by Clint Wilder, via Clean Edge

On the eve of the first 2012 presidential debate, I’m not optimistic that our nation’s clean-energy future will suddenly turn into the campaign issue that it should be. But looking beyond the November 6th election, I’ve seen some recent signs that a more bipartisan push for clean-tech growth might be possible.

The first sign came about a month ago when DBL Investors issued a terrific report called Red, White & Green: The True Colors of America’s Clean Tech Jobs. The report’s early September release date and the theme coincided nicely with the launch of my new book Clean Tech Nation, co-authored with Clean Edge co-founder and managing director Ron Pernick, in which we discuss some of the same themes. The jobs report, by DBL managing partner and veteran clean-tech investor Nancy Pfund and Yale MBA candidate Michael Lazar, details the surprising leadership in clean-tech jobs in several politically conservative southern and western states. Since it’s election season, these are better known as red states and swing states. Of the 10 states with the fastest growth in clean-tech jobs from 2003 to 2010, only two (Hawaii and New York) are solid Democratic blue states. All the others are either solid red (Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming) or swing (Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and North Carolina).

“We all need to understand,” write the report’s authors, “that green jobs and clean tech are not merely the idle dreaming of a small group of partisan activists and insiders, but a source of livelihood for millions of Americans, literally in all parts of the country.” The report also highlights the efforts of five current or former Republican governors to attract and grow clean-tech jobs in their states, most notably Mississippi’s Haley Barbour and Kansas’s Sam Brownback.

This is a point I make in nearly all of my public appearances, particularly to call out the inexcusable stance of the national Republican party (and presidential candidate Mitt Romney) in opposing the extension of the federal production tax credit (PTC) for wind power, which expires at year’s end. Brownback, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin are among the GOP governors who have spoken out in favor of extending the PTC. Last week, Fallin told the newspaper Tulsa World, “I agree with Governor Romney on 99 percent of the issues. But on this one, I’ve got to do what’s best for our state.” Bottom line: this is not about ideology, it’s about jobs. And thanks to the insane political fight over the PTC – Congress adjourned last week without taking action – jobs are already disappearing as wind companies announce layoffs due to the PTC uncertainty.

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by Shauna Theel, via Media Matters

A scientist that Fox News and the right-wing media charged with “Polar Bear Fraud” has been cleared of scientific misconduct. Will Fox News and other outlets follow up on their smears?

Last July, the Interior Department suspended one of its employees, Arctic biologist Charles Monnett, pending an investigation into allegations of scientific misconduct by an anonymous Interior Department employee. Monnett was best known for co-authoring a peer-reviewed paper on drowned polar bears that was cited in the 2008 decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species, along with many other papers establishing the threat that climate change poses for polar bears.

The right-wing media used the investigation not only to reject Monnett’s findings, but also to dismiss all the science on polar bears and global warming. Fox Nation promoted an Investor’s Business Daily editorial claiming the Monnett investigation was exposing “the global warming fraud” with the headline “Global Warming Industry Rocked by Polar Bear Fraud.” Fox Nation also promoted a New York Post op-ed on the Monnett investigation with the headline “Global Warming Theory Faces Sudden Collapse.”

But the Interior Department cleared Monnett of all scientific wrongdoing. Monnett was officially reprimanded for an unrelated issue: forwarding government emails to local government and university officials that “ended up being used in litigation against the government.” Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which provided Monnett legal representation, said that Monnett leaked the emails under the Bush administration to expose suppression of scientists’ concerns about the environmental risks of offshore drilling in the Arctic.

Steve Doocy promised last year on Fox & Friends to “keep [viewers] posted” on Monnett’s case. But so far Fox News remains silent not only on Monnett’s case but also on the record arctic sea ice loss this summer that portends danger for polar bears.

Shuana Theel is a Senior Researcher for Energy & Environment at Media Matters for America. This piece was originally published at Media Matters and was reprinted with permission.

by Nick Sundt, via WWF

Scientists report in the journal Nature Climate Change that the drought-stress currently being experienced by forests in the Southwestern U.S. “is more severe than any event since the late 1500s megadrought” that “probably led to deaths of a large proportion of trees living at the time.”

They warn that climate projections indicate that “the mean forest drought-stress by the 2050s will exceed that of the most severe droughts in the past 1,000 years.”

In Temperature as a Potent Driver of Regional Forest Drought Stress and Tree Mortality (by A. Park Williams et al., Nature Climate Change, 30 September 2012), the authors say that the current severe drought event in the Southwest — which extends from 2000 to the present – is the fifth strongest since 1000 AD. They define the Southwest as including Arizona, New Mexico and the southern portions of Utah and Colorado. They attribute the current event both to natural variability and to rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases from human activity; and they associate it with “regional-scale declines in canopy greenness and tree survival, due in part to large bark-beetle outbreaks and increasingly large wildfires.”

A combination of declining precipitation during the cool season and rising temperatures during the warm season is likely by mid-century to be accompanied by increased forest decline. “If forest drought stress exceeds late 1500 levels, we expect that a lot of trees are going to be dying,” says the article’s lead research, A. Park Williams (Los Alamos National Laboratory), in a press release on Monday from the U.S. Geological Survey.

“Consistent with many other recent studies, these findings provide compelling additional evidence of emerging global risks of amplified drought-induced tree mortality and extensive forest die-off as the planet warms,” said co-author Craig D. Allen, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Nick Sundt is a climate change expert at the World Wildlife Fund. This piece was originally published at WWF and was reprinted with permission.

Americans like solar. They like it a lot.

