New survey finds US and 37 others demand more aggressive climate action
The first-ever deliberative global survey of citizen opinion, World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews) has found that people from diverse backgrounds in the US and worldwide overwhelmingly want faster action, deeper GHG emissions cuts and stronger enforcement than either US climate legislation proposals or Copenhagen treaty conference preparations are currently contemplating. Among the survey’s findings:
- 90% of U. S. participants say it is urgent to reach a tough, new agreement at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December and not punt to subsequent meetings;
- 89% said by 2020 emissions should be cut 25-40% below 1990 levels (the Kerry Boxer Senate bill would cut US emissions 20% below 2005 levels);
- 71% want nations that fail to meet their obligations under a new agreement to be penalized severely or significantly;
- 69% believe the price of fossil fuels should be increased.
These views were echoed across 37 other countries on six continents. Global results showed participants wanted more aggressive action than their delegates to Copenhagen envision, including:
- strict targets for keeping global warming within 2 degrees Celsius (half of participants, especially in countries hardest hit by climate change, want measures to hold temperatures at the current level or even bring them down to pre-industrial levels);
- fairer and more proportionate burden sharing, including 2020 emissions reduction targets for fast- growing economies like India, China and Brazil, and low-income developing countries;
- sanctions against countries that do not live up to their emission reduction commmitments;
- strong new international financial mechanisms and institutions to support these goals.
By contrast, in current policy negotiations these goals are either much less ambitious or absent altogether. Preparations for Copenhagen and Congressional debate on climate change legislation are both following a similar pattern of lowering ambitions and expectations, focusing on limited areas of current agreement and incremental steps, and deferring more contentious issues of targets, timetables, funding and enforcement until later.
“We are hearing from climate policymakers that it will take more time to do things right, that we have to meet people where they are instead of imposing radical reforms from above,” said Dr. Richard Sclove, the US advisor to WWViews. “But these results show the people are way ahead of the policymakers. If Congress and Copenhagen delegates want to act in accordance with citizen views, they have to do far more and go far faster, not scale back and slow down.”
As Chamber loses members, its lobbying accelerates
While a number of its members left because of its stance on climate change, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was pouring record amounts into lobbying efforts.
The chamber spent more than $34 million on lobbying in the third quarter, with a portion of that money paying for advocacy on energy and climate legislation.
“This represents an increase of 260 percent above what it spent on lobbying during the second quarter, and an increase of 12 percent above what it spent during the first three quarters of 2008,” wrote Michael Beckel on a blog of the Center for Responsive Politics.
The release of the lobbying data came during a crazed week for the chamber, which witnessed an environmentalist activist group called the “Yes Men” holding a fake press conference on climate policy in its name (Greenwire, Oct. 19). That followed departures of companies like Apple Inc. and Exelon from the chamber in recent months because of their disagreements with the group’s stance on global warming.
In a statement earlier this week, Thomas Collamore, the chamber’s senior vice president for communications and strategy, said, “The U.S. Chamber believes that strong climate legislation is not incompatible with the goals of improving our economy and creating jobs.”
WaPo: We can afford to save the planet
Here is the good news on the climate front: The Europeans have ratcheted down their emissions targets, the Chinese are getting serious about solar power and energy efficiency, and Washington is lumbering toward a carbon cap.
These are steps toward the long-held goal: cutting global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. Such cuts would stabilize the thickness of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide blanket surrounding the planet at 450 parts per million (ppm) and, we’ve been told, ensure that the global average temperature increase would not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from 1990 levels.
The bad news? Turns out that 450 ppm is so 2005.
In the past four years, climate scientists, led by NASA’s James Hansen, have dramatically altered the goal. To avoid the collapse of the continental ice-sheets and a dangerous rise in sea levels, many scientists are now saying we have to get down to 350 ppm, and quickly.
