arctic – Page 2 – The Climate Post

June 2, 2016

Climate Change Poses Threat to World Heritage Sites

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Yellowstone National Park, Venice, Jordan’s Wadi Rum, and Easter Island’s Rapa Nui National Park are some of the 31 natural and cultural World Heritage sites in 29 countries that are threatened by climate change according to a new report released by UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Program and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Melting glaciers, rising seas, increasing wildfires and harsher droughts could severely diminish the value of protected sites, making them unsuitable for a World Heritage designation, the report says. Climate change could eventually cause some of the sites to lose their status.

Also at risk, according to the report, is local economic development in the areas near world heritage sites. Specifically, the tourism sector is vulnerable to loss and damage to assets and attractions as well as to increasing insurance costs and safety concerns.

“The fastest growing risk to World Heritage, and one of the most under-reported by the countries that are parties to the World Heritage convention, is from climate change,” said Adam Markham, deputy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He pointed out that climate change brings not only direct impacts but “acts as a ‘risk multiplier,’” compounding local stresses such as urbanization, agricultural expansion and pollution.

In the Galapagos Islands, threats to wildlife from tourism, invasive species and illegal fishing are exacerbated by rising seas and warming and more acidic oceans. At Stonehenge, warmer winters will likely increase numbers of burrowing animals that could undermine archaeological deposits and destabilize stonework.

“Globally, we need to better understand, monitor and address climate change threats to World Heritage sites,” said Mechtild Rössler, director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre. “As the report’s findings underscore, achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to a level well below 2 degrees Celsius is vitally important to protecting our World Heritage for current and future generations.”

Ocean Current Affecting Temperatures in Antarctica

A new study in the journal Nature Geoscience suggests that ocean currents are slowing the warming effects on Antarctica as Arctic ice melts on the other side of the world. Warm waters in Gulf Stream cool as they flow into the North Atlantic, then sink for centuries before surfacing off the coast of Antarctica.

“With rising carbon dioxide you would expect more warming at both poles, but we only see it at one of the poles, so something else must be going on,” said Kyle Armour, lead author and University of Washington assistant professor. “We show that it’s for really simple reasons, and the ocean currents are the hero here.”

Old, deep water that’s coming up to the surface all around Antarctica—water that hasn’t come into contact with the atmosphere or experienced climate change in hundreds of years—is behind the drastic differences in the continent’s water temperature.

Using drifting floats—known as the Argo array—and climate models, the study authors tracked heat. They found that nearly 68 percent of the heat taken up by the southernmost parts of the Southern Ocean was carried north.

A separate study in the journal Remote Sensing of the Environment also attributes ocean currents, in part, to increasing Antarctica temperatures and sea ice growth. It suggests that the Southern Ocean Circumpolar current prevents warmer water from reaching the continent and that icy winds help the formation of sea ice persist.

Record Renewable Investment by Developing Countries in 2015

For the first time, emerging economies spent more on renewable energy than developed economies, according to the Renewables Global Status report prepared by the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21). In 2015, developing countries invested $156 billion in renewables—a 19 percent increase from the previous year.

“What is truly remarkable about these results is that they were achieved at a time when fossil fuel prices were at historic lows, and renewables remained at a significant disadvantage in terms of government subsidies,” said Christine Lins, REN21’s executive secretary.

By the end of 2015, countries around the world had installed a record annual total of 147 gigawatts of renewable generating capacity—enough to meet 23.7 percent of global electricity demand. China was the leader in renewables investment, followed by the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and India.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

May 12, 2016

Study Links Vanishing of Solomon Islands to Anthropogenic Climate Change

A study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters finds that five of the uninhabitated Solomon Islands have submerged underwater and six more have experienced dramatic shoreline reductions due to man-made climate change. The study by a team of Australian researchers offers scientific evidence confirming anecdotal accounts of climate change impacts on Pacific islands. That evidence consists in part of radiocarbon tree dating and of aerial and satellite images of 33 islands dating back to 1947.

According to the study authors, the Western Pacific, where residents in many remote communities must constantly climb to higher elevations, is a hotspot for tracking sea-level rise.

The Solomon Islands have experienced nearly three times the global average of sea-level rise, 7–10 millimeters per year since 1993—rates consistent with those that can be expected across much of the Pacific in the second half of this century, reported Scientific American.

Previous research had attributed Pacific island shoreline changes to a mix of extreme events, seawalls, and inappropriate coastal development as well as sea-level rise. But the new study directly links island loss to climate-related phenomena.

Human disturbances, plate tectonics, hurricanes, and waves can mask the effects of climate change. So to hone in on those effects, the researchers studied islands with no human habitation—Nuatambu Island being the one notable exception.

“Rates of shoreline recession are substantially higher in areas exposed to high wave energy, indicating a synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves,” the study authors said. “Understanding these local factors that increase the susceptibility of islands to coastal erosion is critical to guide adaptation responses for these remote Pacific communities.”

