Texas Comptroller water-planning report also fails to brings up the growing role of natural gas fracking

Ironically, the cover of a major Texas report on drought and water planning points out that it’s been “dry” and “hot” and implies humans have some control over the state’s thermostat.  But the report is silent on human contribution to the heat and drought now and in the future — and is thus dangerously misleading as a planning document.

Can a state devastated by its most severe hot-weather drought on record actually release a water-planning report on the future of drought in Texas that never mentions global warming?  Sadly, the answer is yes in the case of “The Impact of the 2011 Drought and Beyond,” by Susan Combs, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

The state’s climate science denial, led by Denier-In-Chief Rick Perry, is much more than purely rhetorical in nature. It is leaving the residents of Texas wholly unprepared for what is to come, including the devastation of much of the state’s agriculture, as this report unintentionally makes clear.

Texas A&M University, professor of atmospheric sciences, Dr. Andrew Dessler, writes me:

“This report is consistent with the Texas State Government’s position of ‘See no climate change, hear no climate change, speak no climate change.’ The report goes out of its way to try to suggest that the recent drought was entirely due to natural cycles, but that is an untenable scientific position.  Given how much carbon we’ve loaded into the atmosphere, the question is not whether humans are affecting the Texas weather, but exactly how.  I’m sorry the report let politics trump science.”

The state has already worked to censor efforts to inform citizens on its coast of the impact of warming-driven sea level rise — see Flood-Gate: Perry Officials Try to Hide Sea Level Rise from Texans with “Clear-Cut Unadulterated Censorship.”

But this new report is much worse since it bills itself as a planning report for the whole state on its most crucial problem — water:

As Comptroller, one of my responsibilities is to analyze trends that affect the state’s bottom line. And the terrible drought of 2011 underlined a particularly important factor that could have far-reaching impacts on Texas’ growth and prosperity.

Our water resources are finite. Planning for and managing our water use is perhaps the most important task facing Texas policymakers in the 21st century.

My office is pleased to present Gauging the Economic Impact of the 2011 Drought and Beyond, which discusses the current drought and its impacts on the state; current and future water resources in Texas; and innovative solutions governments in Texas and elsewhere are using to solve the water crisis.

The current drought is the worst single-year Texas drought since record-keeping began — and it may prove to be one of most devastating economic events in our history. Estimates by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service put Texas agricultural losses for the year at $5.2 billion. A December economic analysis by BBVA Compass Bank found that indirect drought losses to the state’s agricultural industries could add another $3.5 billion to the toll….

Drought is an ever-present concern in many parts of the state, leading to pressure on our water infrastructure. According to the Texas Water Development Board [TWDB], demand for water will rise by 22 percent by 2060. The board says that, should we experience another multi-year “drought of record” such as that of the 1950s, it could cost Texas businesses and workers $116 billion in income by 2060.

Obviously the Comptroller doesn’t really believe that planning for and managing water use could be the most important task facing Texas policymakers — or else her report on the subject would take the subject more seriously and have significant discussions of two key factors, manmade climate change and hydraulic fracking.

Natural gas hydraulic fracturing is perhaps the thirstiest new source of water consumption in the state (see here). The TWDB projects total water usage for fracking statewide was 13.5 billion gallons in 2010 and will likely more than double by 2020. In one District west of Fort Worth, “the share of groundwater used by frackers was 40% in the first half of 2011, up from 25% in 2010.” It is inconceivable one could do serious water planning in Texas without an analysis of the impact of fracking. Yet the report says nothing whatsoever about fracking except to put it in a long list of ways one could use treated wastewater.

Many, many recent studies make clear that global warming will be among the biggest drivers of drought and water-related problems in Texas and the rest of the South-West in the coming decades.  In 2007, Science (subs. req’d) published research that “predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest” — levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would stretch from Kansas to California.

A 2010 literature review and analysis from the National Center for Atmospheric Research [NCAR], “Drought under global warming” warned:

“The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades … possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.”

Another 2010 study warned the U.S. southwest could see a 60-year drought like that of 12th century — only hotter — this century:

An unprecedented combination of heat plus decades of drought could be in store for the Southwest sometime this century, suggests new research from a University of Arizona-led team….

