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Donald Trump's Energy Plan: More Fossil Fuels and Fewer Rules - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...bal-warming-energy-policy.html
shared by cjlee29 on 27 May 16 - No Cached
  • Laying out his positions on energy and the environment at an oil industry conference in North Dakota, he vowed to rescind President Obama’s signature climate change rules and revive construction of the Keystone XL
  • It was the latest in a series of recent policy addresses, including on Israel and foreign policy, intended to position Mr. Trump, the real estate mogul and reality show star, as credible on substantive issues now that he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
  • skeptical of Mr. Trump’s command of the complexities of the global energy economy.
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  • don’t seem to appreciate the complex forces that drive the energy system,
  • A central question confronting the next president will be how to address climate change.
  • denied the established science that climate change is caused by humans,
  • Mr. Trump said that in his first 100 days in office, he would “rescind” Environmental Protection Agency regulations established under Mr. Obama to curb planet-warming emissions from coal-fired power plants.
  • will not have the legal authority to unilaterally rescind the climate rules
  • justices, rather than the president, will determine its fate.
  • agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use on our land
  • No government has control over the emissions-reduction plans of other governments.
  • any country wishing to withdraw would have to wait four years to do so.
  • But there would be no legal consequence if the United States, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter
  • “stop all payment of U.S. tax dollars to global warming programs.”
  • And as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton pledged that rich countries, including the United States, would commit $100 billion annually by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to the ravages of global warming.
  • “We’re going to bring back the coal industry, save the coal industry,” he said. “I love those people.”
  • Mr. Trump also repeatedly emphasized “energy independence” — the idea that the United States could isolate itself from global oil markets and cease importing fuels.
  • “I’m hoping he’s going to support the oil industry, open up some new plays — in Pennsylvania, maybe — keep Texas going and help out in North Dakota,”
  • “I want to see what his stance is on oil fracking, oil renewables and coal,
  • “I would like to see coal be part of the energy mix.”
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A Conservative Case for Climate Action - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...e-case-for-climate-action.html conservative climate change policy
shared by Javier E on 08 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • an ideal climate policy would reduce carbon emissions, limit regulatory intrusion, promote economic growth, help working-class Americans and prove durable when the political winds change.
  • We have laid out such a plan in a paper to be released Wednesday by the Climate Leadership Council.
  • Our co-authors include James A. Baker III, Treasury secretary for President Ronald Reagan and secretary of state for President George H. W. Bush; Henry M. Paulson Jr., Treasury secretary for President George W. Bush; George P. Shultz, Treasury secretary for President Richard Nixon and secretary of state for Mr. Reagan; Thomas Stephenson, a partner at Sequoia Capital, a venture-capital firm; and Rob Walton, who recently completed 23 years as chairman of Walmart.
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  • Our plan is built on four pillars.
  • First, the federal government would impose a gradually increasing tax on carbon dioxide emissions
  • Second, the proceeds would be returned to the American people on an equal basis via quarterly dividend checks. With a carbon tax of $40 per ton, a family of four would receive about $2,000 in the first year.
  • Third, American companies exporting to countries without comparable carbon pricing would receive rebates on the carbon taxes they’ve paid on those products, while imports from such countries would face fees on the carbon content of their products
  • Finally, regulations made unnecessary by the carbon tax would be eliminated, including an outright repeal of the Clean Power Plan.
  • Our own analysis finds that a carbon dividends program starting at $40 per ton would achieve nearly twice the emissions reductions of all Obama-era climate regulations combined
  • According to a recent Treasury Department study, the bottom 70 percent of Americans would come out ahead under a carbon dividends plan. Some 223 million Americans stand to benefit.
  • Republicans are in charge of both Congress and the White House. If they do nothing other than reverse regulations from the Obama administration, they will squander the opportunity to show the full power of the conservative canon, and its core principles of free markets, limited government and stewardship.
  • A repeal-only climate strategy would prove quite unpopular. Recent polls show that 64 percent of Americans are concerned about climate change, 71 percent want America to remain in the Paris agreement, and an even larger share favor clean energy.
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The Wrath of Volkswagen's Drivers - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...th-of-volkswagens-drivers.html VW car fraud emissions
shared by Javier E on 22 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • When new emissions standards were introduced in 2009, Volkswagen was the first major carmaker to offer vehicles that could meet the new rules. In August, diesel sales accounted for 23 percent of all cars sold by Volkswagen in the United States.
  • “It’s a new level of cynicism in the auto industry,” said Jack R. Nerad, executive market analyst at Kelley Blue Book. “We have seen honest mistakes and lapses of judgment before, and tragic things happening, but this strikes me as different. The intent from the beginning seemed to be to evade standard norms.”
