Al Gore Accepts Nobel Peace Prize
We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst – though not all – of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.”
Gore went on to warn that arctic sea ice is melting faster than previously expected, and that U.S. navy researchers estimate we may have ice-free Arctic Ocean as early as the summer of 2014.
Climate Change Bills Markup
- S 1581 — Federal Ocean Acidification Research And Monitoring (FOARAM) Act of 2007
- S 2307 — Global Change Research Improvement Act of 2007
- S 2355 — Climate Change Adaptation Act
- S 2332 — Media Ownership Act of 2007
Several bills designed to promote research on adapting to global warming were approved Tuesday by a Senate panel.The bills are not geared toward limiting climate change. Rather, they are aimed at helping federal, state and local officials adapt to the possible consequences of global warming.
The Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved the measures by voice vote. The Environment and Public Works Committee will begin marking up a broad climate-change bill Wednesday.
Tuesday’s markup was mostly perfunctory, but one bill did engender some debate. The measure (S 2355), sponsored by Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., would require the president to prepare a strategy for addressing the impacts of climate change in the United States and require federal departments and agencies to prepare adaptation plans.
The legislation also would direct the Commerce secretary to conduct regional assessments of the vulnerability of ocean and coastal resources.
Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said science does not currently have the ability to make those types of predictions on a regional scale.
“This requirement of the bill would have many significant impacts on the economy of my state,” Stevens said.
Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she would work with Stevens to address his concerns as the measure proceeds.
The committee also approved a bill (S 2307), sponsored by John Kerry, D-Mass., and Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, that would set up a “national climate service” within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to assess the impacts of climate change at state and local levels.
Proponents say state and local governments do not have enough information about how global warming could affect specific regions of the country. They also say the government needs to do a better job of relaying this information in a way that is relevant to policy makers.
The bill is partly a response to criticism of the government’s implementation of the 1990 Global Change Research Act (PL 101-606), which requires assessments every four years of the impacts of changes in the global environment. The Clinton administration issued one national assessment in 2000, but the Bush administration has not issued one.
The bill would amend the law to clarify how comprehensive an assessment should be, a Senate aide said. It also would require a new strategic plan for the Global Change Research Program, an interagency group established under the law.
Many similar provisions in the bill are included in House-passed energy legislation (HR 3221). The two chambers are now preparing to move a new version of the energy bill to the floor; it remains unclear whether the climate-science language will become part of the final package.
The panel also approved a bill (S 1581) that would establish an interagency committee on ocean acidification. Greenhouse gas emissions can make oceans more acidic, potentially destroying ecosystems. It was introduced by Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J.
CAFE and the U.S. Auto Industry: A Growing Auto Investor Issue, 2012-2020
A briefing hosted by the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) on key findings of a new analysis by Citi and INCR titled CAFE and the U.S. Auto Industry: A Growing Auto Investor Issue, 2012-2020, which shows that automakers’ shareholders can thrive while the automakers build cars and trucks that are better for our health and reduce global warming pollution.
Automakers have an opportunity to both advance fuel efficiency technology and become more globally competitive and sustainable in the process. The report’s results found that increasing corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards by 2012 could modestly benefit General Motors, while foreign automakers profits are largely unaffected.
In order to assess how Wall Street should react to an increase in fuel economy, Citi’s Equity & Debt Research group teamed up with the Investor Network on Climate Risk – which represents over $4 trillion in institutional investors – along with industry experts at the Planning Edge, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, and NRDC to conduct a forward-looking simulation of the five-year earnings impacts of changes to the CAFE program.
Panelists- Russell Read, Chief Investment Officer, CalPERS ($208 billion public pension fund)
- Walter McManus, Director, University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute
- David Gardiner, Senior Advisor to the Investor Network on Climate Risk (formerly Executive Director of President Clinton’s White House Climate Change Task Force and EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Policy)
The analysis employed a complex proprietary model combining supply- and demand-side simulations with Citi’s financial models. The report finds that tougher CAFE standards can be met “with modest additions of existing technologies” and will likely be “most beneficial to GM and least beneficial to Chrysler.” Other key findings:
- Most automakers’ earnings will be largely unaffected by the CAFE standards in the 2012 time horizon, but some companies, like GM, could gain as much as $0.25 per share.