“The bottom line is, we could have a Medieval-style drought with even warmer temperatures,” [lead author Connie] Woodhouse said.

But the Texas water planning report has nothing to say about global warming. It selectively quotes state Climatologist Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon at length on the causes of 2011′s shortfall in precipitation. It doesn’t offer even one of the numerous statements by scientists about the impact of record heat on this drought, including Nielsen-Gammon himself, who said, “There is evidence that global warming has had an effect on the drought, primarily by increasing the surface temperature, which increases the drought severity by increasing evaporation and water stress, and by decreasing stream flow and water supply.”

The report itself notes, “drought and unprecedented heat made 2011 the worst year for wildfires in Texas history” — but again is silent on how humans contribute to the unprecedented heat and the ever worsening wildfire seasons.

The report does point out that Texas has been hit by extremely severe droughts in the past:

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The founder of Conservation Hawks, an organization of sportsmen dedicated to fighting climate change, will give up his gun if global warming is a hoax.

“If you can convince Conservation Hawks chairman Todd Tanner that he’s wasting his time, that he does not have to worry about climate change, he will present to you his most prized possession: A Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge over/under that was a gift from his wife, and has been a faithful companion on many a Montana bird hunt,” Hal Herring writes at The Conservationist. “I know the gun, and I’ve hunted and fished with Todd for years. He’s not kidding. You convince him, he’ll give you the gun.”

Let’s say you are walking down a trail in the wilderness with your wife and kids, and you come upon a grizzly sow, standing on a carcass. She charges, flat out. You’re in front of your family. What do you do? Just give up? Pretend it’s not happening? Let her maul you and everything your care about? Of course you don’t. You take action. That is how I see climate change. It’s real, it’s threatening everything we love. Not taking action is not an option.

Tanner rebuffed the argument that action on global warming pollution just means a government takeover. “You want to talk about government intrusion, think about what it means if we don’t address this now while we have the time and resources,” he said. “We will lose the freedoms that we have because somebody—and it will be government—will be in an all out effort to try and address the effects. To try and address the effects of our neglect. We’ll face the worst thing of all- losing our freedom. And we’ll already have lost most of hunting and fishing. That’s how serious I believe this is.”

So those of you who deny the threat of global warming — Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Rush Limbaugh, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, David Koch — this could be yours if you can convince Tanner that there’s really just a scientific conspiracy to trick people that greenhouse pollution is dangerous:

Our guest blogger is Glenn Hurowitz, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. Follow him on Twitter @glennhurowitz.

The Obama administration has announced its support for the junta that ousted democratically elected Maldives president and climate hero Mohamed Nasheed in a military coup.

Even though President Nasheed was apparently forced to resign at gunpoint, the State Department has continued to address the coup-makers as the “legitimate government” of the Maldives, referred to Nasheed as the “former president,” and called the leader of the junta that seized power “President.” Here’s State Department spokesperson Ambassador Victoria Nuland last week:

In that context, Assistant Secretary Blake spoke this morning to former President Nasheed conveying our assurances that the United States supports a peaceful resolution of this, that we are also expressing our views to the government that his security should be protected, but also encouraging him, as we encouraged President Waheed, that this needs to be settled now peaceably through dialogue and through the formation, as the new president has pledged, of a national unity government. And as we said, Assistant Secretary Blake will be there on Saturday…

QUESTION: So does – the U.S. considers the new government a legitimate government of the Maldives?

MS. NULAND: We do.*

*The United States will work with the new Government of the Maldives but believes that the circumstances surrounding the transfer of power must be clarified, and suggests all parties agree to an independent mechanism to do so.

The italicized remarks were issued following Nuland’s briefing; the following day, she maintained the administration’s backing for the coup – saying that while “the circumstances need to be clarified,” the United States is “going to work with the government.”

In diplo-speak, that means, “We support the coup, though we’re putting on a display of squeamishness.” And that “national unity government?” The idea may sound good, but the people of the Maldives elected President Nasheed’s government. They certainly didn’t elect the aides of former dictator Abdul Gayoom that have been put into key cabinet posts. Read more

Reducing short-lived gases is only effective as part of broader CO2 reduction strategy

A new plan to tackle short-lived pollutants may help bridge the gap between current emission reduction pledges and what is actually needed by 2020 to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2° Celsius.

