A major new report warns that on our current emissions path, we face the severe risk of abrupt climate change impacts. The basic conclusions themselves are nothing new — see “Startling new sea level rise research: “Most likely” 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100” and “Australia faces the “permanent dry” — as do we.”

But what is stunning is that these warnings come from the United States Geological Survey — the Bush Administration (!). This new science-based report, Abrupt Climate Change, is thus a sobering book-end to the fantasy-based talking points released by the Administration today on how the President has “Taken Constructive Steps To Confront Climate Change.”

This is a first-rate report from the USGS’s Climate Change Science Program. I highly recommend reading, Chapter 2, “Rapid Changes in Glaciers and Ice Sheets and their Impacts on Sea Level,” and Chapter 3, “Hydrological Variability and Change.” The chapters are much more readable than the IPCC reports, and the two together will make anyone an expert on what are perhaps the two most dangerous climate impacts that threaten this country.

The sea level rise conclusion, “based on an assessment of the published scientific literature” is:
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CNNMoney has the surprising story of “Chrysler’s plan to beat the Chevy Volt“:

Chrysler is pinning a huge part of its future on a plan to produce a full line of electric vehicles, at a reasonable cost to both the carmaker and the consumer….

Chrysler’s strategy hinges on keeping it cheap. The carmaker will dispense with flashy designs in exchange for low cost and flexibility. And it plans to pile on more electric-powered models quickly once the program launches in 2010.

“We aren’t a one-electric-vehicle company,” Lou Rhodes, Chrysler’s vice president for advanced vehicle engineering, told CNNMoney in an exclusive interview. Rhodes is also president of Chrysler’s ENVI, a separate business division tasked with bringing new electric vehicles to market.

Instead of making one, or just a few, electric-only models, Chrysler will sell the same models in both gasoline-powered and electric-powered versions. This low-cost, high-variety electric-vehicle strategy will play a big part in any comeback plan Chrysler may present in hopes of getting government rescue funding.

Wow. If this is really true, if Chrysler will spell this out in the spring for the government as part of a full bailout plan, then the company certainly should be given a chance to put this strategy into place.

Unless this downturn turns into a global recession, gasoline prices should be returning to record levels by the end of 2010 — and breaking records a few years after that.

Here are more details of Chrysler’s electrifying strategy:

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He may be one of the best qualified cabinet secretaries ever named, and he’s not even Energy Secretary yet — but the honeymoon is over for Chu. Greenwire has a long list of things he should be worrying about (and they don’t even include the worst of it):

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Okay, my headline may have selectively edited the White House’s newly released energy/climate legacy talking points. But I didn’t do anything more than the White House itself did in its unintentionally humorous fact sheet that asserts, “President Bush Has Strengthened America’s Energy Security And Taken Constructive Steps To Confront Climate Change.”

I suppose the “fact sheet” is accurate if by “strengthened America’s Energy Security” you mean “done nothing whatsoever while oil imports and energy prices reached record levels” and if by “Constructive” and “Confront” you mean “Destructive” and “Accelerate.” Far more likely is that, as one leading international scientist put it, “Bush will go down in history as possibly a person who has doomed the planet.”

The White House touts the fact that “From 2002 to 2006, United States greenhouse gas emissions increased by only 1.9 percent” even though the Bush Administration has already released the official 2007 data, so we know that GHG emissions have risen 5% during his tenure from 2001 to 2007 (see “Bush policies cause U.S. GHG emissions to soar 1.4% in 2007“). I would also note that if the United States manufactured everything it has purchased from China in our large and growing trade deficit, the annual growth rate of US emissions would be about 50% higher.

The fact sheet does deliver one interesting, if unintentional fact — just spending money on technology won’t reduce emissions. The White House touts:

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I do not give financial advice. Even if you accept the analysis here on peak oil, global warming, and clean tech, that is insufficient information on which to base investment decisions — as the financial meltdown of the last few months should make clear.

But I do think the Prius is easily the best hybrid — best green vehicle — on the road if you are looking for a vehicle in that class size (see “Prius, Part 2: Why hybrids beat diesels“). And as much as people tend to be skeptical of an extended warranty, I assume most Prius owners get one because of the somewhat uncertain lifetime of the battery — although they have been holding up quite well.

