the Clean Air Act would have required permits for sources emitting as little as 100 to 250 tons of a pollutant per year, depending on which pollutant. The EPA, however, found that this would “overwhelm the capabilities of state and local … permitting authorities to issue permits.”

The first phase of the tailoring rule, announced in September 2009, instituted operation permits for “anyway sources”—those sources that would have to get a pollution permit for other reasons besides greenhouse gas emissions—if they increased those other emissions by 75,000 or more tons per year of a carbon dioxide equivalent. The second phase of the tailoring rule required permits for newly constructed greenhouse gas emitters if they spewed at least 100,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent. It also required permits for existing modified structures if their net greenhouse gas emissions increased by 75,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent. The third phase of the tailoring rule considered—but ultimately rejected—the idea of lowering the carbon dioxide equivalent thresholds; it did, however, establish plant-wide applicability limitations to streamline the permit process.

The EPA determined that under this tailoring rule, “only 15,550 sources will need operating permits” and that nearly all of these facilities already had them. The agency noted that, “Without the Tailoring Rule 6 million sources would have needed operating permits” because the regulation would have covered millions of small emitters, as well. This would have overwhelmed states’ efforts to issue permits and could have effectively halted pollution control permits and systems.

The agency adopted the tailoring rule to ensure that “emissions from small farms, restaurants, and all but the very largest commercial facilities will not be covered by these programs at this time.” This means that only the biggest and baddest polluters would have to limit their emissions. Even with the tailoring rule, 67 percent of all stationary-source greenhouse gas emitters are covered by limits developed by the EPA. Big coal, utility and oil companies, along with other interests opposed to climate protection, have attempted to overturn this sensible rule, but the courts have so far denied these efforts.

Visit EcoWatch’s CLIMATE CHANGE and CLEAN AIR ACT pages for more related news on this topic.