- Automakers are expected to modestly shift their sales mix to more fuel-efficient models to meet tougher CAFE standards, but the most profit-maximizing approach appears to be through investments in fuel-savings technologies-
higher efficiency internal combustion engines, in particular-applied to cars and trucks. - Suppliers of technologies such as turbochargers, automated manual transmissions and diesel engine fuel injectors may gain $4.3billion in growth by 2012 and even more by 2020.
For more information contact Miranda Anderson at: anderson@ceres.org or 202-285-2018; or, Ladeene Freimuth at: 202-550-2306 or ladeene@freimuthgroup.com.
Bali: Australia Ratifies Kyoto Protocol
On the first day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Kevin Rudd, the new prime minister of Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the United States and Kazakhstan the only signatories who have failed to ratify.
Rudd’s statement begins:
Today I have signed the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. This is the first official act of the new Australian Government, demonstrating my Government’s commitment to tackling climate change.Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol was considered and approved by the first Executive Council meeting of the Government this morning. The Governor-General has granted his approval for Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol at my request.
Under United Nations guidelines, ratification of the Kyoto Protocol enters into force 90 days after the Instrument of Ratification is received by the United Nations. Australia will become a full member of the Kyoto Protocol before the end of March 2008.
Enviro-Energy Corp Report Says US Can Achieve Greenhouse Goals
Achieving these reductions at the lowest cost to the economy, however, will require strong, coordinated, economy-wide action that begins in the near future.
The report was commissioned by the environmental organizations Environmental Defense and National Resources Defense Council and the energy technology companies Honeywell, National Grid, PG&E Corporation, Shell, and DTE Energy. The Conference Board, the leading U.S. corporate think tank, endorsed the paper.
McKinsey found that a broad mix of abatement options need to be followed; no one strategy accounted for more than 11% of the total abatement, noting:In regions with high-carbon grids, energy efficiency improvements, typically through upgrades to building standards, HVAC equipment, and appliances, are likely to be the most effective and lowest-cost strategies. Conversely, sectors and regions with access to low-carbon grid infrastructure offer more compelling applications of such emerging technologies as PHEVs (plug-in hybrid vehicles).In its conclusion the report reiterated the importance of immediately implementing energy efficiency strategies, many of which end up saving more money than they cost, to “buy time” for emerging technologies to develop commercially.
United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali
The UNFCCC will convene at Bali to set the post-Kyoto roadmap in five interrelated meetings: COP-13, CMP-3, SBSTA-27, SBI-27, and Resumed AWG-4.
Overall agenda
An international agreement needs to be found to follow the end of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period, which ends in 2012. In order to avoid a gap between then and the entry into force of a new framework, the aim is to conclude a new deal by 2009 to allow enough time for ratification.
The “Bali roadmap” would establish the process to work on the key building blocks of a future climate change regime, including adaptation, mitigation, technology cooperation and financing the response to climate change. But it would also need to set out the methodology and detailed calendar of work for this process.
A major step forward was taken at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm in June, where the G8 leaders agreed to negotiate a post-2012 deal within the United Nations framework, with the goal to have an agreement in place by 2009. Significantly, this was supported by the Group of 5 countries with emerging economies: China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.
In September, the United Nations Secretary-General hosted an unprecedented high-level event on climate change in New York, attended by over 80 heads of state or government. This was an expression of the political will of world leaders at the highest level to tackle climate change through concerted action, and they gave a clear call for a breakthrough at the conference in Bali. It was followed by the Major Economies Meeting on Climate Change and Energy Security in Washington on 27 and 28 September, where the United States government clearly voiced its desire to contribute to the UNFCCC process.
The abbreviations refer to:- Conference of the Parties (COP), Thirteenth session.
- Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), Third session.
- Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), Twenty-seventh session.
- Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), Twenty-seventh session.
- Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG), Fourth session (resumed from August Vienna session)
UN Human Development Report: Less Than a Decade to Change Course
Climate change is the defining human development issue of our generation. All development is ultimately about expanding human potential and enlarging human freedom. It is about people developing the capabilities thatempower them to make choices and to lead lives that they value. Climate change threatens to erode human freedoms and limit choice. It calls into question the Enlightenment principle that human progress will make the future look better than the past. . .Our starting point is that the battle against climate change can—and must—be won. The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act. If we fail to prevent climate change it will be because we were unable to foster the political will to cooperate.
Such an outcome would represent not just a failure of political imagination and leadership, but a moral failure on a scale unparalleled in history. During the 20th Century failures of political leadership led to two world wars. Millions of people paid a high price for what were avoidable catastrophes. Dangerous climate change is the avoidable catastrophe of the 21st Century and beyond. Future generations will pass a harsh judgement on a generation that looked at the evidence on climate change, understood the consequences and then continued on a path that consigned millions of the world’s most vulnerable people to poverty and exposed future generations to the risk of ecological disaster.
The New York Times coverage: U.N. Warns of Climate-Related Setbacks.
Major Court Ruling Against NHTSA on SUV CAFE Standards
Last week the 9th Court of Appeals issued a 90-page decision in Center for Biological Diversity v. National Highway Transportation Safety Administration/California v. NHTSA in favor of the plaintiffs. The suit was brought against NHTSA’s corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for light trucks – i.e., SUVs – issued in April 2006, in part for NHTSA claiming that the value of reduced greenhouse gases would be zero. NRDC, ED, Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and 11 states and the District of the Columbia joined as plaintiffs.
The NHTSA is tasked by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) to set CAFE standards. Its April 2006 ruling raised the light truck standard from 22 to 23.5 miles per gallon by 2010.
The court agreed with the states that NHTSA must take into account greenhouse gases, as required by the National Environment Protection Act (NEPA) following the Massachusetts v EPA Supreme Court decision: “There is no evidence to support NHTSA’s conclusion that the apppropriate course was not to monetize or quantify the value of carbon emissions reduction at all.”
In addition to agreeing that the agency conducted an inadequate environmental assessment under NEPA, the court found that NHTSA’s regulations violated EPCA in four key areas, including the “SUV loophole” (“failure to revise the passenger automobile/light truck classifications”):NHTSA’s failure to monetize the value of carbon emissions in its determination of the MY 2008-2011 light truck CAFE standards, failure to set a backstop, failure to revise the passenger automobile/light truck classifications, and failure to set fuel economy standards for all vehicles in the 8,500 to 10,000 lb. GWR class, was arbitrary and capricious and contrary to the EPCA. We therefore remand to NHTSA to promulgate new standards consistent with this opinion as expeditiously as possible and for the earliest model year practicable.Warming Law’s comprehensive coverage:
2007 CBO Director's Conference on Climate Change
CBO will hold the 2007 Director’s Conference on Climate Change on Friday, November 16, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CBO Director Peter Orszag will host the conference, which will feature leading researchers addressing key questions in the debate on climate change.
Allocating Allowances: Efficiency and Distributional Effects- Lawrence Goulder, Stanford University
- Richard Goettle, Northeastern University
- Dallas Burtraw, Resources for the Future
- Gilbert Metcalf, Tufts University
- Howard K. Gruenspecht, Energy Information Administration
- Francisco De La Chesnaye, Environmental Protection Agency
- Henry D. Jacoby, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- John P. Weyant, Stanford University
Space is limited so please register in advance by emailing the CBO Office of Communications contact below.
The Director’s Conference is held each year to bring outside experts together with CBO analysts in a collaborative effort that helps further the agency’s research agenda.
Press Contact: Melissa Merson Director of Communications (202) 226-2602 MMerson@cbo.gov
Coal Lobby Websites 3
Following the GoogleAds on this site may lead to these coal industry websites:
From SourceWatch:Formed in 2000 to develop astroturf support for coal-based electricity, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) promotes the interests of mining companies, coal transporters, and electricity producers. ABEC’s website is registered to the coal industry trade organization Center for Energy and Economic Development.
Clean Coal USA is an openly industry-funded site. The members are the following trade groups: The Association of American Railroads, the coal industry lobby group Center for Energy and Economic Development, the electric power industry lobby group Edison Electric Institute, the National Mining Association, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.