At the State Department this morning, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced a six-country initiative designed to reduce pollutants like methane, black carbon (soot), and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) that help speed up global warming. These pollutants are often called “climate forcers” because they push temperatures up much more quickly than carbon dioxide.

Methane, a shorter-living greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 100-year period — and 100 more potent over a 20-year period — has contributed to roughly 50% of tropospheric ozone helping warm the planet.  Soot from burning biomass and coal travels around the world and lands on ice caps and glaciers, increasing melting and preventing the reflection of sunlight. HFCs, a common refrigerant, are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide.

These pollutants come from inefficiently burning biomass and coal, improperly handling waste water or municipal solid waste, and poor vehicle emissions standards, among many other sources. Along with having a major impact on climate, they are also a major cause of premature deaths and crop failures.

The countries working to reduce climate forcers include Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Sweden and the U.S. American officials say they will commit $10 million to the initiative, which will be run by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

The initiative will follow guidelines set forward by UNEP in a report on climate forcers last November.

While the plan to reduce these pollutants is only a short-term fix, it could put the world on a path toward faster temperature reductions and provide a needed cushion as countries grapple with slow-moving international negotiations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide.

In January, Drew Shindell, a researcher with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, found that a strong international effort to address these pollutants could slow the rise of global temperatures by a half degree celsius by 2050, prevent 4.7 million deaths per year, and improve global crop yields by 135 million metric tons per season.

“We’ve shown that implementing specific practical emissions reductions chosen to maximize climate benefits would also have important ‘win-win’ benefits for human health and agriculture,” said Shindell, when he released his findings.

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With every passing day, Congress outdoes its own abysmal environmental record.

Even as federal policymakers consider a transportation bill that would open up sensitive areas for offshore drilling, encourage use of dirty oil shale, force a decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and derail public investments in public transportation, they couldn’t even compromise on a simple short-term tax credit for wind energy.

Wind businesses were calling an extension of the credit an “emergency” due to looming mass layoffs in the industry. But history has proven time and time again, if it’s clean and renewable, it doesn’t force any urgency in Congress.

In recent weeks, there was a strong bi-partisan push to include the production tax credit (PTC) in an upcoming payroll tax cut bill. Unlike drilling tax credits for fossil fuels permanently embedded in the tax code, wind and other renewables only get short-term extensions of the PTC. With an expiration looming at the end of this year, wind companies are already reducing orders and laying off hundreds of people.

The effort to extend the PTC was supported by Republican governors, multi-national corporations, and a strong coalition in Congress. However, with some Congressional radicals threatening to “derail” the bill if the PTC were part of the tax cut package, the extension was not in the final bill, according to North American Windpower — effectively killing one of the only chances to revive this vital tax credit in 2012:

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Pro-pollution Sen. Inhofe aims to block life-saving standards

By Arpita Bhattacharyya and Daniel J. Weiss

Americans can celebrate a big step toward cleaner air and healthier communities today as the final  Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants are published in the Federal Register.  This is a significant milestone for the life-saving Environmental Protection Agency rules that were announced on December 16, 2011.  However, these long overdue safeguards from the known neurotoxin mercury continue to face relentless attacks from coal heavy utilities, coal companies and their Congressional allies.  Today, Senator Inhofe (R-OK) filed a Congressional Review Act resolution to block the rule, just as it made it onto the Federal Register.

The Federal Register is the official publication for proposed and final rules.  Publication of the mercury rule begins the implementation process. The rule requires power plants to reduce mercury, lead, arsenic, acid gasses, and other toxic chemicals from their smokestacks.  The huge reduction in toxics would save 11,000 lives, prevent  130,000 asthma attacks  and avoid 4,700 heart attacks annually.   Such drastic health improvements would provide economic benefits of up to $90 billion every year.

Senator Inhofe disregards these important health benefits and calls on his colleagues to join him to “stop EPA’s destructive agenda” through a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act.   The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to completely block rules it opposes.  It works like this:  Once the mercury rule is published in the Federal Register, legislators have sixty legislative days to introduce and vote on it.  According to the Library of Congress, a legislative day begins:

“when a house of Congress meets and ends when it adjourns…the Senate often does not adjourn at the end of a daily session, but instead  ‘recesses,’ so when the Senate next meets, it continues in the same legislative day. As a result, a legislative day in the Senate may extend over days, weeks, or even months.”