U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions Fall But Global CO₂Concentrations Rise

Last year, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States fell 12 percent below 2005 levels as a result of electric power sector changes.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA), which released the data, attributed the decline largely to “decreased use of coal and the increased use of natural gas for electricity generation.” Such fuel use changes, the EIA reports, accounted for 68 percent of total energy-related carbon dioxide reductions from 2005 to 2015.

Meanwhile, carbon dioxide concentrations at a remote Australia monitoring station—Cape Grim—are poised to hit a new high of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide for the first time in a few weeks. Though that mark is largely symbolic, the United Nations suggests that concentrations of all greenhouse gases should not be allowed to peak higher than 450 ppm this century to maximize chances of limiting global temperature rise.

“We wouldn’t have expected to reach the 400 ppm mark so early,” said David Etheridge, an atmospheric scientist with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which runs the station. “With El Nino, the ocean essentially caps off its ability to take up heat so the concentrations are growing fast as warmer land areas release carbon. So we would have otherwise expected it to happen later in the year.”

The first 400 ppm milestone was hit in 2013 by a monitoring station in Mauna Loa. Cape Grim and Mauna Loa are among the stations that measure baseline carbon dioxide across the world. Their readings are unaffected by regional pollutions sources that would contaminate air quality.

Companies Relinquish Arctic Drilling Leases

Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, and other major oil and gas companies have relinquished oil and gas leases worth approximately $2.5 billion and spanning 2.2 million acres of the Arctic Ocean.

The region is estimated to hold 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, but tapping these resources has come at great risk for companies.

“Given the current environment, our prospects in the Chukchi Sea are not competitive within our portfolio,” said ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman. “This will effectively eliminate any near-term plans for Chukchi exploration for the company.”

Marketplace reports that data secured through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Shell, ConocoPhillips, Eni and Iona Energy have renounced all but one of their leases in the Chukchi Sea—meaning 80 percent of all area in the American Arctic leased in a 2008 sale has or will be abandoned.

Shell Spokesman Curtis Smith said “After extensive consideration and evaluation, Shell will relinquish all but one of its federal offshore leases in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. Separate evaluations are underway for our federal offshore leases in the Beaufort Sea. This action is consistent with our earlier decision not to explore offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future.”

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

April 30, 2015

California Governor Calls for Aggressive Emissions Cuts

California will establish a greenhouse gas reduction target of 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, the state’s Gov. Jerry Brown announced Wednesday. The declaration was made just before a speech on the new executive order at the Navigating the American Carbon World Conference in Los Angeles, where participants took to Twitter to reflect on the news. According to Brown’s office, the target is the “most aggressive benchmark enacted by any government in North America to reduce dangerous carbon emissions.”

“With this order, California sets a very high bar for itself and other states and nations, but it’s one that must be reached—for this generation and generations to come,” said Brown, whose state already has some of the toughest carbon pollution regulations in the U.S.

The order requires the state to incorporate climate change impacts into its five-year infrastructure plan as well as its planning and investment decisions.

“Four consecutive years of exceptional drought has brought home the harsh reality of rising global temperatures to the communities and businesses of California,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “There can be no substitute for aggressive national targets to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, but the decision today by Governor Brown to set a 40 percent reduction target for 2030 is an example of climate leadership that others must follow.”

The commitment aligns with Europe’s greenhouse gas target—dedicated ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris later this year. And it is intended to keep the state on track to meet its 2050 target—curbing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent under 1990 levels by 2050.

“Both California and the EU have set the same 2030 reduction targets—40 percent below 1990 levels,” said Ashley Lawson, a senior carbon analyst with Thomson Reuters. “However, California’s emissions are currently higher than 1990, while Europe’s are lower—so Californians will need to work harder to meet the 2030 target, which we estimate will be in the region of 259 million tonnes (44 percent below the 2012 levels).”

Arctic Council Tackles Black Carbon Plan under U.S. Chairmanship

The Arctic Council—formed in 1996 by the eight nations adjacent to the Arctic to collectively manage the region emerging as North Pole ice melts—has formally adopted a policy to monitor and report on black carbon and methane emissions reductions. Black carbon—or soot—is produced by diesel engines, fires and vehicle and aircraft exhaust and is responsible for accelerating the speed of warming in the Arctic. The Framework for Action on Enhanced Black Carbon and Methane Emissions Reductions was signed on the day council leadership officially transitioned from Canada to the United States, which is making addressing climate change “a key pillar” of its chairmanship program.

A nonbinding and voluntary measure, the framework calls on council members to inventory, in the next six months, emissions of black carbon, which result from incomplete burning of fossil fuels, biofuels, and biomass and which one council study estimated to have a warming impact 10 to 100 times greater than black carbon emissions from mid-latitude regions (subscription). The framework also calls on members to assess future emissions and to make suggestions to mitigate black carbon.

