Will 2 climate treaties succeed where 1 does not at Copenhagen worldwide conference?

(Photo of Copenhagen, Denmark, from Flickr and photographer Jesper Sachmann )

The head of the U.N. was in Washington today, trying to corral Congress and the White House into the fold for a global climate agreement in Copenhagen next month.

The U.S., it seems, is still the main holdout. The problem is: We don’t want the UN in a position to enforce greenhouse gas targets for the U.S. I’m not quite sure how they could do that (they can’t even get countries to pay their dues), but that apparently is our main problem with signing onto a Kyoto treaty extension.

That and the fact that any agreement would have to be ratified by the Senate. Which was the problem last time. We signed Kyoto but never ratified it. And the Obama Administration doesn’t want to sign something we can’t ratify. So in the end, are we back to Max Baucus, Blanche Lincoln, James Inhofe and the others reluctant about climate laws?

Two treaties, not one?
The London Telegraph, which can see all this from across the sea better than we can here, says the best bet for a Copenhagen deal is a “two-track” system – two separate treaties. Sign one, sign both, take your pick.

One would be for industrialized countries, which under Kyoto agreed about a decade ago to cut GHG about 5% from 1990 levels by 2012. (They’re not all succeeding, but at least they seem to be trying.) An extended Kyoto treaty would set new, stricter goals, for after 2012. The EU and some individual countries are already making pledges, which hover around 20% -- or more if everyone signs on.

Meanwhile our Senators think it’s too much to cut 20% from 2005 levels by 2020 (which is about 4% from 1990). So you can see where we’re going with that. We won’t sign.

The second track, the Long-term Cooperative Agreement, calls for developing countries to set goals – maybe not for capping emissions, maybe for increasing renewables or phasing out coal. That’s the one we’re more likely to sign. I guess we get special privileges, being the Leader of the Free World and all, even though we contributed most of the CO2 up in the atmosphere now.

These two tracks were both agreed to in Bali in 2007. It was hoped the two could be folded together into one binding agreement.

But the recent round of negotiations in Barcelona ended badly. Now the developing countries are threatening to walk out in Copenhagen if all the rich countries don’t agree to Kyoto-like restrictions.

Why is Copenhagen so important?

It may be the last chance for an international agreement to save the planet from greenhouse gases. And it’s not actually saving the planet. It’s saving us. The planet will survive, but it may no longer be hospitable to a species commonly known as humans, as Al Gore points out in his new book, “Our Choice.”

(Sources: London Telegraph, ClimateWire, “Our Choice” by Al Gore.)

Boxer's power play: panel votes with GOP MIA -- but we don't have a climate bill yet

(Photo of mountain-top-removal coal mine from Flickr and Sierra Club


While the nation was fixated on whether the House would pass a health reform bill last week, a little drama of its own was playing out in Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) Environment and Public Work committee.

The week started out with the committee’s 7 GOP members boycotting markup of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, otherwise known as the Kerry-Boxer bill, saying they needed yet more economic analysis by the EPA. As the boycott went into its third day, Boxer, backed by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said, “Enough” and passed the bill, without any GOP amendments or votes. The Democrat-only vote was 11-1 (guess who? Max Baucus). Republicans were outraged. Too bad.

Boxer’s action re-emphasizes the importance of the thin Democratic majority in the Senate. If control swings back to Republicans, chairmanship of that committee will return to climate change denier and filibusterer James Inhofe (R-Okla.). (As an aside, Boxer is being challenged by Republican Carly Fiorina in 2010 and could use your help.)

Now what?
So what happens next? The House already passed a bill, HR 2454, in June, lest we forget. Now it’s the Senate’s turn to wrestle with both health and climate. And health is likely to get priority.

There’s plenty more work to do on a Senate climate bill, combining it with a more conservative energy bill (S 1462) from John Bingaman’s (D-N.M.) Energy and Natural Resources committee and giving others a chance to pile on: Agriculture, Foreign Relations and Finance. Despite the strong showing in committee, Democrats are divided on the plan. So leaders are looking for some Republican support.

Kerry is working with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to forge a bill that can get 60 votes. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has joined the duo. He championed climate legislation in the past, but who knows what he’ll do now.

It looks like more offshore drilling and nuclear power will have to be part of the trade-off. And there’s talk about lowering the cap on greenhouse gases to 17% (from 2005 levels) like the House-passed bill, rather than Kerry-Boxer’s 20% -- which already was far too modest, compared with what many other countries are doing. Both House and Senate bills give away most of the allowances for cap-and-trade at the start, making things easier on the polluters.