In addition, the resolution requires a simple majority of senators voting for it to pass – it cannot be blocked by a filibuster that requires 60 votes to end.

Albert A. Rizzo of the American Lung Association blasted Senator’s Inhofe’s attempt to block the standards, stating that “These safeguards have been delayed for far too long already.  The public cannot wait any longer for these life-saving clean air protections.”

Senator Inhofe will likely have the support of many utilities and coal companies that have ignored the health benefits.  Instead, they want to prevent, weaken or delay these vital safeguards, claiming that the cost of cleanup is simply too high.

The emitters claim that the rules will reduce electricity reliability, increase electricity prices, and increase unemployment.  Many also assert that they don’t have enough time to comply.  The Center for American Progress and other clean air defenders have proven these claims false time and time again.

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One in a series of posts about the Heartland Institute’s inner workings, from internal documents acquired by ThinkProgress Green.

Internal documents reveal that General Motors Foundation has contributed to the climate-denial shop Heartland Institute, giving $30,000 since 2010 for its school-privatization publication School Reform News. GM has called for mandatory climate action, in sharp contrast to Heartland’s attacks on the fact of global warming.

Asked about the contributions, GM defended the Heartland Institute as “careful and considerate,” even though the radical think tank has accused “Government Motors” of “corporate welfare-sucking” and told people to “never again buy a GM car or truck.” In a statement to the Guardian, Greg Martin, GM’s director of policy and Washington communications, heaped praised on Heartland:

We support a variety of organizations that give careful and considerate thought to complex policy issues and Heartland is one of them.

In light of that high praise, ThinkProgress Green reviewed what the Heartland Institute has said about GM on its website over the past two years. Here is a sampling:

– “I, for one, don’t believe [GM CEO Dan] Akerson and his corporate welfare-sucking ilk believe Americans are ‘generous’ when government forces us to pay for their failures and mistakes. They know better; they just hope we don’t. … Let’s show him we know what he’s doing. We could start by never again buying a GM car or truck.” ["Raise Debt Ceiling? No. End Obamacare? Yes" 7/12/11]

– “It really doesn’t get much dumber than this unless, of course, you consider the Obama administration’s bailout of General Motors. Amidst a bevy of costly bailout measures in 2009, Obama stepped in to ‘rescue’ GM when, in fact, all it had to do is step aside and let the company file for bankruptcy, get restructured, and begin again. Countless companies, large and small, do this every year. The rescue, however, was not about GM so much as it was the United Auto Workers, a union that was largely responsible for putting GM in the poor house. … It didn’t help that the Obama administration insisted that GM step up its electric car program, always notoriously unprofitable, or that the steering wheels on some Chevy Cruze models literally came off in the driver’s hands!” ["The GM (Government Motors) Debacle, and Gas Prices" 4/28/10]

– “A little research shows that Chrysler has used essentially the same . . . creative accounting? bookkeeping devices? . . . that General Motors used in 2009 when that company announced with great fanfare that it was paying back government rescue money.” ["Chrysler Repays Government Early; Deja Vu All Over Again?" 5/25/11]

– “On a radio show I tuned into a while back, I heard the ballyhooed Chevy Volt electric car described as ‘the world’s first coal-powered car.’ Love that line. Even Henry Ford wasn’t dumb enough to engineer this lemon.” ["SHOCKER: The ‘Coal Powered Car,’ the Chevy Volt, is a dud (281 Sold in Feb.)" 3/5/11]

Perhaps Martin might want to reconsider whether the group’s thought is really so “careful and considerate.”

In a desperate attempt to force Keystone XL, three Senators are threatening access to a vital economic and national security safeguard, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

by Daniel J. Weiss

Republican Congressional leaders have failed to force President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. But that’s not stopping them from trying over and over again, taking hostages in the process.

First they used the payroll tax cut extension as a vehicle to force a decision on the pipeline in sixty days, even before the final route was identified. President Obama was forced to disapprove the permit because there was no time to assess its potential pollution.