But my display monitor just failed outside of the regular warranty, and it would have been almost as expensive as replacing the battery if I didn’t have the extended warranty. And since it controls not just the GPS system, but other vital functions like the heating and cooling system, you can’t do without it.

This was one of the cases where the system wouldn’t work except the moment I pulled into the dealership — I guess it kept warming up. The dealer says the service people are incredibly reluctant to replace parts that appear to be working since the parts get shipped back to Japan and if they can’t find anything wrong they end up charging the service people. But I took a digital photo of the frozen screen, and they replaced it without putting up much of a fuss.

Anyway, you can take this advice for what it cost you.

Last week, I pointed out that the climate story of the decade is that the 2000s are on track to be nearly 0.2°C warmer than the 1990s (see “Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far“).

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported today that because humans are altering the climate with greenhouse gas emissions:

The ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1997. Global temperatures for 2000-2008 now stand almost 0.2 °C warmer than the average for the decade 1990-1999.

What of 2008?

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Obama’s green team (L-R): Carol Browner, Lisa Jackson, Nancy Sutley, and Steve Chu, with Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Rahm Emanuel.

Yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama announced his top energy and environment officials, a “Green Team” who will be leading the effort to fight global warming by building a sustainable economy. Obama selected Dr. Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy and Lisa Jackson as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator. He announced two top White House officials: Nancy Sutley as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality and Carol Browner as chief energy and climate policy adviser, a new position advocated by the Center for American Progress. Obama also tapped Heather Zichal to be the Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. The Wonk Room takes a look at the five picks below.

CAROL BROWNER

Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change

BACKGROUND: Browner, 52, ran the Environmental Protection Agency during the entire Clinton presidency. She has continued her leadership on energy and the environment since leaving the EPA. A principal at the Albright Group consulting firm and chair of the National Audubon Society, Browner is a director at the Center for American Progress, Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, the League of Conservation Voters, and the National Brownfields Association. She has been a top adviser on Obama’s transition team, overseeing energy policy and meeting with environmental leaders.

QUOTES:

“When the government steps up and says there’s a requirement . . . what the government is doing is creating a market opportunity. American innovation and American ingenuity time and time again has risen to that challenge, and inevitably more quickly and at less cost than was anticipated.” [CAPAF, 12/1/08]

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[Given the importance of China to the fate of the climate, I am happy to introduce a new guest blogger, Robert Collier. He is a visiting scholar at U.C. Berkeley, writing a book about China and global warming. He is a former senior foreign-affairs correspondent for SF Chronicle who reported "from a total of 25 nations on the politics and diplomacy of global warming, international energy policy, the environment and trade."]

After Saturday’s sputtering end of the U.N. climate talks in Poznan, Poland, it’s clearer than ever that the fate of the post-Kyoto negotiations will depend on whether China can be coaxed to adopt some sort of carbon emissions limits. But as this tug of war plays out in the next year and beyond, what’s most important is not what China says on the diplomatic front but what it does on the home front.

The news on that score is mixed at best. On Friday, the central government admitted that the country is sliding backward in its crucial benchmark for its campaign to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy. The National Development and Reform Commission, China’s super-cabinet agency for economic policy, announced that energy consumption per unit of GDP (what the Chinese call “energy intensity”) fell 3.46 percent over the first three quarters. That’s well below the goal of a 20 percent reduction from 2006 to 2010, which would require 4 percent annual reduction. In fact, 2008 will be the third successive year to fail to reach the benchmark. (The figures for 2006 and 2007 were 1.79 percent and 3.66 percent respectively.) Even worse, the pace of improvement slackened notably during this year’s third quarter, with energy intensity falling only 0.58 percent.

All of this is especially bad news because the energy intensity campaign has been the Chinese government’s single most prominent initiative related to global warming. Over the past two years, Chinese officials and diplomats have touted the campaign far and wide, citing it as proof that China is actually taking tough steps to reduce its emissions.

[JR: I would add that China's energy intensity target is no more meaningful than Bush's carbon intensity target (see "Bush Touts Meaningless Greenhouse Gas Targets While Making his Double-U-Turn on Climate"). So what if China reduces its annual energy use per unit GDP by 4% if its GDP is rising 8% to 10% a year and the resulting 4% to 6% growth in energy is met primarily by coal?]

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