  • When he tried the Volkswagen diesel, he was enchanted with how much fun it was to drive, including the engine’s quick response and the sporty handling. The government’s rating for fuel economy was far less than the Prius got: 29 miles per gallon city and 39 m.p.g. highway with the automatic transmission. But he was sold on the Volkswagen.“It was pretty powerful and pretty fast, and now I know why: It is because they are not controlling emissions,” Mr. Decker said.
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  • “If the reason they are fun to drive is that they are spewing up to 40 times the amount of pollutants they are supposed to be, I just find it outrageous, frankly,”
  • “Of course, owners who bought these diesel vehicles in part because of any environmental benefits may have moral objections to driving them, and they may feel they have no other option but to keep their cars parked for the time being,” Ms. Caldwell said. “And then there are owners who just feel flat-out deceived and will want their money back.
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How will everything change under climate change? | Environment | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ng-change-under-climate-change climate change capitalism crisis culture economics science
shared by Javier E on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • what is wrong with us?
  • entire
  • We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe – and would benefit the vast majority – are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets.
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  • it is our great collective misfortune that the scientific community made its decisive diagnosis of the climate threat at the precise moment when those elites were enjoying more unfettered political, cultural, and intellectual power than at any point since the 1920s.
  • Very little, however, has been written about how market fundamentalism has, from the very first moments, systematically sabotaged our collective response to climate change.
  • The core problem was that the stranglehold that market logic secured over public life in this period made the most direct and obvious climate responses seem politically heretical
  • How, for instance, could societies invest massively in zero-carbon public services and infrastructure at a time when the public sphere was being systematically dismantled and auctioned off
  • How could governments heavily regulate, tax, and penalise fossil fuel companies when all such measures were being dismissed as relics of “command and control” communism?
  • And how could the renewable energy sector receive the supports and protections it needed to replace fossil fuels when “protectionism” had been made a dirty word?
  • With hindsight, it’s hard to see how it could have turned out otherwise. The twin signatures of this era have been the mass export of products across vast distances (relentlessly burning carbon all the way), and the import of a uniquely wasteful model of production, consumption, and agriculture to every corner of the world (also based on the profligate burning of fossil fuels)
  • Because of those decades of hardcore emitting, exactly when we were supposed to be cutting back, the things we must do to avoid catastrophic warming are no longer just in conflict with the particular strain of deregulated capitalism that triumphed in the 1980s. They are now in conflict with the fundamental imperative at the heart of our economic model: grow or die.
  • so much carbon has been allowed to accumulate in the atmosphere over the past two decades that now our only hope of keeping warming below the internationally agreed-upon target of 2C is for wealthy countries to cut their emissions by somewhere in the neighbourhood of eight to 10% a year. The “free” market simply cannot accomplish this task. Indeed, this level of emission reduction has happened only in the context of economic collapse or deep depressions.
  • our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.
  • , it is eminently possible to transform our economy so that it is less resource-intensive, and to do it in ways that are equitable, with the most vulnerable protected and the most responsible bearing the bulk of the burden. Low-carbon sectors of our economies can be encouraged to expand and create jobs, while high-carbon sectors are encouraged to contract. The problem, however, is that this scale of economic planning and management is entirely outside the boundaries of our reigning ideology. The only kind of contraction our current system can manage is a brutal crash, in which the most vulnerable will suffer most of all.
  • So we are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world, or change pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate. But we need to be very clear: because of our decades of collective denial, no gradual, incremental options are now available to us. Gentle tweaks to the status quo stopped being a climate option when we supersized the American Dream in the 1990s, and then proceeded to take it global
  • a landmark report. It stated that, “in the face of an absolutely unprecedented emergency, society has no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilization. Either we will change our ways and build an entirely new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us.”
  • Climate change presents a profound challenge to this cautious centrism because half measures won’t cut it: “all of the above energy” program, as US president Barack Obama describes his approach, has about as much chance of success as an all-of-the-above diet, and the firm deadlines imposed by science require that we get very worked up indeed.
  • we need to think differently, radically differently, for those changes to be remotely possible. A worldview will need to rise to the fore that sees nature, other nations, and our own neighbours not as adversaries, but rather as partners in a grand project of mutual reinvention.
  • That’s a big ask. But it gets bigger. Because of our endless procrastination, we also have to pull off this massive transformation without delay. The International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that if we do not get our emissions under control by a rather terrifying 2017, our fossil fuel economy will “lock-in” extremely dangerous warming.