This means what was already a heroic (and to many, impossible) target has become mind-boggling. Reaching 350 ppm would require a 97 percent reduction in emissions, entailing a complete conversion to renewable energy systems by mid-century, with the world economy virtually free of carbon emissions. Such a goal is far more demanding than any of the leading policy proposals under discussion.
Game over?
No. It’s just time to rethink what is possible.
A climate change bill will get top billing Friday with a critical meeting among Democratic leaders to set a timeline for debate, a major speech by President Barack Obama and release of a crucial impact study by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, the lead sponsor of a Senate climate bill, plans to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday to set a timeline for committees to finish work on the legislation – possibly as soon as Thanksgiving. And Environment and Public Works Chairwomen Sen. Barbara Boxer said she plans to release new sections of the climate bill that she co-authored with Kerry on Friday. The release of her bill comes as the EPA is set to release a study of the economic impact of the Senate version of the global warming legislation.
While Democratic senators make their push in Washington, Obama will deliver a speech on clean energy and climate change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The flurry of activity around a bill that has suffered on the back burner during the health care debate gives environmentalists hope that the Senate could make substantial progress on a bill before international climate talks scheduled for December in Copenhagen.
White House encouraged by climate bill status
The White House is encouraged by progress on a climate change bill in the Senate and is working to advance it even if a December deadline passes, an aide to President Barack Obama said on Thursday.
Carol Browner, Obama’s top adviser on climate and energy issues, told Reuters that White House officials were reaching out to Democratic and Republican senators in an aggressive push to move the bill forward.
“There have been some bipartisan conversations that we find very encouraging,” Browner said in an interview. “We are going to continue to do everything in our power to keep this moving.”
If a law is not passed by the time U.N. talks on a global warming pact begin in December in Copenhagen, the United States would still have a strong position on the issue in the negotiations, she said.
“Wherever we are in the process, we will be able to manage in Copenhagen.”
Browner, who has expressed doubts that a bill would become law by December, said U.S. negotiators would stress Obama’s domestic initiatives on climate change and renewable energy since coming into office.
“We’ll have been in office by the time we get there, what, 10 months? And yet if you look at what we’ve accomplished, its quite significant,” she said.
European countries and environmentalists want Washington to do more to encourage the Copenhagen talks.
Obama’s presence at the talks would help. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he would go and called on other world leaders to attend, too.
But Browner said the time was not right to make that call. “As the president himself has said, it’s just too early to make that decision,” she said.
UK Foreign Secretary accuses public of climate change apathy
The Foreign Secretary accused the public yesterday of lacking a sense of urgency in the face of the potentially devastating consequences of climate change.
David Miliband said that people had grown apathetic about the issue when they needed to be galvanised into action before the Copenhagen climate change summit in December.
“For a lot of people the penny hasn’t dropped that this climate change challenge is real and is happening now,” he said. “There isn’t yet that feeling of urgency and drive and animation about the Copenhagen conference.”
Mr Miliband and his brother, Ed Miliband, the Climate Change Secretary, were opening an exhibition at the Science Museum in South Kensington designed to illustrate the potential impact of world temperatures increasing by 4C. Current models predict that this could happen by 2060 if no action is taken.
He stood by the Government’s hard-hitting public information broadcast to promote the Government’s Act on CO2 initiative.
China and India agreed Oct. 22 to coordinate their efforts on climate change. The two countries are at one in holding developed countries responsible for taking the lead in cutting emissions. As the largest carbon emitter, China is being watched particularly closely in the approach to the December Copenhagen summit on climate change to see what position it will adopt.
Common Position
China’s carbon emissions are said to have surpassed those of the U.S. in 2007, making it the world’s largest contributing country and a key participant at the U.N. Climate Summit in Copenhagen this December:
–On Sept. 22, President Hu Jintao said China would cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of GDP by a “notable margin” by 2020. This has raised expectations that China might make a commitment to mandatory emissions cuts.
–On Oct. 14, Vice Premier Li Keqiang stressed the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” which replicated the standard position on climate change from the mid-1990s.