“Everybody here has talks about the profound impact that climate change is having on this region,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the council’s meeting in Iqaluit on Canada’s Baffin Island. “The framework we’ve worked together to develop expresses our shared commitment to significantly reduce black carbon and methane emissions, which are two of the most potent greenhouse gases.” He added that the framework sets the stage for the council to adopt “an ambitious collective goal on black carbon” by its next ministerial meeting in 2017.

As Kerry promised to make the battle against climate change the first priority of the two-year U.S. council stewardship, Kiribati President Anote Tong urged the council members to refrain from approving development projects that would accelerate global warming, which threatens low-lying Pacific island nations.

House Committee Votes to Delay Climate Rule

In a 28-23 vote largely along party lines, the House Energy and Commerce Committee moved to delay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s summer release of the Clean Power Plan until all court challenges have been exhausted. It would also allow states to opt out of complying with the rule, which aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (approximately 30 percent by 2030) from existing power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act.

The bill will go to the full House for a vote.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Editor’s Note: Last week we reported on a Duke study that looked at 1,000 years of temperature records to assess the magnitude of natural climate wiggles. Our write-up should have indicated that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other climate models get long-term terms trends right but fail to capture short-term (decadal) natural climate variability. According to Patrick T. Brown, a doctoral student in climatology at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, trends over a 10-year period show little about long-term warming that can be expected over a 100-year period. “If that message gets out, then I think there would be less back and forth arguing about these short-term temperature trends because it doesn’t really matter that much scientifically,” said Brown.

April 2, 2015

United States, Europe Announce Emissions Reductions Pledges

“Ambitious and achievable” is how the White House described its formal emissions reduction pledge—a cut of 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025—to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in preparation for negotiation of a binding climate agreement in Paris in December. Opinion about the aptness of the two adjectives was, predictably, mixed.

The U.S. pledge follows on the heels of a U.S. agreement to form a joint task force on climate policy co-operation with Mexico, which has become the first developing nation to formally announce its greenhouse gas emissions reductions ahead of Paris—25 percent by 2030.

The only other countries to meet an informal March 31 deadline to declare formal plans to the UNFCCC for voluntary greenhouse gas emissions cuts—so-called intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs)—were the 28-nation European Union, Switzerland, Norway, and, at the midnight hour, Russia, which said it would cut its emissions by as much as 30 percent from 1990 levels. Gabon submitted its pledge April 1.

The delay in INDC pledges by the vast majority of the world’s countries complicates negotiation of a global climate change agreement in Paris in December, Reuters reports. The lag will shrink the time that other countries have to assess whether they will meet others’ offers, potentially leading to a “last-minute pile-up” like the one that scuttled climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009.

The U.S. target will entail a substantial ramp-up in reductions. According to the U.S. INDC, “Achieving the 2025 target will require a further emission reduction of 9–11 percent beyond our 2020 target compared to the 2005 baseline and a substantial acceleration of the 2005–2020 annual pace of reduction, to 2.3–2.8 percent per year, or an approximate doubling.”

Some of the required efforts have been launched or proposed: increased fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, methane limits for energy production, cuts in federal government emissions, and pollution rules for power plants. The U.S. INDC outlined no plans to meet INDC targets through international carbon trading, but it does suggest that agricultural land use and carbon sinks such as forests will play some role in achieving the targets.

According to the international analysis group Climate Action Tracker, “The U.S. will need to implement additional policies to reach its proposed targets. The planned policies (such as the targets in the Climate Action Plan), if fully implemented, are sufficient to meet the 2020 pledge [a 17 percent reduction in 2005 emissions levels by 2020]. Additional policies will have to be implemented to reach the 2025 pledge.”

Arctic Oil Exploration

A National Petroleum Council (NPC) draft report, out last Friday, indicates that the United States should tap Arctic oil and gas reserves to boost energy security.

“To remain globally competitive and to be positioned to provide global leadership and influence in the Arctic, the U.S. should facilitate exploration in the offshore Alaskan Arctic now,” the study’s authors wrote.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Arctic contains an estimated 13 percent of all oil resources and up to 30 percent of all natural gas resources on the planet [measured in terms undiscovered conventional energy resources]. According to the NPC report, if drilling began now in Alaska and continued into 2030 or 2040, Arctic production would help sustain domestic supplies if shale and tight oils decline in the lower 48 states.

The report was released just days before the U.S. Department of the Interior reaffirmed a 2008 auction of Arctic drilling rights, giving Royal Dutch Shell the go-ahead to restart oil exploration in the Alaskan Artic. Despite that news, the National Geographic reports that three factors—permits, safety concerns, and oil reserve amounts—could still slow Arctic drilling.

Report: Renewables Could Help States Meet Clean Power Plan Requirements

Renewable energy investment worldwide totaled more than $270.2 billion in 2014—a roughly 17 percent increase from the year previous—according to a new report.

The American Wind Energy Association and the Solar Energy Industries Association think renewables have potential. Their new handbook details how states can incorporate renewable energy to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan, which aims to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act by establishing state-by-state emissions rate goals for affected fossil fuel-fired power plants.