  • “The door to reach two degrees is about to close. In 2017 it will be closed forever.” In short, we have reached what some activists have started calling “Decade Zero” of the climate crisis: we either change now or we lose our chance
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Leaders Move to Convert Paris Climate Pledges Into Action - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...imate-pledges-into-action.html leaders convert paris climate action new york times
shared by redavistinnell on 14 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Leaders Move to Convert Paris Climate Pledges Into Action
  • PARIS — Before the applause had even settled in the suburban convention center where the Paris Agreement was adopted by consensus on Saturday night, world leaders warned that momentum from the historic accord must not be allowed to dissipate.
  • With nearly every nation on Earth having now pledged to gradually reduce emissions of the heat-trapping gases that are warming the planet
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  • The task may prove most challenging for India, which is struggling to lift more than half of its population of 1.25 billion out of poverty and to provide basic electricity to 300 million of them. But rich countries are intent that India not get stuck on a coal-dependent development path.
  • President Obama has endorsed the idea of a price on carbon — in the form of a tax, or a cap-and-trade system like California’s — and leaders of Canada, Chile, Ethiopia, France, Germany and Mexico endorsed the idea at the start of the Paris conference. But there was not nearly enough support to incorporate it into the Paris Agreement.
  • China, meanwhile, is investing so heavily in clean energy that some observers think its carbon emissions might have hit a peak — a milestone that China had promised to reach only by 2030.
  • Giza Gaspar Martins, an Angolan diplomat who represents the Least Developed Countries, which negotiated in Paris as a bloc, said of the accord: “This puts a system in place to do climate action, but we will have a lot of work to do.” Photo
  • “It is essential that the developing countries are able to transform their energy system before they develop a level of dependence on coal that we have in the industrialized countries,” said Jan Burck of the activist group Germanwatch.
  • The United States will be one of them; through careful legal craftsmanship, the Paris Agreement will not be considered as its own treaty under American law but rather as an extension of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the Senate ratified in 1992.
  • By May, the United Nations climate staff will update its estimate for the combined impact of the national pledges (now known as nationally determined contributions, the qualifying word “intended” having been dropped). Estimates of the first round of pledges suggested that, if carried out, they would still result in a rise of 2.7 to 3.5 degrees Celsius (4.9 to 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels — far above the newly adopted goal of just 1.5 degrees Celsius.
  • But as the Paris Agreement is put into place, the front lines of the battle to stabilize the planet’s atmosphere will shift elsewhere. At the start of the talks, 20 governments pledged to double spending on clean-energy research and development over the next five years, while a coalition of business leaders led by Bill Gates vowed to invest billions on developing renewable energy.
  • Climate activists have long used a “power of the people” approach to promote sustainability and organize globally, and the world leaders who met here credited “civil society” for keeping up the pressure.“Now the work to hold them to their promises begins,” the American environmentalist and activist Bill McKibben wrote on Twitter, moments after the gavel fell on the Paris Agreement. “1.5? Game on.”
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Obama optimism over climate pact tempered by GOP opposition - Yahoo News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/ition-080544928--politics.html obama optimism climate pact gop opposition yahoo news US Policy history
shared by katyshannon on 14 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry hailed the newly passed international climate change agreement as a major achievement that could help turn the tide on global warming, but got a quick reminder that Republicans will fight it all the way.
  • Obama said the climate agreement made Saturday night by almost 200 nations "can be a turning point for the world" and credited his administration for playing a key role. He and Kerry predicted it would prompt widespread spending on clean energy and help stem carbon pollution blamed for global warming.
  • The immediate reaction of leading Republican critics was a stark reminder of the conflict that lies ahead.
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  • Obama said the agreement is not perfect, but sets a framework that will contain periodic reviews and assessments to ensure that countries meet their commitments to curb carbon emissions.
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Obama is "making promises he can't keep" and should remember that the agreement "is subject to being shredded in 13 months." McConnell noted that the presidential election is next year and the agreement could be reversed if the GOP wins the White House.
  • And Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma said that Americans can expect the administration to cite the agreement as an excuse for establishing emission targets for every sector of the U.S. economy.
  • Kerry said from Paris: "I have news for Senator Inhofe. The United States of America has already reduced its emissions more than any other country in the world."
  • In an interview taped for CBS' "Face the Nation," Kerry called the climate pact "a breakaway agreement" that will change how countries make decisions and "spur massive investment."
  • He acknowledged that a Republican president could undo the agreement, but said there is already plenty of evidence that climate change is having a damaging and expensive impact with more intense
  • storms, wildfires and melting glaciers.
  • Several Democratic lawmakers applauded Obama's efforts.