Entering into a five-year agreement yesterday, China and India are making common cause on climate change, which will add to the weight developing countries will have at Copenhagen. The two sides maintain that:
–developed countries carry primary responsibility for cutting emissions;
–caps should not be imposed, because development is their priority; and
–developed countries should provide financial and technological resources to industrializing countries to help them control emissions.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Arctic Report Card:
This year’s Arctic Report Card underscores the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas pollution and adapting to climate changes already under way.”
Among the changes highlighted in the 2009 update to the report card were:
* A change in large scale wind patterns affected by the loss of summer sea ice,
* The replacement of multi-year sea ice by first-year sea ice,
* Warmer and fresher water in the upper ocean linked to new ice-free areas,
* A continued loss of the Greenland ice sheet,
* Less snow in North America and increased runoff in Siberia, and
* The effect of the loss of sea ice on Arctic plant, animal, and fish species.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20091022_arcticreportcard.html
What are the Tetrapaks being recycled into?
Back in the 90′s, when I was running the local branch of Friends of the Earth in Jersey, we returned 2000 Tetrapak milk cartons to the car park of the local dairy to highlight the fact that in Germany they had just passed legislation that packaging waste could be returned to the manufacturer, whereas in Jersey, if we did that, we would be littering. They almost prosecuted us! We were campaigning for returnable milk bottles.
After the stunt, we were invited to meet with a representative from Tetrapak who showed us how “environmentally friendly” they were because they had recycled some by making a rather ghastly looking briefcase which no-one in their right mind would actually want…
My point is, just because a self-interested manufacturer greenwashes by claiming their packaging can be be recycled doesn’t necessarily make it a good thing for them to do that, if it slows down or prevents the move to returnable re-usable stuff.
Apologies!!! The comment above was meant in response to someone else’s blog about zero waste…
Dear Shri Jairam Ramesh
YOUR country will be among the first to die of starvation due to Anthropic Global Warming. Your monsoons are already misbehaving. Your wells are already running dry. You stand to loose 1.1 Billion citizens to starvation caused by global warming. Arguing over whose fault it is, is rather childish.
It’s all possible with BECCS (Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage
People keep repeating the mantra “There is no magic bullet… there is no magic bullet…” when actually, there IS.
Without BECCS, well, it’s like trying to drain a tub by slowing down how fast you run water into it. Without BECCS, 350 ppm is almost unattainable, especially since natural carbon sinks are saturated, and in fact are starting to release carbon, possibly at ever increasing rates.
BECCS drains the tub, and does so while producing electricity that is competitive in price.
In situ mineral carbonation for permanent sequestration is better than simple carbon capture and storage, but we don’t have time to be choosy. We simply need to nationalize the coal fired power plants, forcibly transform them ASAP into carbon negative power plants, put as much carbon back underground as is humanly possible, and do it NOW.
For some reason, people seem to reject the idea of carbon negative energy as being impossible, when it is in fact extremely possible and even relatively inexpensive. It’s all about carbon sources and carbon sinks, and is simply a form of solar energy (biomass) combined with carbon capture and sequestration. If we take carbon out of the biomass carbon reservoir and put it underground, we ultimately take carbon out of the atmosphere, and by replanting quick growing biomass like switchgrass and sorghum could in fact take carbon out of the atmosphere on time scales as short as one year.
There are no really good options, but compared to runaway warming, BECCS is the best option available. It’s not ideal, but it is a workable solution, IMO.
We need to do this while we still can, before the opportunity is lost.
I think most of us here realize this. But it is now being voice more and more and is sinking in beyond…at a 0.8C rise, the rate we are seeing the ice melt now means it is going to disappear a hell of a lot faster by the time we reach 2C.
Climate experts call sea level rise inevitable
http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2009/10/22/ScienceTech/Climate.Experts.Call.Sea.Level.Rise.Inevitable-3810840-page2.shtml
“Even if we go to two degrees or three degrees we certainly will lose control over our sea level rise because there is basically nothing we can do to stop the sea level from rising once we have caused this warming, unless we manage to cool down the planet,” Rahmstort said. “It would actually require extracting the CO2 from the atmosphere, which I don’t think is very feasible. At least no known way of doing this on a sufficient scale is known today.”