The importance of coal
The coal states are expected to hold major sway politically, so carbon capture and sequestration is likely to be a big item in any bill that can pass – as well as generous allowances to use until CCS is operational in about a decade.

A Columbia University study showed coal the No. 2 reason for opposition to climate legislation, after party affiliation (GOP). More than 30 states, from West Virginia to Montana, rely heavily on coal, which powers half the nation’s electricity. Some mine it, some transport it and most depend heavily on it for electric power.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) is in a bind because his state is among the top 10 producers of coal and relies almost entirely on it for electricity. Sens. John Rockefeller and Robert Byrd’s (D-W.Va.) state is also both a producer and heavy consumer of coal. North Dakota, Ohio, Wyoming and Kentucky are all closely tied to coal.

As Kerry, Graham and Lieberman try to work their magic to pull 60 votes out of the air, agriculture and other interests will weigh in. What the Senate comes up with and when isn’t exactly what progressives had hoped for. We’ll no doubt miss the deadline for international negotiations in Copenhagen a month from now, reducing America’s influence there. And the final bill will be a patchwork that won’t come close to what scientists (and other countries) say is necessary to curb global warming. The best that can be said is it would be a start.

(Sources: ClimateWire, washingtonpost.com, E&E Daily, E&E News PM))

How do enviro groups and clean tech stack up against oil and gas for lobbying money?

(Photo of oil rig from Flickr and photographer crashworks/Elan Ruskin.)

In Washington, D.C., it was raining lobbying dollars this summer. Both sides were trying to influence all-important climate legislation.

The oil and gas industry spent $38.4 million in Q3 (July-September), while environmental groups spent a fraction of that -- $6.1M and renewable energy just 6.6M. Exxon alone matched each of the latter and then some with it $7.2M.

Electric utilities spent almost as much as oil and gas -- $37.4M. And they're doing it with our rate money. Their argument is they don't want our rates to go up. So concerned about the consumer are they. Lesser amounts fueled lobbying from coal mining ($3.6M), natural gas ($3.1M) and forestry/forest products ($2.9.)

Industry groups were largely trying to get more allowances in a cap-and-trade system, but some were trying to block a climate bill entirely.

The summer quarter roughly matched the time between when the House bill was passed at the end of June and the Kerry-Boxer Senate bill was released in the fall.

Environmental groups went all out with spending to keep the momentum going for a bill they wanted to see passed by the Senate before the December international meeting in Copenhagen.

The World Wildlife Fund spent $1 million, way up from $45,000 last summer. They ran ads targeted senators from the swing states of Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Maine, Montana and North Dakota.

Environmental Defense was second with $430,000, nearly double what it spent last year. Overall, enviro group lobbying money was up 33% from $4.6M last summer.

Their money, of course, came from concerned citizens like you. Keep the donations flowing.

(Source: Greenwire. E&E analysis based on data from the Center from Responsive Politics.)

Arctic ice melt changing global thermostat

(Images of Arctic sea ice thickness over the years from Flickr and climatesafety.org)

While many are skeptical the Earth is warming, the Arctic is one place where the change is very evident. But some say there could be advantages to melting summer ice there – ships can take a shorter route over the top of the globe, massive oil and gas reserves are more accessible. Maybe Arctic melting isn’t all bad, they say.

But does what happens in the Arctic stay in the Arctic?

Probably not, says NOAA. Melting sea ice there seems to be affecting weather patterns around the world, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 4th annual Arctic Report Card.

Changes in the Arctic are “messing with the thermostat for the whole globe,” said Richard Spinrad, assistant administrator of NOAA. The report card compiles the work of 71 scientists in nine countries.

They found climate change was affecting the Arctic is many ways:
• Declining summer sea ice
• A shorter snow season
• Rising land temperatures
• Warming permafrost, which stores methane
• Changes in habitat and numbers of polar bears, walruses and seabirds.

Summer Arctic sea ice hit a historic low in 2007 and has come back a bit the last two summers, which has skeptics saying, “See. There’s no global warming.”

But what’s new and perhaps more important is the thinning of perennial ice, not just that which melts in the summer and then comes back in fall. The average thickness is down 2.2 feet between the 2004 and 2008.

The summer sea ice melt causes more open dark water, which absorbs heat and then sends it back into the atmosphere in fall. This cycle is sending land temps up, letting trees grow in the tundra farther north and affecting atmospheric circulation as far south as middle North America.