  • House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi hailed it as a "monumental moment" and praised Obama for his leadership on the issue.
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Volkswagen Investigating if Diesel Emissions Deception Was More Extensive - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...agen-diesel-investigation.html
shared by drewmangan1 on 22 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Volkswagen said on Thursday that it was investigating whether substantially more vehicles than previously disclosed were equipped with software intended to deceive emissions tests, raising the possibility of even greater damage to the company’s reputation and finances.
  • The automaker admitted last month that 11 million cars and light commercial vehicles equipped with a diesel motor line known as the EA 189 had the illegal software.
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Our ancestors may have saved us from an ice age | Fusion - 0 views

fusion.net/...climate-change-ice-age-study history Crisis
shared by kirkpatrickry on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • A new study suggests that human activity may have staved off an ice age in the 1800s, and is likely to delay the next one for tens of thousands of years.
  • The extra carbon dioxide emissions that happened at the start of the Industrial Revolution may have, according to the researchers, prevented an ice age in the mid-1800s. They explain in their abstract:
  • The scientists predict that without greenhouse gas emissions, we’d likely be about 50,000 years away from another ice age. But thanks to global warming, we’re probably closer to 100,000 years away. Lead author Andrey Ganopolski said in a statement, “Our study also shows that relatively moderate additional anthropogenic CO2-emissions from burning oil, coal and gas are already sufficient to postpone the next ice age for another 50.000 years.” Ganopolski add
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Climate crisis: today's children face lives with tiny carbon footprints | Environment |... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...es-with-tiny-carbon-footprints climate change children environment carbon footprint decline
shared by Javier E on 10 Apr 19 - No Cached
  • Children born today will have to live their lives with drastically smaller carbon footprints than their grandparents if climate change is to be controlled.
  • Fast, deep cuts in global emissions from energy, transport and food are needed to keep temperature rises in check and an analysis has shown this means the new generation will have lifetime carbon budgets almost 90% lower than someone born in 1950.
  • “Those in positions of power – from politicians to business leaders – that have benefited from a much higher lifetime carbon budget have a duty to act to ensure a liveable planet for current and future generations,”
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  • t then calculates how much the average citizen on Earth can emit over their lifetime to keep temperature rises below 1.5C or 2C above pre-industrial levels, the goal of the world’s nations to avoid climate catastrophe.
  • The children and young people taking part in the youth strikes (born 1997-2012) will have carbon budgets just one sixth those of their baby boomer grandparents (1946-1964).
  • He said it is the first systematic use of emissions data to inform the debate about intergenerational responsibility for climate change and had produced some “uncomfortable numbers”.
  • There is a currently a wide gap between the average annual emissions of a US citizen (16.9 tonnes) and an Indian citizen (1.9 tonnes)
  • in a second analysis, Carbon Brief posited a future carbon budget that would be the same for every citizen on the planet. This would mean that the budget for a child born today in the US is even lower, 97% lower than that of that of their grandparents. For someone born today in Europe, their budget would be 94% lower
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Trump EPA plan will roll back Obama standards on power plant emissions | Environment | ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...tandards-power-plant-emissions environment trump politics US
shared by jayhandwerk on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The Trump administration is moving to roll back the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s attempt to slow global warming, seeking to ease restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.
  • The new EPA proposal would make good on Trump’s campaign pledge to unravel Obama’s efforts to curb global warming and follows the president’s promise to pull the US out of the landmark Paris climate agreemen
  • Repealing the Clean Power Plan without a timeline or a commitment to propose a rule to reduce carbon pollution “isn’t a step forward, it’s a wholesale retreat from EPA’s legal, scientific and moral obligation to address the threats of climate change”, said former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy.
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A third of Himalayan ice cap doomed, finds report | Environment | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...p-doomed-finds-shocking-report ice glacier global warming asia
shared by Javier E on 04 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • At least a third of the huge ice fields in Asia’s towering mountain chain are doomed to melt due to climate change, according to a landmark report, with serious consequences for almost 2 billion people. Even if carbon emissions are dramatically and rapidly cut and succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5C, 36% of the glaciers along in the Hindu Kush and Himalaya range will have gone by 2100. If emissions are not cut, the loss soars to two-thirds, the report found.
  • The glaciers are a critical water store for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region, and 1.65 billion people rely on the great rivers that flow from the peaks into India, Pakistan, China and other nations.
  • Until recently the impact of climate change on the ice in the HKH region was uncertain, said Wester. “But we really do know enough now to take action, and action is urgently needed,” he added.
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  • The HKH region runs from Afghanistan to Myanmar and is the planet’s “third pole”, harbouring more ice than anywhere outside Arctic and Antarctica.
  • Limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels requires cutting emissions to zero by 2050. This is felt to be extremely optimistic by many but still sees a third of the ice lost, according to the report. If the global rise is 2C, half of the glaciers are projected to melt away by 2100
  • from the 2060s, river flows will go into decline. The Indus and central Asian rivers will be most affected. “Those areas will be hard hit,” said Wester.
  • the most serious impact will be on farmers in the foothills and downstream
  • the monsoon is also becoming more erratic and prone to extreme downpours. “One-in-100 year floods are starting to happen every 50 years,” he said.
  • Political tensions between neighbouring nations such as India and Pakistan could add to the difficulties. “There are rocky times ahead for the region. Because many of the disasters and sudden changes will play out across country borders, conflict among the region’s countries could easily flare up,”
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U.S. Exits Paris Climate Agreement | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...-exits-paris-climate-agreement Carbon Emissions UN Greenhouse Gases Global Warming Trump
shared by manhefnawi on 17 May 18 - No Cached
  • At a rose garden ceremony on June 1, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump declared his intention to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement. 
  • would have negative effects on job growth, hinder manufacturing, and bring about dramatic declines in the coal mining, natural gas, steel, and cement industries
  • The Paris Agreement, which was designed to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, was the centerpiece of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
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  • Although many of the world’s other leaders have expressed their disappointment with Trump’s decision, they have also underscored their commitment to solving the problem of global warming, with or without American participation
  • To date there are only two other countries that have not yet signed on to the Paris Agreement: Syria and Nicaragua. Syria, which remains in the throes of a destructive civil war, noted that it was not in a position to sign such agreements because of ongoing sanctions from Western countries. The government of Nicaragua, however, refused to sign on for different reasons. Nicaragua believes that the Paris Agreement does not go far enough to reduce emissions, arguing that wealthy countries such as the United States should have been forced to make deeper commitments.
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Electric cars produce less CO2 than petrol vehicles, study confirms | Environment | The... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...petrol-vehicles-study-confirms crisis
shared by brookegoodman on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Electric vehicles produce less carbon dioxide than petrol cars across the vast majority of the globe – contrary to the claims of some detractors, who have alleged that the CO2 emitted in the production of electricity and their manufacture outweighs the benefits.
  • Across the world, passenger road vehicles and household heating generate about a quarter of all emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. That makes electric vehicles essential to reducing overall emissions, but how clean an electric vehicle is also depends on how the electricity is generated, the efficiency of the supply and the efficiency of the vehicle.
  • Scientists from the universities of Exeter, Nijmegen and Cambridge conducted lifecycle assessments that showed that even where electricity generation still involves substantial amounts of fossil fuel, there was a CO2 saving over conventional cars and fossil fuel heating.
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  • In countries such as Sweden, which gets most of its electricity from renewable sources, and France, which is largely powered by nuclear, the CO2 savings from using electric cars reach as high as 70% over their conventional counterparts.In the UK, the savings are about 30%. However, that is likely to improve further as electric vehicles grow even more efficient and more CO2 is taken out of the electricity generating system.
  • “The idea that electric vehicles or heat pumps could increase emissions is essentially a myth,” said Florian Knobloch of Nijmegen University in the Netherlands, the lead author of the study. “We’ve seen a lot of disinformation going around. Here is a definitive study that can dispel those myths.”
  • Mike Childs, head of science at Friends of the Earth, said: “Electric vehicles and heat pumps are absolutely critical for meeting climate goals so it’s good to see this favourable report. In the UK, both technologies will continue to make big carbon savings alongside our switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy to power the electricity grid.”
  • “Where the UK is dragging its feet is supporting the necessary rapid rollout of electric cars and heat pumps as well as the infrastructure to support them,” he said.
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Coronavirus pandemic leading to huge drop in air pollution | Environment | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-to-huge-drop-in-air-pollution crisis
shared by brookegoodman on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • The coronavirus pandemic is shutting down industrial activity and temporarily slashing air pollution levels around the world, satellite imagery from the European Space Agency shows.
  • Readings from ESA’s Sentinel-5P satellite show that over the past six weeks, levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over cities and industrial clusters in Asia and Europe were markedly lower than in the same period last year.
  • While not a greenhouse gas itself, the pollutant originates from the same activities and industrial sectors that are responsible for a large share of the world’s carbon emissions and that drive global heating.
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  • NO2 levels also dropped in South Korea, which has long struggled with high emissions from its large fleet of coal-fired power plants but also from nearby industrial facilities in China.The country has avoided putting entire regions under lockdown but is meticulously tracing and isolating suspected coronavirus cases.