Experts predict that sea levels will rise two meters by the year 2100, two to four meters by 2200 and over four meters by 2300.
Just like the melting of the ice caps, once sea levels start to rise, they are unstoppable. “There [is] simply no way I can see that you could stop this rise, even if we have gone to zero emissions,” Stephan Rahmstort, a professor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research Impact, said during his address. “If we go to zero emissions we will roughly stabilize temperatures. They’re not going to go down very much, even in a zero emissions world.”
Rahmstorf suggests that this stabilization would be the best outcome, so that sea levels would rise at a steady rate instead of accelerating. Ultimately, however, within the next 300 to 1,000 years, the sea levels will rise about seven meters, which will swallow many island nations and low-lying coastal cities around the world.
According to Robert Nicholls of Southampton University, 40 million people live in flood plains, which is 0.6 percent of the global population and five percent – three trillion dollars – of the global wealth in assets such as airports and power plants.
“Sea level rise will also have significant impacts on tidal wetlands, coral, and erosion-prone headlines,” Zaitchik said.
Stopping sea level rise is also an important goal, though not one we are likely to reach in the near future as temperatures are certain to increase within the next century.
And for BECCS we will needs lots of extra primary production as there is just not enough for all the other requirements and BECCS as well. So heree is a feasible way to obtain that extra primary production:
Irrigated afforestation of the Sahara and Australian Outback to end global warming
http://www.springerlink.com/content/55436u2122u77525/
(The pdf is open access.)
Hi David-
Actually, there is apparently enough biomass for BECCS, and more could be obtained from biomass plantations, especially if those plantations were planted upstream of the converted BECCS power plants on rivers that currently provide cooling water for those power plants. If the power plant is on a lake or an ocean, that’s actually better because the entire watershed that drains into the lake or ocean, within reasonable distances (hundreds of miles, for water transport) becomes potential biomass collection area.
Articles that say there isn’t enough biomass generally assume that once plant material is used for some human purpose, it disappears somehow. In other words, there is no reason that plant material used by humans has to be single use. BECCS would work just fine with waste and trash, and agricultural waste like corn stover, paper and sawmill waste, and even dried sewage sludge can be carbonized into biochar, as is being done right now in Japan and Europe.
What some of us propose is simply to divert about ten percent of the sixty billion tons of carbon carbon taken up by biomass per year into energy production using BECCS, taking it partly from plant material that would have decayed or burned in wildfires. At the same time, we would like to see about a ten percent increase in overall biomass growth per year, due to massive replanting programs, perhaps operating from airplanes.
What some of us propose is to burn the biomass within easy transport distance of the power plants directly, after solar drying. For distances of up to perhaps a 150 mile radius from the power plant or from a river that passes by the power plant, the biomass could be locally transformed into biochar and transported as biochar. For further away than that, biochar log pipelines could be constructed, or biomass gasified and transported by pipeline to the power plants. Ultra high voltage power lines could also be used to transport electricity for hundreds or even thousands of miles from the biomass sources.
Oil is transported by supertanker from around the globe, and Australia sells coal to China, for example, and I would expect the economics of biochar transport by ship to be similar to that of oil or coal.
Leland Palmer (8) — I wish I could agree. Even using various forms of what would otherwise be wastes still is nowhere near enough, world wide, to sequester (44/12)*10 = 36.7 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. Thus the proposl to grow more biomass in deserts via irrigation.
Hi David-
Actually it’s 120 billion tons of carbon taken from the atmosphere incorporated into biomass every year, I misspoke above. This is equal to 120*(44/12)= 440 billion tons of CO2. Other diagrams of the carbon cycle put the number closer to 100 billion tons of carbon, but in any case you can see that this is about 10 times our world production of CO2.
