A three-year summary of America’s first carbon trading program was released yesterday. The news is pretty good for anyone who cares about reducing carbon emissions; it’s inconvenient for anyone hell-bent on preventing America from implementing a carbon pricing plan.

According to the program administrator of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) — a nine-state cap-and-trade market established in the Northeast in 2008 — average annual CO2 emissions have fallen by 23 percent compared to emission levels before the start of the program:

Average annual CO2 emissions for the three-year period were 126 million short tons, a 23 percent reduction when compared to the preceding three-year period, 2006-2008. Three-year average electricity consumption across the ten-state region declined only moderately, by 2.4 percent, between the same periods, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

CO2 emissions were collectively reduced to 33 percent below the annual pollution cap of 188 million short tons.

And the predictions of economic collapse and suffering ratepayers? Not happening.

The progress report follows a study from the Analysis Group finding that RGGI added $1.6 billion in value to the economies of participating states, setting up ratepayers for more than $1.1 billion in savings through improved efficiency and development of renewable energy. All this activity created 16,000 jobs in the first three years of the program.

“Five years ago, critics were saying climate programs like RGGI couldn’t succeed in the U.S.,” said David Littell, Commissioner of the Maine Public Utilities Commission and Vice-Chair of RGGI, in a statement.

“Now, we are seeing significant emissions reductions in the context of economic recovery as we switch to cleaner fuels and learn to use energy smarter. In fact, RGGI has allowed companies to stay competitive and reduce their energy expenditures to weather the recession and come out stronger.”

In April, Environment New Jersey issued an analysis showing that states participating in RGGI reduced emissions 20 percent faster and grew GDP twice the rate of the rest of the U.S. through 2009. However, that report was not a completely accurate picture of the impact of RGGI, as it only took into consideration the first year of the program.

Read more

By Jessica Goad

Today the House of Representatives is taking up H.R. 5325, the 2013 spending bill for agencies including the Department of Energy and the Army Corps of Engineers.

Along with a number of cuts to renewable energy and increases for fossil fuels, the bill text includes $25 million for the Department of Energy’s “Unconventional Fossil Energy Technologies” including unproven oil shale — one of the dirtiest forms of energy in existence.

A political fight is brewing on this front. As Politico reported:

Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) will introduce an amendment cutting $25 million from DOE’s Fossil Energy Research and Development program for research into oil shale, a type of rock that, when heated, gives off oil. The committee report notes that estimates say there’s the equivalent of 2 trillion barrels of oil in that rock, but the industry has not been able to make the process commercially viable for years.

The $25 million struck from oil shale development would instead be used for deficit reduction. Polis’s amendment will likely be voted on today or tomorrow.

Oil shale — not to be confused with shale oil like the Bakken formation in North Dakota — is an unproven technology still in the research and development phase.  It involves heating up rocks to high temperatures and melting the oil out of them. A number of companies have been attempting to produce oil shale for decades, with no commercial success.  Even if the technology were to be viable, oil shale would be a complete disaster for the climate.

While House Republicans’ throw support behind a dirty, unproven oil extraction technology, they continue to drag their heels on a key tax credit for the wind industry set to expire at the end of the year. Without this tax credit, wind developers face major policy uncertainty — potentially threatening up to 37,000 jobs.  As former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm put it:

[Speaker John] Boehner [R-OH] has repeatedly hounded the president about an all-of-the-above energy strategy. So it seems weird for Republicans to be picking energy “winners and losers.” How is it that they can vote to extend tax credits for oil but not for wind?

In addition to stalling on the production tax credit, some Republicans have been lobbing attacks on renewable energy in the energy and water spending bill itself.  Last week, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) offered an amendment to completely defund the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.  The amendment failed, with 107 Republicans voting against it.  Additionally, a number of amendments to boost funding for renewable energy failed, such as one Rep. Janice Hahn (D-CA) that would move $50 million from fossil fuels research to renewable energy research.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

As Climate Progress reported last week, a “North Carolina bill would require coastal communities to Ignore global warming science.”

Stephen Colbert had a hilarious discussion of that bill on his show Monday:

by Elisa Wood, via Renewable Energy World

Who among us has not eagerly described the smart meter to a non-energy person only to be greeted by a blank stare, or worse the retort: “Why would I want to track my electricity costs all day?”

You try to explain the profound applications: smart appliances that talk to the power grid, consumer clubs that sell energy savings, your car serving as a power plant. But the conversation then becomes one about fascinating toys, not a world change.

A new paper by Joseph Stanislaw, independent senior energy advisor at Deloitte, eloquently gets to the real meaning of smart grid. Moving beyond the gadget talk, he describes the bigger picture, how new energy efficiency and smart technologies will democratize energy.

Energy efficiency could have “a greater impact on the global energy picture than any other development,” according to the paper, titled Energy’s next frontiers: How technology is radically reshaping supply, demand and the energy of geopolitics.

“The breakthroughs have been stunning, and often elegant in their simplicity. Among the least appreciated technologies are those that empower companies and individuals to understand and manage — and thus significantly reduce — their energy consumption. Last year, venture capitalists invested $275 million — up 75 percent from 2010 — in start-ups that make software and other technologies to manage energy use,” the paper says.

Stanislaw explains how smart technologies are bringing about the ‘Power of One’ in the energy game.  No longer passive receivers, consumers and businesses become active choosers; hence they influence the kind of generation plants we build — or if we build them at all — simply by the way they use electricity. Our market signals, not central planning, shape the infrastructure we build.