How much and how fast the Clean Power Plan could help renewable energy development depends on a laundry list of technical and policy questions involving the EPA’s final rule (subscription).

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

March 26, 2015

Supreme Court Reviews EPA’s Power Plant Mercury Rule; Decision Due in June

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a challenge to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) consideration of cost impacts when developing the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, (MATS) which are set to go into effect next month. At issue in the case is whether the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to consider costs in addition to health and environmental impacts when determining whether (not just how) to regulate hazardous air pollutants emitted by power plants.

The MATS rule, finalized in December 2011, requires coal-burning power plants to reduce emissions of toxic pollutants by installing control technologies. The EPA estimates the rule would cost industry about $9.6 billion a year but have the benefits of cutting coal and oil emissions by 90 percent and generating $37 billion in savings through “co-benefits.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that it is in EPA’s discretion whether to consider costs when deciding whether it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate hazardous air pollutants emitted by power plants. During Wednesday’s Supreme Court oral argument, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed, asserting that Congress instructed the EPA to use its expertise to decide what was appropriate and did not mandate consideration of costs.

Forbes reports that Justice Antonin Scalia repeatedly attacked EPA’s interpretation. He asserted, “I would think it’s classic arbitrary and capricious agency action for an agency to command something that is outrageously expensive and in which the expense vastly exceeds whatever public benefit can be achieved.”

The Supreme Court’s final decision is expected by the end of June (subscription).

Global Warming Imperiling Artic Ice, Slowing Ocean Circulation

This week the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) announced that on Feb. 25 Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its annual maximum extent, “the lowest in the satellite record,” with implications for the Arctic’s ecology and economy and for weather patterns in North America, Europe, and Asia. The news, the Belfast Telegraph reported, increases fears that summers in the polar region could be ice free within 20 or 30 years.

Warming Arctic temperatures triggered by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are accelerating ice melt and increasing the amount open ocean exposed to the sun’s rays. Unlike white ice, which reflects those rays, the dark ocean absorbs them, causing further heating and melt.

“[The record low extent] is significant, in that it shows that the Arctic is being seriously impacted by our warming climate,” said NSIDC’s Senior Research Scientist Ted Scambos. “In general, sea ice retreat has proceeded faster than modelling expects in the Arctic, although models are catching up.”

The NSIDC announcement comes in the wake of a new study reporting that Arctic sea ice is thinning at a faster rate than researchers previously thought. It shows that the ice in the central Arctic Ocean thinned 65 percent between 1975 and 2012, from 11.78 feet to 4.1 feet.

Global warming also appears to be slowing ocean circulation according to a new study in Nature Climate Change. The study reveals a deceleration of the ocean circulation that helps to drive the Gulf Stream off the U.S. east coast, the consequences of which could be significant extra sea level rise for coastal cities and shifts in U.S. and European weather.

The findings suggest that the slowdown—the most dramatic in recorded history and well outside the norm—is probably not part of natural fluctuation.

If the climate relationships identified in the study hold true, increasing melt rates in Greenland “might lead to further weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation within a decade or two, and possibly even more permanent shutdown” of key components of it, the scientists warn.

“If the slowdown of the Atlantic overturning continues, the impacts might be substantial,” said lead author Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Disturbing the circulation will likely have a negative effect on the ocean ecosystem, and thereby fisheries and the associated livelihoods of many people in coastal areas. A slowdown also adds to the regional sea-level rise affecting cities like New York and Boston. Finally, temperature changes in that region can also influence weather systems on both sides of the Atlantic, in North America as well as Europe.”

Obama Cuts Fed’s Carbon Emissions

In an effort to help meet emissions reduction goals and spur others to do the same, President Barack Obama ordered the federal government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent compared to 2008 levels in the next decade. Specifically, the executive order calls for agencies to ensure 25 percent of their total energy consumption is from clean sources, to reduce energy use in federal buildings by 2.5 percent each year and decrease per-mile greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent from 2014 levels.

“America once again is going to be leading by example,” said Obama. “So we’re proving that it is possible to grow our economy robustly while at the same time doing the right thing for our environment and tackling climate change in a serious way.”

The move by Obama is part of a broader plan to tackle climate change. He previously pledged to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Daily Caller’s Michael Bastasch reports that Obama’s latest moves on climate are part of a larger effort to increase political pressure on other countries to follow suit in the months before a global climate treaty will be discussed at an international climate summit in Paris.

“If I can encourage and gain commitments from the Chinese to put forward a serious plan to start curbing their greenhouse gases, and that then allows us to leverage the entire world for the conference that will be taking place later this year in Paris,” Obama said.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

February 19, 2015

McCarthy: Clean Power Plan Targets May Change

The EPA Administrator this week, suggested (subscription) that interim goals for existing power plants to comply with the agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan could be softened before the rule is finalized this summer.