Worldwide use of coal is about 6.1 billion tons, in 2006. This is equal to about 16.5 billion tons of CO2, assuming that coal is about 75% carbon. Call it 16 billion tons of CO2 per year.
Take those power plants, and convert them into carbon negative power plants. This would prevent 16 billion tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
But, using CCS plus replanting, this would also scrub the atmosphere of an additional 16 billion tons of CO2, as soon as the biomass grows back.
So, your 36.7 billion tons of CO2 is now down to about 4.7 billion tons per year.
Throw in the CO2 avoided by using some of the electricity generated for electric cars, and we are carbon neutral or actually carbon negative.
Throw in the CO2 and methane avoided by wildfire and decay reduction, and we are almost certainly in carbon negative territory – just by doing this one thing, converting all of the power plants worldwide into carbon negative power plants.
I wouldn’t be arguing, except that it’s an important subject, and I do think there’s enough biomass.
Of course, these are order of magnitude numbers, and a lot depends on the specifics of the scheme, and whether fossil fuels are used for transportation, and so on.
But the main point to remember is that with carbon negative energy, it is correct to count each billion tons of carbon displaced at least twice, and often more like three or so times, if you use the electricity produced to further reduce the use of fossil fuels.
Here’s a link to a diagram of the carbon cycle, which shows 120 billion tons of carbon being incorporated into the biomass per year (equivalent to about 440 billion tons of CO2).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
So, I repeat, there is enough biomass to run BECCS. Reforesting the Amazon should be a high priority, and if we want to do the Sahara and Australian outback, fine.
But we have a huge river system, ideal for this BECCS scheme, lined with literally dozens of huge coal fired power plants, right here in the U.S.
It’s called the Mississippi Basin.
Leland Palmer (10) — I’m not the one that needs convincing, policy makers are.
Hi David-
True. Thanks for the input, by the way. And I’m grateful for the feedback, and the interest in these ideas, and for that matter the suggestion about the Sahara, which was a rain forest not too many thousand years ago, and which could probably be a rain forest again with some effort.
Due to the synergistic nature of BECCS, though, even if advocates for it are wrong, we’re still right.
Suppose that there is less biomass available than we BECCS advocates think.
Suppose that BECCS was worth “only” about 6 or 8 of Joe’s stabilization wedges.
Wouldn’t it still be worth doing?
Rising seas could threaten Gulf Coast, scientific group says during stop in Tampa
St. Petersburg Times, October 23 – By the year 2100, much of the Pinellas coastline and parts of Hillsborough will be inundated with water, an estimate that almost doubles researchers’ original predictions about the rise in sea levels, scientists in global warming said Thursday.
Ravaged by drought, Madagascar feels the full effect of climate change
The Guardian, October 23 – A 10% increase in temperature and a 10% decrease in rainfall sees Indian Ocean island struggle to feed its children.
Warm and wet conditions in the Arctic region during Eocene Thermal Maximum
‘We show (…) that sea surface temperatures rose by 3-5°C in the Arctic Ocean during the EMT2. (…) The presence of palm pollen implies that coldest month mean temperatures over the Arctic land masses were no less than 8 °C, in contradiction of model simulations that suggest hyperthermal winter temperatures were below freezing. In light of our reconstructed temperature and hydrologic trends, we conclude that the temperature and hydrographic responses to abruptly increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations were similar for the ETM2 and the better-described Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximu
Article in Dutch here.
Earlier study: see here
Leland Palmer (12) — The Sahara was never a rain forest but rather an open woodland savanna, much nicer IMO. By the way, the Sahara Desert is almost the same size as the lower 48; I mention that because I think you have not yet contemplated the required scale to remove the excess carbon dioxide caused by burning fossil fuel.
Certainly BECCS is worth doing wherever possible so long as it is not at the expense of a stable ecology and agriculture. That’s why I suggest greening deserts to provide the necessary fuel after the trees have stopped growing.