  • Monks, the former chair of the UK government’s science advisory committee on air quality, said that a reduction in air pollution could bring some health benefits, though they were unlikely to offset loss of life from the disease.
  • The World Health Organization describes NO2 as “a toxic gas which causes significant inflammation of the airways” at concentrations above 200 micrograms per cubic metre. Pollution particles may also be a vector for pathogens, as well as exacerbating existing health problems. The WHO is now investigating whether airborne pollution particles may be a vector that spreads Covid-19 and makes it more virulent.
  • The source is not yet clear. One possibility is a slowdown of activity in Italy’s industrial heartland. Another factor is likely to be a reduction in road traffic, which accounts for the biggest share of nitrogen dioxide emissions in Europe.
  • Although the UK is more than a week behind Italy in terms of the spread of the disease and the government’s response, roadside monitors already show significantly reduced levels of pollution at hotspots such as Marylebone in London.
  • “What I think will come out of this is a realisation - because we are forced to - that there is considerable potential to change working practices and lifestyles. This challenges us in the future to think, do we really need to drive our car there or burn fuel for that,” said Monk.
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How Environmental Movement Plans to Leverage the Coronavirus Pandemic - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...ronavirus-pandemic-11586164191 environmental movement pandemic crisis policy
shared by Javier E on 06 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • groups including Greenpeace, the International Energy Agency and the World Resources Institute are seizing the crisis as an opportunity to press governments to make industrial stimulus packages contingent on modernizing energy systems.
  • . “Any loans must come with strings attached to reduce emissions so that in the months to come the government can steer high-carbon industries toward the cleaner, healthier and more resilient future we all need,”
  • “We are asked by many governments around the world to give them advice on how they can shape the energy component of these stimulus packages in order to boost the energy resilience and accelerate the energy transition,” said Fatih Birol, executive director at the IEA.
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  • A slowdown in activity during the 2009 economic downturn reduced carbon emissions and air pollution, but emissions rose 6% the following year, data from the International Energy Agency showed, as governments unleashed stimulus programs to reinvigorate growth.
  • the rapid changes in regions around the world resulting from measures to stop the spread of the virus could yet bring about long-term behavioral changes such as walking to work and increased teleconferencing over travel.
  • “Financial incentives from governments embedded in stimulus packages to move people toward using energy less and less mobility may be part of the results we are going to see after the shock is over,”
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Could Microsoft's climate crisis 'moonshot' plan really work? | Environment | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...t-climate-crisis-moonshot-plan enviro change global warming crisis economics
shared by andrespardo on 23 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • Microsoft drew widespread praise in January this year after Brad Smith, the company’s president, announced their climate “moonshot”.
  • Much of its plans lean on nascent technology. Critics, meanwhile, see the move as a gamble aimed at justifying Microsoft’s ongoing deals with fossil fuel firms.
  • Microsoft releases less carbon a year than Amazon and Apple, but more than Google. The company has 150,000 employees across offices in more than 100 countries, and is still focused on developing the software and consumer electronics that made them a household name
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  • Meanwhile, increasing the scrutiny on Microsoft’s plan are its dealings with fossil fuel companies, which have been highlighted by some as evidence of hypocrisy as it makes climate pledges. In 2019 alone, the technology company had entered into long-term partnerships with three major oil companies, including ExxonMobil, that will be using Microsoft’s technology to expand oil production by as much as 50,000 barrels a day over the coming years. The staggering amount of carbon this would release into the atmosphere would not be included on Microsoft’s expanded carbon ledger.
  • To begin, Microsoft will focus on protecting forests and planting trees to capture carbon. This strategy has long been used to offset emissions, but Microsoft is hoping to improve their outcomes by using remote-sensing technology to accurately estimate the carbon storage potential of forests to ensure no major deforestation is occurring in their allotments. To achieve these goals, Microsoft will be partnering with Pachama, a Silicon Valley startup that will survey 60,000 hectares of rainforest in the Amazon, plus an additional 20,000 hectares across north-eastern states of the US for the company. According to Kesley
  • The carbon produced when burning the biomass is captured before it is released into the atmosphere and then injected at a very high pressure into rock formations deep underground. Not only does this remove carbon from the natural cycle, the biomass absorbs CO2 as it grows.
  • The second concern is that the transition from coal to biofuel would require setting aside vast tracts of arable land – some estimates say one to two times the size of India.
  • Perhaps the most futuristic of the technologies outlined in Microsoft’s carbon negative plan is direct air capture (DAC). This involves machines that essentially function like highly efficient artificial trees, drawing existing carbon out of the air and transforming it into non-harmful carbon-based solids or gasses.