This week, several senators took a different hostage: our emergency oil supply.  On February 13, Senators David Vitter (R-LA), John Hoevan (R-ND), and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced the Strategic Petroleum Supplies Act, S. 2100 that would prevent President Obama from selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve unless Keystone is approved:

“the Administration shall not authorize a sale of petroleum products from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve… until the date on which all permits necessary … for the Keystone XL pipeline project application filed on September 19, 2008 (including amendments) have been issued.”

In other words, unless the president approves Keystone, he cannot sell our emergency oil — even if Iran causes an oil supply disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, a hurricane or other disaster disables oil production or refining facilities, or any other type of event causes gasoline prices to soar above $4 per gallon.  If any of these events happen, middle class Americans would pay significantly higher gasoline pump prices, giving billions of dollars more to big oil companies that made record profits last year.

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When it comes to government, more is not better. Less is not better.  Only better is better.  And better is what we as a society should strive for.

by Jonathan Koomey, in an excerpt from his new book “Cold Cash, Cool Climate”

Imagine a company where the CEO says “We’ll never raise prices, borrow money, or increase our expenses under any circumstances, nor will we act to expand existing or create new markets when we have a competitive advantage in doing so.” You’d think that CEO was loony.  But this is exactly what some say about government when they say that spending and taxes should never increase, that environment regulations should always be relaxed, and that government should always do less than it’s doing now.

I believe that anyone who spends money should get what they pay for, and that money (particularly public funds) should be spent prudently, wisely, and carefully. But as a father, consultant, researcher, and entrepreneur, I’m also acutely aware that sometimes families, companies, governments, and societies need to invest money for the future.  ”You have to spend money to make money,” says the old proverb.  And sometimes only government can do what needs to be done.

What we need is an honest discussion about what kind of government we want and what we want it to do for us.  Sometimes we’ll want more government, like when we find lead in children’s toys, salmonella in peanut butter, poison in medicines, an unsustainable health care system, or fraudulent assets and a lack of transparency in the financial world.  We know from experience that only government can fix those things. Sometimes we’ll want less government, like when old and conflicting regulations get in the way of starting innovative new companies. Only government can fix that too (although the private sector has some lessons to teach on that score). And sometimes we’ll want the same government, just delivered more efficiently (like the state of California has done with the Department of Motor Vehicles in recent years, the good results of which I’ve experienced firsthand).

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There’s a cheap, abundant resource that could help consumers save money and fight climate change: rainwater.

by Zachary Rybarczyk

Residents in eight cities around the U.S. could collectively trim up to $90 million a year off their water bills with simple rainwater collection techniques, according to a new report.

Urban rooftop rainwater collection, often overlooked or discouraged by complicated regulations in major cities and neighborhoods, could help individuals and families save money while improving water quality, says the Natural Resources Defense Council in a new report.

“Even under conservative assumptions, the study demonstrates that each city modeled can capture hundreds of millions to billions of gallons of rainwater each year, equivalent to the total annual water use of tens to hundreds of thousands of residents.”

And the yearly savings could be far greater for Americans than $90 million. The eight cities profiled in the NRDC analysis are only a snapshot of the different regions around the country.

Over 44 billion gallons of freshwater are used by public water suppliers on a daily basis in the United States, with consumers representing one of the highest individual daily usage rates in the world (between 100 and 165 gallons). As climate change and population growth drain some regional water supplies, urban dwellers may be vulnerable to water shortages or price spikes.

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By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Speaking at a campaign stop in Idaho Tuesday night, Rick Santorum continued the Republican presidential contenders’ recent pattern of calling for the selling off of public lands.  According to the Idaho Statesmen, Santorum told Idahoans that:

But there’s a lot of land out there that is land that can and should be managed by stewards who care about that land. I believe the land is there to serve man, not man there to serve the land. If we turn that, obviously, BLM, they just don’t — look, we’re not going to have the resources to manage this land correctly. The federal government doesn’t care about it, they don’t care about this land. They don’t live here, they don’t care about it, we don’t care about it in Washington. It’s just flyover country for most of the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.