As old, thick sea ice goes away and is replaced by more fragile first-year-ice, new climate patterns are being set up, says oceanographer James Overland. “It changes everything,” he told ClimateWire.
• The ocean surface is warmer and less salty
• Greenland is melting
• Siberia has more runoff
• There’s less snow in North America

So, what happens in the Arctic won’t stay in the Arctic. We’d all better take notice.

To read more and see slideshow go to NOAA's Web site

(Sources: ClimateWire, NOAA)

Dog and cat carbon pawprints larger than autos?

(Photo of my BFF Princess Kitty)

Disturbing news. House pets like dogs and cats cause more CO2 emissions than driving a car. See why at Reuters PlanetArk .

Protest today at ancient coal plant making Chicagoans sick; EPA and state sue owner

(Photo of Climate Action Day demonstration near Fisk coal plant in Chicago, by Earthling Angst. See more International Climate Action Day photos from around the world.)



A lump of coal in your stocking if you’ve been bad. That was the threat at Christmastime when I was a kid. Now we’re learning that coal was worse than we thought. It heats up the planet and makes people sick. It kills people.

So it was fitting that the Chicago protest today, on International Climate Action Day, was at the filthy, ancient Fisk coal-fired electric plant, which along with it’s sibling, Crawford, sits in the heart of Chicago’s mostly Hispanic neighborhoods. The final slap in the face is that it isn’t even supplying electricity to the area. It’s sending it out of state.

But Mayor Daley and the City Council seem oblivious to Fisk and Crawford while they try to maintain Chicago is one of the “cleanest, greenest” cities in the nation.

Health hazard
Fisk and Crawford are responsible for 2,800 asthma attacks, 550 emergency room visits, and 41 premature deaths a year, according to the Sierra Club.

A study of 9 coal-fired plants in Northern Illinois by Harvard’s School of Public Health says together they cause 21,500 asthma attacks each year. Chicago has twice the national rate of asthma, according to the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Asthma is a serious and sometimes fatal disease.

Fisk and Crawford, owned by Midwest Generation, were last upgraded in the 1950s, ELPC says. Midwest Generation also has plants in Peoria, Joliet, Waukegan, Pekin and Romeoville.

Lawsuit filed
A coalition of health and environmental organizations held a news conference at Fisk in late July, saying if the EPA did not act to stop repeated violations of the law, they would file suit against the company in 60 days. The main complaint was that the plants have been spewing excessive quantities of particulates (soot), far more than is allowable by law. Throughout the Bush years, the EPA gave the plants a free ride.

However, the current EPA director Lisa Jackson and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan responded by suing Midwest Generation themselves.

Environmental groups have long wanted to shut the plants down. One Chicago alderman said at the rally he will introduce an ordinance at the City Council to do just that. Meanwhile people who live near the plants continue to get sick.

(Sources: Sierra Club, Environmental Law and Policy Center)

Better learn what EV is. You may be in one soon.

(Photo of Chevy Volt from Flickr and Passion84Photos/Robert Heese.)

EV … PHV … These terms may soon be as familiar as SUV. Also, Volt, Leaf, Tesla and Fisker. This is the fast-approaching world of electric cars and plug-in electric hybrids.

Just about every auto company is working on one … or two, including some entrepreneurs. With government incentives, they expect a surge in sales, perhaps enough to meet Obama’s campaign goal of 1 million on the road by 2015. A Berkeley study shows that with a nationwide battery lease and swap program, EVs and PHVs could be 86% of the new-car market by 2030.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided $2.4B to develop plug-ins and advanced batteries. There will be a $7,500 tax credit for the first 200,000 sold. DOE so far has loaned $529M to U.S. entrepreneur Fisker to develop 2 plug-ins, and $8B to Tesla (also U.S.), Ford and Nissan North America.

Coming to market soon
* GM’s Chevy Volt, Fisker’s Karma, Mitsubishi’s i-MiEV and China’s BYD EV should be for sale here by late next year.
* Ford’s all-electric Focus and Tesla’s Model S are looking at 2011.
* Nissan-Renault’s Leaf, Toyota’s plug-in Prius and electric iQ, and all-electric Smart car are due in 2012.

Tesla has already sold 700 of its pricey 2-seater Roadster and is working on a 4-seat luxury car and a delivery van. India’s Reva NXR begins production next year but it’s unclear when it might be available here.

Problems to overcome
The main hurdles are cost, range and infrastructure. And they’re related. At this point the lithium-ion batteries make the cars expensive. Most of the cars include a battery though some are planning on a leasing process.