  • Microsoft’s plan for intensive investment in this industry is exciting for those working in the field. Klaus Lackner, a theoretical physicist working on DAC, has been arguing since the 1990s that carbon removal is the only feasible way to stop significant temperature rises. “We’ve shown that this method is technologically feasible, but nobody has wanted them,” he said. “Microsoft have said ‘we get it’. It will cost them money, but it will allow the technologie
  • While the technologies that Microsoft are betting on are still in their nascent stages, in the past few years there has been some encouraging progress in the negative emissions industry. Lackner and Arizona State University recently signed a deal with Silicon Kingdom, an Irish-based company, to manufacture his carbon-suck machines. The plan is to install them on wind and solar farms, and then sell the captured carbon to beverage companies to make carbonated drinks. In the UK, Drax power plant, which was once among Europe’s most polluting, transitioned from coal to biofuel this year.
  • Given the not insignificant risk of failure, some propose that relying on nascent or future technology as a solution to the climate crisis represents a moral hazard – the promise of carbon removal functions as an incentive for governments and major polluters to not change their behavior now.
  • When asked about this concern by the Guardian, Microsoft’s Joppa responded that in the short term, the energy demands of a growing global population will probably still need a mix of renewable and traditional energy sources. By remaining in discourse with these industries, he said, Microsoft hopes to help them change and transition to a better model in the future. “It’s extremely hard to lead if there’s no one there to follow,” he added.
  • andrespardo on 23 Apr 20
     
    ""It's extremely hard to lead if there's no one there to follow," he added. As to whether the technology outlined in their plan will scale, he said there is inherent risk, but this is why they call it a "moonshot". "When it comes to our plan it's not like we've got it all figured out," he said. "We're just trying to do what the science says the whole world needs to do. There's really no other choice.""
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Canada Supreme Court Rules Federal Carbon Tax Is Constitutional - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...reme-court-carbon-pricing.html canada carbon climate change politics tax
shared by ethanshilling on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • n a decision that marked an important victory for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate change agenda, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled that the federal government’s imposition of carbon taxes in provinces that oppose them was constitutional.
  • “This matter is critical to our response to an existential threat to human life in Canada and around the world,” the court wrote in a 6-to-3 decision. “Climate change is real. It is caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities and it poses a grave threat to humanity’s future.”
  • The concept of carbon pricing has been widely endorsed by economists, and according to the World Bank, some form of it has been carried out or is in development in 64 countries, either through direct taxes on fossil fuels or through cap-and-trade programs.
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  • Several U.S. states have carbon pricing programs, notably California.
  • But several people familiar with the forthcoming infrastructure package in the United States said that there were no plans currently to price carbon emissions. Instead, the president plans to greatly raise fuel efficiency standards for cars, forcing automakers toward electric vehicles through regulation, not legislation.
  • Court challenges by those three provinces of Mr. Trudeau’s carbon pricing law ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s decision.
  • Like Republicans in the United States, conservative premiers in the oil-producing provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan have long strenuously campaigned against carbon pricing.
  • Republicans in Congress remain firmly opposed to a carbon tax and have voted repeatedly and nearly unanimously over the years to bar the government from imposing one.
  • While the Supreme Court decision’s detailed the dangers of climate changes to Canada and its coastlines, Arctic region and Indigenous people in particular, none of the three provinces that started the legal challenges dispute its effects.
  • In 2019, Mr. Trudeau set a minimum price for carbon. It will become 40 Canadian dollars a metric ton on April 1 and will reach 170 dollars a ton in 2030.
  • The federal government has stepped in only when a province, like Ontario under Mr. Ford, refused to price carbon. In those cases, it placed a tax on fuel and set other fees for industrial emissions.
  • Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta, who canceled his province’s program, told reporters that he was disappointed with the decision but declined to say whether his province would come up with a carbon pricing system to replace the federally imposed one.
  • The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law in part because the federal plan kicks in only if provinces do not set up their programs, thus maintaining the shared jurisdiction the two levels of government hold on environmental issues.
  • “Addressing climate change requires collective national and international action,” the court wrote. “This is because the harmful effects of GHGs are, by their very nature, not confined by borders.”
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U.S. Officially Rejoins Paris Agreement On Climate Change : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...is-agreement-on-climate-change climate change paris agreement Politics US
shared by mimiterranova on 19 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • The United States on Friday officially rejoined the Paris Agreement on climate change designed to limit global warming and avoid its potentially catastrophic impacts.
