Hill Heat

The Global Climate Campaign intends synchronised demonstrations around the world on Saturday December 8th 2007 – in as many places as possible – to call on world leaders to take urgent action on climate change.

The ‘Call to Action’ for these demonstrations and related events that will take place on December 8th 2007 is as follows :

“We demand that world leaders take the urgent and resolute action that is needed to prevent the catastrophic destabilisation of global climate, so that the entire world can move as rapidly as possible to a stronger emissions reductions treaty which is both equitable and effective in preventing dangerous climate change.

We also demand that the long-industrialised countries that have emitted most greenhouse gases up to now take most of the responsibility for the adaptive measures that have to be taken, especially by low-emitting countries with limited economic resources.”

We feel that there is an overwhelming need to create a groundswell of global opinion to push for the urgent and radical action on climate change, without which we risk a global catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

A roll call vote is expected at about 9:20 am on the motion to invoke cloture on the energy bill as passed by the House of Representatives on December 6.

By a vote of of 53-42 the cloture motion failed.

The following Democrats voted against cloture:

• Bayh (D-IN)
• Byrd (D-WV)
• Landrieu (D-LA)

The following Republicans voted for cloture:

• Coleman (R-MN)
• Collins (R-ME)
• Smith (R-OR)
• Snowe (R-ME)
• Thune (R-SD)

The following Republicans voted against cloture but previously had voted for the earlier Senate version of H.R. 6, which included the CAFE standard, but not RES or the tax title:

• Corker (R-TN)
• Craig (R-ID)
• Crapo (R-ID)
• Domenici (R-NM)
• Ensign (R-NV)
• Lugar (R-IN)
• Sessions (R-AL)
• Specter (R-PA)
• Stevens (R-AK)
• Sununu (R-NH)

The following Republicans voted against cloture but previously had voted for energy tax provisions similar to those in the House version:

• Crapo (R-ID)
• Lugar (R-IN)
• Grassley (R-IA)
• Roberts (R-KS)

Following the vote, the chamber resumed consideration of the farm bill (HR 2419).

Final vote on energy package. The bill passes 235-181. The Senate vote is scheduled for Saturday.

Democrats against:

• Barrow
• Boren
• Boyd (FL)
• Gene Green
• Lampson
• Marshall
• Melancon

Republicans in favor:

• Bono
• Castle
• Gerlach
• Hayes
• Johnson (IL)
• Kirk
• LaHood
• LoBiondo
• Ramstad
• Reichert
• Ros-Lehtinen
• Shays
• Smith (NJ)
• Walden (OR)

Markup of Lieberman-Warner, S 2191, scheduled for December 5.

MORNING

Sen. Bond’s chart from his opening statement:

Amendments

Amendments adopted: Sanders low-carbon manufacturing incentives, Lautenberg decoupling incentives, Cardin good government, Klobuchar renewable energy bonus study, Lautenberg aviation greenhouse gas study, Sanders advanced tech vehicle language, Whitehouse coastal impacts, Barrasso coal propaganda, Carper recycling, Craig-Warner forestry package, Alexander low-carbon fuel standard, Inhofe NAS study explicitly including nuclear.

Amendments rejected: Craig offramps, Inhofe auto-industry job offramp, Bond low-income family cost-relief, Isakson nuclear title, Voinovich available-tech offramp, Craig-Inhofe nuclear offramps, Voinovich energy cost offramp, Vitter offshore drilling, Sanders CCS bonus restriction, Sanders 80% target, Sanders 2-degree limit, Barrasso soda ash mine methane emissions exemption, Clinton-Sanders no industry permit giveaways, Voinovich state regulation preemption, Voinovich Clean Air Act exemption, Inhofe Yucca Mountain authorization.

Amendments withdrawn: Carper multiple-pollutant title, Carper output-based allocation, Cardin public transit, Barrasso small refiner giveaways, Voinovich WTO nullification, Barrasso high-altitude CCS demonstration, Barrasso local economy offramps, Inhofe nuclear PTC.

Agenda

• 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

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.

From December 3-14, 2007, representatives from more than 180 countries will meet in Bali, Indonesia for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The central issue on the agenda is the procedural roadmap for negotiating an agreement to implement the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ends. Negotiations will also address a number of other key issues, including policies to reduce emissions from deforestation in developing countries, adaptation to climate change, and technology transfer.

To learn more about the Bali conference, please join the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming staff Monday, December 3rd, at 3:00 p.m., in Room 2255 Rayburn House Office Building. Three of the country’s leading experts on international climate change policy – Dr. Joseph Aldy of Resources for the Future, David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Ned Helme of the Center for Clean Air Policy – will brief staff on the key issues on the agenda in Bali, the negotiating positions of the key players, and the significance and expected results of the conference. The briefing is open to all staff and the public.

• Dr. Joseph Aldy, Co-Director of the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, Fellow at Resources for the Future, and co-editor of Architectures for Agreement: Addressing Global Climate Change in the Post-Kyoto
• David Doniger, Policy Director for Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate Policy Center, former EPA Director of Climate Change Policy
• Ned Helme, President of Center for Clean Air Policy

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)

This forum was aired on C-SPAN.

Is the Arctic sea ice cover melting faster than expected? If so, what are the contributing factors and why was the rate of melting unanticipated? How much sea ice cover has been lost in terms of extent and volume? What are the implications of both the loss of sea ice and the rate of loss? Is the Greenland ice sheet losing its mass faster than anticipated? If so, what are the contributing factors and why was the rate of loss unanticipated? What are the implications of continued accelerated ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet with respect to Sea Level Rise? Is the Antarctic Ice Sheet getting bigger or smaller and by how much and how fast? Are there parts of the Antarctic ice sheet that are gaining mass and parts that are losing mass? If so, what are the contributing causes? What are the implications of continued ice mass loss in Antarctica, especially the decay of ice shelves?

Speakers:

• Dr. Mark Serreze, Senior Research Scientist, NOAA National Snow and Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
• Scott B. Luthcke, Geophysicist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Planetary Geodynamics Laboratory, Greenbelt, MD
• Dr. Konrad Steffen, Professor of Climatology and Remote Sensing and Director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado, Boulder, CO Program Summary