The proposal unveiled last year calls for a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 and sets state-by-state emissions targets, beginning as early as 2020. Regulators and electric utilities have complained that a lack of time could destabilize electric supplies. According to the News and World Report, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy stated that changes to the 2020 date are “very, very much on the table.”

“While states can craft their own glide path, we want to make sure they hit the targets that we need and they’re going to be effective strategies,” McCarthy told an audience at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners winter meeting. “We clearly need to make sure there is trajectory towards a goal that is as far away as 2030 and that there is an ability to ensure that states are actively working and on a trajectory to achieve that final goal.”

New Climate Agreement Draft Long on Diversity of Views, Short on Resolutions

“86 pages, 54,000 words, 1,234 square brackets here’s official draft of #Paris2015”—that’s how Sebastian Duyck, an Arctic Centre researcher and observer at last week’s climate talks in Geneva summarized the proceedings’ output on social media. The draft negotiated in Lima last November more than doubled in size, and the number of words, phrases, and sentences not agreed by all countries—the brackets referred to in Duyck’s tweet—also increased, but although the new draft became more complex—not simpler as planned—it represents progress to some participants.

“Although it has become longer, countries are now fully aware of each other’s positions,” said Christiana Figueres, the head of the United Nations climate change secretariat.

“After years of false starts and broken promises, restoring ownership and trust in the process is no small achievement. And I think we have come a long way toward doing that,” said Ahmed Sareer, a Maldives delegate who represents an alliance of island nations.

Among the new draft’s significantly varying proposals for checking climate change are a zero net greenhouse gas emissions goal by 2050 and a peaking of emissions “as soon as possible.”

In new text, developed countries, including the United States, emphasized the need for all countries to contribute to emissions reductions efforts, and developing countries asked for financial help to deal with climate change.

The international agreement, to be reached in Paris in December, is supposed to go into effect in 2020. The next critical date is June in Bonn, where all countries are to announce their emissions reductions plans.

Experts Debate Economic, Carbon Impacts of Biomass Conversion to Electricity

Last November, the EPA issued a policy memo that appeared to promote the harvest of forests to produce power by treating bioenergy as a carbon-free energy source. But there are a couple of problems with that strategy, reports the New York Times. It ignores the opportunity cost of dedicating land to bioenergy rather than to other purposes, potentially imperiling food supplies and ecosystems—and, according to a recent World Resources Institute report, energy from forests and fields is not carbon neutral.

In a Feb. 9 letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that decries the new power plant policy, 78 scientists said, “Burning biomass instead of fossil fuels does not reduce the carbon emitted by power plants.” In fact, “Burning biomass, such as trees, that would otherwise continue to absorb and store carbon comes at the expense of reduced carbon storage.”

In a Feb. 11 letter to McCarthy, six environmental Massachusetts-based environmental groups also opposed the policy, stating, “We are pleased that EPA is moving forward with the Clean Power Plan. However, we write to express our deep concern at EPA’s apparent decision to treat biomass power as carbon neutral for the purposes of EPA’s Clean Power Plan and Prevention of Significant Deterioration permitting.” They added that the decision “contradicts sound science and promotes burning forest wood for electric power production, which is exactly the wrong direction for our county’s renewable energy policy.”

But a just-published report in the journal Nature Climate Change argues that deploying bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS) could produce a net reduction in atmospheric carbon—with up to a 145 percent emissions cut from 1990 levels. Moreover, according to energy expert and study coauthor Daniel Kammen, BECCS may be one of the few cost-effective carbon-negative opportunities available to mitigate the worst effects of climate change and could be critical should that change be worse than anticipated or should emissions reductions in non-energy sectors prove difficult to realize.

On the basis of analysis of various fuel scenarios using a detailed model of the American West power grid developed at the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, the University of California–Berkeley report predicts that biomass conversion to electricity combined with prospective carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies could result in a carbon-negative power grid in the western United States by 2050.

“There are a lot of commercial uncertainties about carbon capture and sequestration technologies,” admitted the study leader, Daniel Sanchez. “Nevertheless, we’re taking this technology and showing that in the Western United States 35 years from now, BECCS doesn’t merely let you reduce emissions by 80 percent – the current 2050 goal in California—but gets the power system to negative carbon emissions: you store more carbon than you create.”

These latest contributions add to and continue what has been several years of debate (subscription) on the possible benefits and drawbacks of biomass energy and how best to quantify the ultimate impact of its use.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

November 6, 2014

Climate Change Risks, Impacts Focus of Reports

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Fifth Assessment Synthesis Report warning that greenhouse gas levels are at the highest they have been in 800,000 years.

“We have little time before the window of opportunity to stay within the 2C of warming closes,” said IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri. “To keep a good chance of staying below the 2C, and at manageable costs, our emissions should drop by 40 to 70 percent globally between 2010 and 2050, and falling to zero or below by 2100.”

To have a 66 percent chance of limiting total average warming to the U.N.-set threshold of less than 2 degrees Celsius relative to preindustrial levels, the world’s population can emit no more than one trillion tons of carbon dioxide. But we’ve already emitted more than half that much.