  • "The Paris Agreement is an unprecedented framework for global action. We know because we helped design it and make it a reality," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. "Its purpose is both simple and expansive: to help us all avoid catastrophic planetary warming and to build resilience around the world to the impacts from climate change we already see."
  • The U.S. left the Paris Agreement in November after a yearlong waiting period had ended. Former President Donald Trump originally announced his intention to withdraw from the treaty in 2017 and formally notified the United Nations in 2019.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. promised to reduce its emissions by about 25% by 2025 compared with 2005 levels. But according to analysts, the country is only on track to achieve about a 17% reduction.
  • In 2020, there have already been 16 climate-driven disasters that cost at least $1 billion each, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
  • mimiterranova on 12 Mar 21
     
    U.S. Officially Rejoins Paris Agreement On Climate Change
  • mimiterranova on 12 Mar 21
     
    The United States on Friday officially rejoined the Paris Agreement on climate change designed to limit global warming and avoid its potentially catastrophic impacts. '"The Paris Agreement is an unprecedented framework for global action. We know because we helped design it and make it a reality," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. "Its purpose is both simple and expansive: to help us all avoid catastrophic planetary warming and to build resilience around the world to the impacts from climate change we already see." The U.S. left the Paris Agreement in November after a yearlong waiting period had ended. Former President Donald Trump originally announced his intention to withdraw from the treaty in 2017 and formally notified the United Nations in 2019. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. promised to reduce its emissions by about 25% by 2025 compared with 2005 levels. But according to analysts, the country is only on track to achieve about a 17% reduction. In 2020, there have already been 16 climate-driven disasters that cost at least $1 billion each, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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An Outdated Idea Is Still Shaping Climate Policy - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...618652 climate coalition free rider politics
shared by Javier E on 21 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • the ideas underpinning this week’s ceremony are simply outdated
  • Reading news of the China talks, I thought of a recent paper by the political scientists Michaël Aklin and Matto Mildenberger. They argue that, since the 1990s, policy makers and academics have conceived of climate change in a mostly useless way. Officials have taken their cues from economists and imagined climate change as a free-rider problem, in which the goal is to prevent nations from taking advantage of one another.
  • In fact, Aklin and Mildenberger say, climate change is a distributive-conflict problem
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  • The challenge of global climate action isn’t that other people will benefit from your emissions cuts; it’s that many interests actively oppose decarbonization. The key to passing climate policy is stitching together a coalition that will support and sustain decarbonization.
  • is is familiar enough: Coal mines suffer; electric utilities prosper. Because political leaders want, above all, to maintain the support of key constituencies, climate policy flows from a societal negotiation between potential winners and potential losers, a fight between climate reformers and climate obstructionists
  • In essence, climate policy restructures the economy, creating new economic winners and losers
  • Surveying the past few decades, they find that countries almost never care about free riding. “Governments implement climate policies regardless of what other countries do,” they write, “and they do so whether a climate treaty dealing with free-riding has been in place or not.”
  • When Donald Trump took the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, other nations did not react by withdrawing as well. Instead, revulsion at Trump himself—and his climate views by proxy—strengthened political support in those countries for continuing climate action.
  • both Aklin and Mildenberger’s coalitional idea and the free-rider conception of climate action seem to operate within the Biden administration
  • The president’s domestic-policy staff, epitomized by his adviser Brian Deese, is pursuing coalition-building climate policies, primarily characterized by public spending. The policies spread the economic gains of decarbonization around and increase the Biden coalition’s support for further action.
  • An older guard, epitomized by Kerry, hopes to secure other countries’ involvement as well, in order to prevent free riding.
  • Whose theory is better? Neither seems necessarily awful to me. Kerry’s approach actually fits within Deese’s: Securing foreign climate commitments makes the task easier at home.
  • now. The Biden administration has sold climate action as concretely in America’s interests: Its infrastructure package seeks to develop green industries not out of a sense of global do-goodism but because America’s economic competitiveness is at stake. And Xi Jinping’s government has, since last year, pursued aggressive climate policy as a way to build its international prestige. China uses climate policy to sell the orderliness and sanity of its system over the cacophonous and chaotic American approach.
  • So the weekend’s announcement seemed anticlimactic, to be honest. Of course the Biden administration and the Xi government now say they want further emissions reductions in the 2020s: Both governments are already acting domestically as if climate action is in their concrete interests.
  • . The question for me is whether—during this transition period—the politics of free riding help or hinder Biden’s attempt to forge a stronger pro-decarbonization coalition. If Biden commits to slashing greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030, will that make the public pay more attention to—and feel more skittish about—the rest of his climate-policy playbook?
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