A new poll shows that 92 percent of registered voters feel it is either “very important” or “somewhat important” for the U.S. to develop more solar. Even more striking, the poll shows that 70 percent of voters believe the government should be doing more to help promote the technology through financial incentives — with 72 percent of swing voters saying they support increasing incentives.

The takeaway: political ads around the failed solar manufacturer Solyndra that attack government support for the industry aren’t having much of an impact on voters.

The poll, released this morning, was conducted by Hart Research for the solar industry’s trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association. You can read all the questions here.

Support for solar is strong across all political parties. According to the findings, 98 percent of Democrats, 95 percent of Independents, and 84 percent of Republicans say the country should develop more solar. The poll also shows that 87 percent of swing voters have a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” view of the technology.

The Romney campaign, the Republican party, and third-party groups have spent millions of dollars this election season trying to politicize federal clean energy investments — particularly the solar manufacturer Solyndra, which received $527 million in loan guarantees before going bankrupt last year. But it doesn’t appear the message is sticking.

According to the poll, 33 percent of voters say what they’ve heard in the media has given them mixed feelings or made them feel more negative about solar; however, 35 percent say they’ve heard “nothing recently” about solar and 32 percent say what they’ve heard has either made their feelings about solar more positive or made no difference on their perception.

Even with the barrage of negative messaging this campaign season, 70 percent of all voters polled believe the U.S. should do more to encourage use of solar.

This adds to the long list of polls showing that climate change and clean energy issues are positive ones for American voters — particularly for independents and swing voters.

Last month, Yale University released a poll showing that 61 percent of undecided voters would consider a candidate’s stance on climate change when casting a ballot for president.

According to a March survey from George Mason University, 55 percent of voters said they will consider candidates’ positions on climate change in upcoming elections. The survey also found that independent voters lean far more toward climate action, with 68 percent saying we should take medium or large-scale action to address the problem.

Finally, as a recent poll from the Pew Research Center found, the only voters likely to view discussion of climate change and clean energy as a negative are very conservative Tea Party males — many of whom would never vote for a moderate candidate to begin with.

In other words, these issues are the ultimate political wedges.

by Katie Valentine

Climate and energy initiatives were major topics of discussion at UN headquarters in New York last week, with countries pledging new clean energy commitments and calling for increased global cooperation in developing climate change mitigation goals at the UN General Assembly High Level Debate.

Several new commitments and initiatives were announced September 24 during a high Level Sustainable Energy for All event. Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) is a UN program that aims to bring clean energy to people in developing countries without access to modern electricity and cooking services.

According to the UN, nearly one in five of the world’s population doesn’t have access to modern energy sources, and almost 40 percent relies on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste to cook their food. The SE4ALL program operates on three platforms that aim to address this problem of energy inequality: 1) ensuring universal access to modern energy services; 2) doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and 3) doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. The recent announcements build on SE4ALL’s commitments, and include:

• UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the creation of an Advisory Board, which will provide strategic guidance in the SE4ALL initiative.  Ban will co-chair the board along with the World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, and its members will be selected among exceptional leaders from the private sector, civil society and governments.
• Ban announced the Creation of an Executive Committee, which will be chaired by Chad Holliday, Chairman of Bank of America. The Executive Committee will oversee the work of the chief executive of SE4ALL.
• Ban also announced the designation of Dr. Kandeh Yumkella as Special Representative of the Secretary-General and chief executive for SE4ALL. As chief executive, Yumkella will be responsible for planning and implementing SE4ALL initiatives.

• Eskom announced the creation of an electricity roadmap for the Southern African Development Community, with the goal to connect 500 million people to modern energy sources by 2050.
• Accenture announced the release of its report on the value of SE4ALL to global industries.
• Philips announced it will install 100 “light centers” in areas in rural Africa previously without electricity. The soccer field-sized centers are lit by solar-powered LED lights and will be installed by 2015, with the first 40 to be installed late 2012.

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Christiana Figueres, the United Nations’ top climate change official, expressed optimism Monday that skepticism of scientific views on global warming is on the wane in the United States. [The Hill]

The current Congress has been spectacularly adept at not doing stuff. They’ve passed fewer bills than any other Congress in the past 50 years. They can’t get appropriations bills finished on time. They nearly let the highway bill expire. So it’s hardly a stunner that, this weekend, the 112th Congress managed to let the farm bill lapse as well. [Wonk Blog]

A season of warmer ocean waters that has been expected to produce a Niño episode and perhaps bring relief from the continuing drought may turn out to be a bit weaker than advertised, according to climate experts. [New York Times]

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half its coral cover since 1985, according to a new study published Monday. The loss has been spurred by a combination of factors including hurricanes, coral-eating starfish and coral bleaching. [Washington Post]

On Monday, Ikea, not known as a retailer of pricey products, announced that beginning in 2016 all of the lighting products it sells will be LEDs, as will all of the lighting in its stores. The company phased out incandescents in 2010 (and plastic bags in 2007). [New York Times]

New York regulators expect to reopen their rulemaking process for natural gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing, casting doubt on whether a 4-year-old moratorium on development will be lifted before next year. [Associated Press]

Chinese solar companies are being forced to speed up plans to move a big chunk of their manufacturing offshore as Europe looks increasingly likely to join the United States in implementing duties on imports of Chinese-made solar equipment. [Reuters]

The NGO Islamic Relief has urged the UN to establish a global contingency fund for disaster prevention as it is cheaper to help prepare for floods and drought than spend billions on emergencies. [Guardian]

Major emerging economies’ obligations to cut emissions under a climate change agreement should not be the same as those of rich countries, Brazil’s chief negotiator said, signalling a retreat to an old position that has hamstrung years of U.N. negotiations. [Reuters]