The report includes conclusions of three previous IPCC reports on the science, impacts of climate change and on ways to address it.

One key finding: It’s “extremely likely” that humans are contributing to climate change—mainly through the burning of fossil fuels. There is evidence—through sea-level rise, shrinking glaciers, decreasing snow and ice cover and warmer oceans—that human-caused climate change is happening now.

The report indicates that “continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts.” In fact, if we stick to our current path, we could see 3.7 to 4.8 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century.

The report is timed just ahead of international negotiations in Lima, Peru, set to take place in December and intended to establish parameters for an emissions reduction agreement that negotiators may sign in Paris next year.

This piggy backs on another recent report, Climate Change and Environmental Risk Atlas 2015, provides comparable risk data for 198 countries across 26 climate-related issues. Echoing studies by groups such as the Pentagon, the report finds climate change and food insecurity could lead to increased civil unrest and violence in 32 countries assessed in the next 30 years. The countries include Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Haiti, Ethiopia and the Philippines. All 32 depend on agriculture; 65 percent of their combined working population are employed in farming.

“I think the most surprising thing [the new data shows] is how closely linked food security and climate change are,” said James Allan, associate director of global analytics firm Maplecroft. “We were not expecting this level of linkage.”

New Cause for Arctic Warming?

A new mechanism may be a large contributor to warming in the Arctic according to a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that looked at a long-wavelength region of the electromagnetic spectrum called far infrared.

“Our research found that non-frozen surfaces are poor emitters compared to frozen surfaces,” said lead author Daniel Feldman. “And this discrepancy has a much bigger impact on the polar climate than today’s models indicate. Based on our findings, we recommend that more efforts be made to measure far-infrared surface emissivity. These measurements will help climate models better simulate the effects of this phenomenon on the Earth’s climate.”

Through their simulations, researchers revealed that far-infrared surface emissions have the biggest impact on the climates of arid high-latitude and high-altitude regions. In the Arctic, open oceans were found to hold more far-infrared energy than sea ice, resulting in warmer oceans, melting sea ice and a 2-degree Celsius increase in the polar climate.

The study’s release follows a prediction by one of the leading authorities on the physics of the northern seas who claims the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free by the year 2020.

White House Releases Federal Agency Climate Plans

The White House released a series of reports documenting 38 federal agencies’ vulnerabilities to climate change and their plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, save energy, cut waste and save taxpayer dollars.

“Under President Obama’s leadership, federal agencies have already made significant progress in cutting carbon pollution, improving energy efficiency, and preparing for the impacts of climate change,” said Mike Boots, who leads the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “These agency climate plans underscore the administration’s commitment to leading by example throughout the federal government so we can leave behind a planet that is not polluted and damaged and protect our ability to provide the vital services American communities depend on.”

Among some of the findings by agency:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates an increase by 2050 of up to 100 percent in the number of acres annually burned by wildfires.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) not only sees rising sea levels and extreme storms as a major risk but believes that climate change could hinder its ability to get to space. It writes that “Many agency assets—66 percent of assets when measured by replacement value—are within 16 feet of mean sea level and located along America’s coasts, where sea level rise and increased frequency and intensity of high water levels associated with storms are expected.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services outlines risks that include more frequent or worse extreme heat events—one weather-related cause of death in the United States.

The reports stem from a five-year process that began with an executive order by President Obama in 2009. The order called on the federal government to reduce its emissions and become more energy efficient and sustainable. According to separate documents, measures to fulfill the order have resulted in a 17 percent decrease in emissions by the federal government since Obama came into office.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

May 15, 2014

Court Upholds Soot Standards

A federal court of appeals on Friday unanimously found that the Clean Air Act gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) substantial discretion in setting air quality standards. The ruling upheld the EPA’s tightened limits on soot, or fine particulate matter from coal plants, refineries, factories and vehicles. In the challenge brought by industry groups, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) pointed to scientific studies and lack of public comment on revised rules.

“Under the arbitrary and capricious standard, we exercise great deference when we evaluate claims about competing bodies of scientific research,” the court wrote. “Petitioners simply have not identified any way in which the EPA jumped the rails of reasonableness in examining the science.”

The stricter air quality standards, set in 2012, limited the annual level of outdoor ambient exposure to soot by 20 percent. EPA had justified the change by pointing to a number of studies that linked exposure to soot particles to a variety of cardiovascular illnesses.

“We’re disappointed in today’s ruling that only further adds to thousands of regulations facing manufacturers,” said NAM’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel Linda Kelly. “The court’s decision also underscores the difficulty manufacturers face in pushing back against a powerful and often overreaching EPA.”

Last month, a Supreme Court ruling reinstated the agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which regulates pollution from coal-fired power plants that drift across state lines. In June—the same month proposed rules for existing coal-fired power plants will be issued—a Supreme Court decision is expected on whether the EPA’s regulation of stationary source emissions through permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act was “a sensible accommodation or an impermissible exercise of executive authority.”