Chevy Volt, Karma and China’s BYD EV are priced at about $40,000. Renault says its Fluence will be the cheapest because its Better Place batteries will be separate (at a cost of about 250 euros a year). Tesla’s $100,000 Roadster is being driven by movie stars and the like. China’s BYD F3DM, already being mass produced, sells there for $22,000. American investor Warren Buffet has a stake in BYD. Most car-makers are being cagey about prices.

Charge it, please
Range is an issue to balance against cost. Nissan would like Leaf to have a 100-mile range, Volt can go 40 miles without gasoline kicking in, and Toyota sees a range of 10-15 miles for its Prius plug-in, to keep the size of the battery down and cut the cost.

While many of the cars can be plugged in at home overnight, people in apartment buildings don’t have the same access, so charging networks need to be set up. Better Place is leading that fledgling industry and setting up networks in the San Francisco Bay Area, Hawaii, Denmark, Israel and Australia.

Around the world
Iceland is putting up its own nationwide charging network, hoping its entire population (310,000) will go electric by 2012. France has the same aim and will invest $2.8B. They’ll buy 50,000 EV fleet cars by 2015, and expect 100,000 on the road that year.

Germany is investing $750M and wants to have a million cars on the road by 2020. And Denmark expects about 50 charging stations in Copenhagen in time for the climate summit this December. Delegates will have access to some Renault EVs. And not to worry. Electric cars park for free.


To see more of the cars and learn more about EVs see Plug In America and it’s electric vehicle tracker.

(Sources: ClimateWire, PlanetArk, Greenwire, Guardian, LA Times, dailygreen.com, Bloomberg, Business Week, E&E Daily.)

Will Kerry-Graham pact weaken climate bill?

(Photo of Capitol lost in smoke from Flickr and Capitol Climate Action)

Is the Kerry-Graham alliance a “game changer” in the hunt for 60 votes to pass a climate bill, or does it mean a watered-down bill that will have little impact on climate change?

In case you missed it, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), in a New York Times op-ed piece this week, touted cap-and-trade along with more nuclear power, offshore drilling and “low-carbon coal,” as if there is such a thing.

I know we may have to toss a bone to the fence-sitters to get anything passed, but do we have to give them the whole cow?

I’m conflicted about nuclear power in the climate change debate. The fact that I’ve lived with it uneventfully in Illinois for decades may have something to do with it. But mainly, it doesn’t emit CO2. So I see it as the lesser of evils, compared with fossil fuels.

I know there are fearsome environmental concerns. But so are there with coal (ash, air and water pollutants, mountain-top removal) and with off-shore drilling (spills endangering coasts and wildlife). And sequestered CO2 from coal, if it’s feasible, has the risk of bubbling up and killing people.

Natural gas isn’t half bad (literally – it produces 50% of the CO2 in coal) and so is preferable among the fossil fuels.

Future is solar and wind
But we must keep our eye on the future, which is wind and solar (and things not yet in play). We need to get there as quickly as possible.

Nuclear should not be classified as a “renewable energy” as some moderates Dems want, and included in a renewable electricity standard (RES). If the final bill tosses a bone to the oil patch and coal interests to get passed, it should be insignificant compared with curbs on GHG, efficiency and incentives for true renewable energy.

Why do we need more oil anyway, if demand in the industrialize world peaked 4 years ago, as a research report revealed this week? The oil companies want to sell it to developing countries where the need is growing. But that means the U.S. public won’t benefit, just the multinational oil firms. Besides, Boxer notes, oil companies have leases they aren’t even using.

And lest we forget, a 2006 law already expanded drilling off 4 gulf states.

Hearings to begin
Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment Committee, begins hearings Oct. 27 on the Kerry-Boxer bill (not to be confused with the more conservative Kerry-Graham non-bill). That bill can probably pass out of committee with no drilling provision because it is heavily Democrat. We need to let Sen. Kerry know we much prefer Kerry-Boxer. He seems to have abandoned it already.

One bone of contention will be the so-called “border tax” – a tariff on imported items made under less stringent environmental conditions. Several Midwest senators, led by Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), are intent on protecting the manufacturing base in their states, and jobs. That’s a bloc of about 10 votes, Brown says. He also wants help for manufacturers to retool, as the House bill has.

On the opposite side of the trade issue is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who says he won’t accept a bill with a border-tax.

This battle is far from over. It's just beginning.

(Sources: ClimateWire, Greenwire, E&E New PM)

Today is Blog Action Day for climate change.