We need to get it back into the hands of the states and even to the private sector. And we can make money doing it, we can make money doing it by selling it. So I believe that this is critically important.

Santorum failed to note that public lands—even those that aren’t national parks—are of incredible importance to Idaho.   Interior Department-managed lands alone (not including the 13 national forests in Idaho) provided more than $1 billion in economic impacts to the state in 2010.  Activities on federal lands such as recreation, drilling, mining, and timber also stimulated over 11,000 jobs.

Some of Idaho’s best places are on public lands, such as Craters of the Moon National Monument and the Nez Perce National Historical Trail.  Even the Bald Mountain ski area in Sun Valley is on public lands.   Forests, grasslands, and national monuments are of tremendous use to hunters, anglers, hikers, ranchers, gas companies, and many others who utilize these places that are managed for all of us to use and enjoy.

Santorum also told the Idaho Statesman that “the federal government doesn’t care about” public lands.  It is difficult to measure how much the federal government “cares” about a particular issue, but all one needs to do is talk with employees of the BLM, National Park Service, or the US Forest Service to find the people that “care” about public lands. As for President Obama, just Monday he released an $11.5 billion budget request for the Interior Department, up slightly from last year.

Two weeks ago, Mitt Romney told a Nevada newspaper that he doesn’t know “what the purpose is” of public lands.  And Ron Paul told a crowd in Nevada that he wants “as much federal land to be turned over to the state as possible.”

One in a series of posts about the Heartland Institute’s inner workings, from internal documents acquired by ThinkProgress Green.

On Tuesday, ThinkProgress Green exposed Microsoft Corporation as one of the funders of the Heartland Institute listed in internal documents of the right-wing think tank. The Heartland Institute promotes radical anti-science conspiracy theories asserting that global warming is a hoax, in sharp contrast to Microsoft’s public position on climate change.

A Microsoft spokesman contacted ThinkProgress Green to clarify the nature of the company’s support for the Heartland Institute, explaining that the $59,908 tax-deductible contribution recorded for 2011 came in the form of software licenses available to “any eligible non-profit organization”:

As part of our global nonprofit software donation program, Microsoft provides free software licenses upon request to any eligible non-profit organization. In Fiscal Year 2011, Microsoft donated $844 million in software to 44,000 nonprofits around the world. As part of that program, the organization requested free software licenses, and Microsoft provided them, just like we do for thousands of other eligible non-profits every year.

Microsoft’s position on climate change remains unchanged. Microsoft believes climate change is a serious issue that demands immediate, worldwide attention and we are acting accordingly. We are pursuing strategies and taking actions that are consistent with a strong commitment to reducing our own impact as well as the impact of our products. In addition, Microsoft has adopted a broad policy statement on climate change that expresses support for government action to create market-based mechanisms to address climate change.

The Microsoft spokesman also explained the the “Gold Sponsor” contribution that Microsoft made to Koch’s Americans For Prosperity in 2011 was similarly in the form of free software licenses.

Microsoft’s software donation program states that eligible non-profits “have a mission to benefit the local community” including, but not limited to “advancing education” or “preserving or restoring the environment.”

Other stories below: Extreme summer high temperatures expected more frequently; Leak offers glimpse into campaign against climate science

New global deal on climate change

Those concerned about climate change and greenhouse gas pollution have been justifiably frustrated in the last few years. Despite some significant moves by the Obama administration — particularly improving vehicle efficiency and creating incentives for significant investment in wind and solar power — national action has been ground down by partisanship fueled by climate skepticism.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s announcement Thursday plants seeds of hope. The United States, with Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico and Sweden, is launching a partnership aimed at reducing “short-lived climate pollutants” with a focus on methane, black carbon and hydroflurocarbons.

This new coalition to reduce short-lived climate pollutants aims to raise $10 million in the first year to enhance public and private efforts worldwide to reduce these pollutants and scale up as we move forward.

We know the bulk of climate pollution comes from carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels for energy. Mitigating this is essential — but has met fierce resistance from fossil fuel industries.

What is less understood is that carbon dioxide is a relatively long-lived greenhouse gas, with lasting effects. About half of all carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for roughly 100 years, but some 20 percent remains for many thousands of years. It effectively locks in whatever warming we create well beyond our lifetimes.

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