Studies Look at Climate Change Risk

A report authored by 16 generals and admirals on the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) Corporation’s Military Advisory Board finds that climate change poses a severe risk to U.S. national security and acts as a catalyst for global political conflict.

“Political posturing and budgetary woes cannot be allowed to inhibit discussion and debate over what so many believe to be a salient national security concern for our nation,” they wrote. “…Time and tide wait for no one.”

The report, which follows up a 2007 study, suggests an increase in catastrophic weather events around the world will raise demand for American troops. It also suggests that rising seas and extreme weather could threaten U.S. military bases and naval ports. These findings, The New York Times reports, would influence American foreign policy.

The CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board found that climate change impacts are already speeding instability in regions such as the Arctic.

“We think things are accelerating in the Arctic faster than we had looked at seven years ago,” said Gen. Paul Kern, the board chairman. “As the Arctic becomes less of ice-contaminated area it represents a lot of opportunities for Russia.” He noted that the situation has the potential to “spark conflict there.”

Another study published in Nature indicates climate change caused by humans could be responsible for as little as half the melting of sea ice in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland. The other half is traced to changes in temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean—that is, to natural climate variability, not greenhouse gases.

“We find that 20 to 50 percent of warming is due to anthropogenic [man-made] warming, and another 50 percent is natural,” said lead study author Qinghua Ding. “We know that global warming due to human impacts can’t explain why it got warm so fast.”

The area north of Greenland and the Canadian archipelago has seen temperature increases nearly twice as large as the Arctic average.

“We find that the most prominent annual mean surface and tropospheric warming in the Arctic since 1979 has occurred in northeastern Canada and Greenland,” the authors wrote. “In this region, much of the year-to-year temperature variability is associated with the leading mode of large-scale circulation variability in the North Atlantic, namely, the North Atlantic Oscillation.”

In the Antarctica, a combination of warm ocean currents and geographic peculiarities has begun a glacial retreat that “appears unstoppable.” Two studies—one to be published in Geophysical Research Letters and the other out in Science—find there’s little to nothing that can be done physically to slow the thaw of these glaciers. In fact, melting is expected to push up sea levels in the region by four feet or more. This melt will occur over a longer period of time—centuries not decades.

“This retreat will have major consequences for sea level rise worldwide,” said University of California-Irvine Professor Eric Rignot and author of the Geophysical Research Letters study. It will raise sea levels by 1.2m, or 4ft, but its retreat will also influence adjacent sectors of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which could triple this contribution to sea level.”

Energy Efficiency Bill Fails, While Research Tax Credit Wins Vote

On Monday, a bill to promote U.S. energy conservation by tightening efficiency guidelines for new federal buildings and providing tax incentives to make homes and commercial buildings more efficient fell short.

The bill co-sponsored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) was just 5 votes shy of the 60 needed to move forward. Its demise also derailed a promised vote on the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Friday prior, the House voted to make permanent a tax credit that rewards businesses for investing in research and development. Although the bill would give businesses a tax break of 20 percent for qualifying research, it faces an uphill battle in the Senate amid criticism that no new tax credit offsets its estimated 10-year, $156 billion cost to U.S. taxpayers.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

May 9, 2013

Arctic Experiencing More Than Just Melt

Carbon dioxide emissions are soaking into Arctic waters and affecting the chemistry of the ocean, a new report by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program shows. Increasing carbon dioxide emissions and freshwater runoff challenge the ocean’s ability to neutralize acidification—an imbalance caused by absorption of the greenhouse gas from the air. The study said the Arctic’s cold water makes it more vulnerable to absorbing carbon dioxide, lowering pH levels and thereby increasing acidity.

“We have already passed critical thresholds,” said Richard Bellerby, report chairman. “Even if we stop emissions now, acidification will last tens of thousands of years.”

In fact, the average acidity of surface ocean waters is now roughly 30 percent higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution. This month, experts predict carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to reach 400 parts per million for a sustained period of time—40 percent more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than before that revolution began. Among the report’s other key findings: Arctic marine ecosystems are highly likely to undergo significant change, acidification may contribute to the alteration of fish species, acidity is not uniform across the Arctic, and acidity rise is the result of an uptake in carbon dioxide emissions from human activities.

Negotiating Climate Policy

Nations gathering for the week-long climate talks in Bonn, Germany, moved closer to solidifying details for a 2015 international climate agreement that would take effect in 2020. Although there were no breakthroughs in bridging the divide between the U.S. and China, participants began to lay the groundwork for progress at November’s climate summit in Poland. More specifically, a U.S. proposal to move away from a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and let countries draft their own emissions reduction plans gained support at the meeting. The current level of pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is far too low, says U.N. Climate Change Secretariat Christiana Figueres. “The challenge for the 2015 agreement is precisely to bridge the gap,” Figueres said. “The process is not on track with respect to the demands of science.”

