The reason I haven’t blogged much today is that I was asked to test drive an innovative clean car — and I had to fly to another state (and back).

I can’t give any more details at this point since I was acting in my former mundane role as someone who supposedly knows something about alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), rather than my current exciting role as a serious journalist blogger. Also, an exclusive was given to someone from the MSM traditional media.

I will give a full report after the car is introduced at the Detroit auto show in January, since I think it represents a potential major step forward in AFVs.

What good is a road map when your navigator isn’t paying attention?

There is one day, Friday, left in the climate negotiations in Bali (because of the time difference, attendees are already sleeping off Thursday). The EU is calling for language that specifies a target – emissions cuts of 25-40 percent by 2020. Countries participating in Bali are making desperate pleas for some sort of road map or direction before leaving. But despite international, domestic and scientific pressure, the Bush administration still refuses to cooperate and the EU, in turn, as threatened to boycott Bush’s second major emitters meeting.

Even Al Gore has called the U.S. an obstacle to negotiations, and non-profit observers are getting visibly peeved. Environment & Energy Daily reports (subs. req’d):

“This is probably the most explicitly irresponsible act that any American administration has taken in any of our lifetimes,” Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, declared. “They should not be forgiven for they know full well what they do.”

Jennifer Morgan of London-based climate think tank E3G added, “There is a wrecking crew in Bali, led by the Bush administration and its minions.”

And so, the EU is keen to give Bush a taste of his own medicine. At the end of January, he has scheduled a second summit to discuss voluntary emissions (in Hawaii, of all places…). Should his policy not budge, senior officials from the European Union, France and Germany have threatened to boycott his effort PR-stunt.

The EU is the most rational voice of a negotiating partner right now, and their absence at any global warming summit would be unfortunate. But I do wonder how it would phase Bush, if any bitterness would show through other issues, or if Bush would just work on his sun and surf.

Perhaps that’s why Avaaz has this petition going: US to World: Bush Doesn’t Represent Us.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has released its biennial integrated energy policy report. The 301-page report looks at various issues confronting California and makes recommendations on how to address them. The issues include:

• Rising population leading to greater demand for energy (natural gas, petroleum, and electric power).
• Rising natural gas demand while production remains flat, leading to a tight market and higher prices.
• Increasing population away from the coast, increasing peak electric demand from air conditioning.
• Increasing vehicle travel from population and sprawl.
• Expected petroleum supply constraints (e.g. port facilities for increase imports) making it difficult to fuel future vehicle travel conventionally.
• California’s AB32 cap on greenhouse gas emissions, requiring 1990 levels by 2020 (despite the population increase–a 30% decrease in absolute emissions).

Even though California is already one of the most efficient users of energy, the CEC is looking for further efficiency improvements, and although a 2006 legislative act mandates 20% renewable electricity by 2010, the report looks to 33% by 2020 to support California’s population growth. A few of the numerous specific recommendations from the report include:

Read more

A non-profit in Germany called Germanwatch has its eye on more than just its own domestic climate policy. The organization just released a Climate Change Performance Index ranking 56 countries that together make up 90 percent of global emissions.

The index takes three factors into consideration: 1) emissions (excluding agricultural), worth 50 percent of the score; 2) emission trends (are emissions decreasing, increasing, and how quickly?), worth 30 percent of the score; and 3) policy, worth 10 percent of the score.

The last two factors help Germany land the #2 spot and cause the U.S. to land the second to last spot [JR: We just beat out Australia and Canada for second to last, but couldn't quite top (bottom?) Saudi Arabia]. Despite our high level of emissions, we could rank higher if we didn’t peg our progress to greenhouse gas intensity and actually participated in (beyond simply appearing at) international negotiations, or had some sort of domestic game plan.

According to the report, our ranking could be 20 seats higher simply with policy change. The U.S. fell a few seats between this report and last year’s, but with any luck, a new president, and more and more legislation in Congress, we’ll start to move up the rankings.