Read more

by Matt Kasper

In the United States the biggest and most influential farm policy tool is written by Congress every five years: the farm bill.

On April 26, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed the “Agricultural Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012,” setting the stage for a month-long legislative wrestling match over this massive and complicated sector.

While there’s been a lot of attention turned to the $4.49 billion cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, there are also some serious shortcomings related to climate change and crop insurance.

Crop insurance companies have paid $9.1 billion in indemnity payments to U.S. farmers for 2011 due to the historic flooding, droughts, and other natural disasters — a new record for claims in the history of the program, according to USDA’s Risk management Agency.

The Congressional Research Service projects an average of $9 billion a year on subsidized insurance premiums between 2013 and 2022; and $1.5 billion a year in payments for losses based on revenue shortfall not covered in the crop insurance program.

The problem is that the U.S. is experiencing some of the most severe floods and droughts in recent history – with extreme rainstorms in the Midwest doubling over the last 50 years and record-breaking droughts causing billions of dollars in damages.

These severe weather events are having a negative effect on crop yields, and are therefore putting more pressure on insurance claims. And it’s only going to get worse. According to climate scientists, the future holds far more devastating droughts, more floods and more heat waves.

This has resulted in the Senate looking to end direct payments to farmers and replace them with subsidized insurance programs. However, this shift does nothing to move the agricultural sector toward the solution: mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Julia Olmstead of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy explained in a recent post on the issue:

Read more

by David Roberts, via Grist

I’ve seen a recent surge of stories about conservatives and climate change. None of them, oddly, tell voters what they most need to know on the subject. In fact, one of them does the opposite. (Grrrr …)

I respond in accordance with internet tradition: a listicle!

5. Conservatives have a long history of advancing environmental progress. In a column directed to Mitt Romney, Thomas Friedman reels off (one suspects from memory) “the G.O.P.’s long tradition of environmental stewardship that some Republicans are still proud of: Teddy Roosevelt bequeathed us national parks, Richard Nixon the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, Ronald Reagan the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer and George H. W. Bush cap-and-trade that reduced acid rain.” This familiar litany is slightly misleading, attributing to presidents what is mostly the work of Congresses, but the basic point is valid enough: In the 20th century, Republicans have frequently played a constructive role on the environment.

4. There is a conservative approach to addressing climate change. Law professor Jonathan Adler has laid it out in the past and does so again in a much-discussed post over at The Atlantic. He suggests prizes for innovation, reduced regulatory barriers to alternative energy, a revenue-neutral carbon tax, and some measure of adaptation.

It’ll be no surprise to Adler or anyone else that I believe the problem is more severe than he does; solving it — as opposed to just “doing something” — will involve a far more vigorous government role than he envisions. But he makes an eloquent, principled case for the simple notion that “embrace of limited government principles need not entail the denial of environmental claims.” Conservatives could, if they wanted, spend their time arguing for their preferred solutions rather than denying scientific results.

3. There are conservatives who believe in taking action on climate change. Even those dismal polls we’re always talking about find 30 or 40 percent of Republicans acknowledging the threat of climate change. And support for clean air and clean energy policies remains high across the board. Heck, some — OK, a tiny handful of — conservatives are even brave enough to say so in public! It’s really only the hard nut of the GOP, anywhere from 15 to 30 percent, depending on how you measure, that is intensely and ideologically opposed to climate science and solutions alike. Oh, and almost all Republicans in Congress.

2. Mitt Romney used to say and do moderate things on green issues when he was governor of Massachusetts. He spoke in favor of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade system for Northeastern states, and introduced the Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan. He wasn’t afraid to crack down on coal plants — I never get tired of this remarkable video:

Read more

A round-up of the top climate and energy news. Please post other links below.

More than a quarter of all UK farmers have not just green fields but “green” barns too, thanks to a surge in the use of solar panels and wind turbines. [Guardian]

Federal health officials recently issued a gloomy report noting that the percentage of Americans suffering from asthma reached a record high of 8.4 percent in 2010, up from 7.3 percent in 2001. [New York Times]

A pair of scientists have accused BP of an attack on academic freedom after the oil company successfully subpoenaed thousands of confidential emails related to research on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. [Guardian]

Vast national forest areas and scattered pockets of undeveloped lands in in West Virginia and Virginia are among the regions that would be resilient to drought, rising temperatures and other threats associated with climate change, according to a study released today by The Nature Conservancy. [WSLS News]

Texas, which is facing an electricity shortage, should let power prices rise sharply to give companies more incentive to build badly needed generating plants, experts said in a new report to state grid officials. [Wall Street Journal]

In a closely watched decision that could influence the path of other states, California regulators decided last month to effectively double the amount of solar power capacity eligible for net metering. [New York Times]

Solar power firms are betting that the nuclear crisis in Japan will become a game-changer for renewable energy in the world’s third largest economy, with new foreign entrants such as Canadian Solar looking to go toe-to-toe there with some of the biggest utilities in Asia. [Reuters]

Firefighters in southern New Mexico made slow progress Monday against the massive Gila wilderness fire, while crews in the northern part of the state worked to contain a lightning-sparked blaze in the Santa Fe National Forest. [USA Today]

Damage from climate change could cost Latin American and Caribbean countries $100 billion per year by 2050 if average temperatures rise 2C (3.6F) from pre-industrial levels, as is seen likely, a new report said on Tuesday. [Reuters]