In the European Union, politicians announced plans for a “rescue attempt” centered on the union’s carbon trading system, which is designed to provide incentives to industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union Parliament rejected a proposal to backload the auctioning of credits within the system last month, a plan that would have removed a surplus of emissions permits from the system dubbed the world’s largest carbon market. A second vote determining whether to withhold carbon permits from the oversupplied market to address the current imbalance is expected by July.

Obama’s Energy and Environment Team Takes Shape

With Ernest Moniz—a Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor—now confirmed as the Energy Secretary, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works was scheduled to vote on whether U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominee Gina McCarthy would get her turn in front of the full Senate. All eight Republican lawmakers on the committee boycotted the hearing on the vote today, contending that McCarthy hasn’t answered several questions fully. At least two Republicans were needed to move ahead with a vote, according to committee rules.

“As you know, all Republicans on our EPW committee have asked EPA to honor five very reasonable and basic requests in conjunction with the nomination of Gina McCarthy, which focus on openness and transparency,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). “While you have allowed EPA adequate time to fully respond before any mark-up on the nomination, EPA has stonewalled on four of the five categories. Because of this, no Republican member of the committee will attend [Thursday]’s mark-up if it is held.” Chairwoman Boxer vowed to move McCarthy’s nomination through the committee, even if it required her to change the committee rules to remove the requirement for Republican attendance for a quorum.

Meanwhile, recently confirmed Interior Secretary Sally Jewell made her first appearance, since winning confirmation last month, to defend the department’s proposed fiscal 2014 budget.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

December 13, 2012

Weaker Kyoto Protocol Extended at International Climate Negotiations

West_campus-sm — The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

After weeks of deliberation among representatives of nearly 200 countries, the United Nations climate talks ended with an agreement to extend the life of the Kyoto Protocol. The only global agreement in place to curb greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized nations, it was set to expire at the end of this year. The second phase of the Kyoto Protocol still leaves off the world’s two largest emitters—the United States and China—and covers no more than 15 percent of the world’s carbon emissions.

In addition, the package adopted at Doha includes assurances to address “loss and damage” at the next conference in Warsaw, where richer nations may be financially responsible to poorer nations for failure to reduce emissions. There was also confirmation of a decision made at last year’s U.N. climate talks in Durban, South Africa, to work toward adopting a universal climate change agreement by 2015. The extension of the Kyoto Protocol keeps existing climate targets until this new international agreement takes effect in 2020. This agreement would set emissions goals for all nations, whereas the Kyoto Protocol extension establishes emissions cuts for only a handful of industrialized nations, which include Switzerland, Australia and the European Union.

While the U.S. did join in backing the establishment of the universal treaty, several former U.S. presidential aides and advisors say the country’s involvement hinges on President Barack Obama’s willingness to talk about the issue of climate change. “President Obama needs to talk about climate change and help the American public connect the dots between extreme weather, climate change, our energy policy and the progress we are already making on reducing emissions,” said Congressman Edward Markey. “The public will be more accepting of an international climate deal if they understand what we are already doing” to fight global warming.

The outcome of the conference was widely criticized, but some offered glimpses of hope. Michael Jacobs of The Guardian called the talks a start, but noted that 2015—the deadline for negotiating the successor to Kyoto—“will be the moment of truth.” Mother Jones, meanwhile, offered a fairly pessimistic assessment of the talks, but called the extension of Kyoto “something”—even though it doesn’t include the U.S., China or India. China and the U.S. are to be a clear focus next year, others said. And Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action described the outcome as crossing “the bridge from the old climate regime to the new system. We are now on our way to the 2015 global deal … Very intense negotiations lie ahead of us. What we need now is more ambition and speed.”

Arctic Report Card Shows Record Lows

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) again released its annual Arctic Report Card, summarizing the latest scientific observations about the region. Of note: 2012’s record ice loss follows a fairly unremarkable year temperature-wise—relative to the previous decade. The report also found that this year’s summertime sea ice pack was the smallest ever seen, and a new record low June snow cover extent was set.

The melting of ice, it seems, is also affecting the food chain—specifically through the creation of phytoplankton, which is experiencing increasing blooms on land and in open water as ice melts. The report suggests that previous estimates of phytoplankton production may have been ten times lower.

NOAA’s report findings come just days after the release of another study showing increased melting of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. It found smoke from Arctic wildfires may have contributed to this melting.

Major Brands Focus on Sustainability

With climate and energy policy close to dormant in Congress, a new study finds the majority of the world’s largest companies aren’t waiting on governments to lower emissions and shift to clean energy. Many—approximately 56 percent of Fortune 100 and Global 100 companies—are investing in renewable energy and emission reduction. This comes on the heels of a new list from Climate Counts, which ranks 145 companies’ efforts to reduce their carbon footprints. Rankings were based on 16 criteria and included support of progress on climate legislation as well as their ability to communicate their efforts to reduce emissions to consumers.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.