A new study underscores the point that we need to start deploying every last bit of carbon-free energy starting ASAP to have a reasonable chance of avoiding catastrophic levels of carbon pollution. But the paper, “Rethinking wedges,” suffers from two flaws.

First while it asserts “Current climate targets of 500 ppm and  2°C of warming” require “deploying tens of terawatts of carbon-free energy in the next few decades,” it seems to use this to argue for more research and development, rather than massive deployment. In fact, while everyone agrees we need to spend more on R&D, it’s our much vaster underspending on deployment that is launching us headlong toward catastrophe. And, of course, deployment is the best driver of innovation (as I discuss here).

Second, the paper appears to confuse what a wedge is and then compounds that confusion by introducing the concept of “hidden wedges,” which I don’t believe is a meaningful concept (if you understand what a wedge really is). The fact is that we probably need 1o to 20 terawatts of carbon-free energy over the next 50 years to have a shot at 450 ppm or lower — but a fair chunk of that can be efficiency and conservation (as I discuss here).

In any case, the need for massive deployment of carbon-free energy starting now is one that has been made by countless independent analyses. Even the traditionally staid and conservative the International Energy Agency explained three years ago that “The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming.”

A 2011 report found that “California can achieve emissions roughly 60% below 1990 levels with technology we largely know about today if such technology is rapidly deployed at rates that are aggressive but feasible.” A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers finds we’re headed to 11°F warming and even 7°F requires “Nearly Quadrupling The Current Rate Of Decarbonisation.”

The abstract of this new study by Davis, Cao, Caldeira, and Hoffert, to be published Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters asserts:

Stabilizing CO2 emissions at current levels for fifty years is not consistent with either an atmospheric CO2 concentration below 500 ppm or global temperature increases below 2C. To achieve these targets, solving the climate problem requires that emissions peak and decline in the next few decades, and ultimately to near zero. Phasing out emissions over 50 years could be achieved by deploying on the order of 19 ‘wedges’, each of which ramps up linearly over a period of 50 years to ultimately avoid 1 GtC/yr of CO2 emissions. But this level of mitigation will require affordable carbon-free energy systems to be deployed at the scale of tens of terawatts. Any hope for such fundamental and disruptive transformation of the global energy system depends upon coordinated efforts to innovate, plan, and deploy new transportation and energy systems that can provide affordable energy at this scale without emitting CO2 to the atmosphere

This notion of needing 19 wedges to go to zero emissions in 50 years is very compatible with my analysis a few years ago that we need 12-14 wedges squeezed into four decades to take emissions down some 50% by 2050.

But of course I conclude, as do the original inventers of the wedge concept, that any hope for deploying so many wedges so rapidly depends crucially upon … rapid deployment, rather than R&D! See also “The breakthrough technology illusion.”

This ERL paper is a response to the original 2004 wedges paper by Princeton Professors Socolow and Pacala. The ERL authors (mistakenly) believe that “An unfortunate consequence of their paper, however, was to make the solution seem easy.” In fact, no serious analyst I know came to that view. Quite the opposite.

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A “dome of heat,” has settled over Australia since the start of the new year, creating an historic heat wave. The temperatures have nurtured fires in five of Australia’s six states, including at least 90 wildfires throughout New South Wales in southeastern Australia, as well as the Island of Tasmania. In the latter case, the fires consumed over 100 homes and other buildings, 60,000 hectares of land (approximately 148,000 acres) and left up to 100 people unaccounted for as of January 6.

“We saw tornadoes of fire just coming across towards us,” one Tasmanian survivor said. “The next thing we knew everything was on fire, everywhere, all around us.” Another local resident said that “the trees just exploded” as he tried to help fire crews in the township of Murdunna, which was mostly destroyed by the blaze.

The heat wave is also setting new records: On Monday the national average temperature hit 40.33 degrees Centigrade (104.6 degrees Fahrenheit), topping the previous December 21, 1976 record 40.17 degrees Centigrade.

“It’s been a summer like no other in the history of Australia, where a sprawling heat wave of historical proportions is entering its second week,” wrote Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground today.

The Bureau of Meteorology even added new colors to its weather forecasting chart to account for the record heat levels. And by the end of Tuesday, by all accounts, seven of Australia’s 20 hottest days on record will have been set in 2013. As the New Scientist summed up matters yesterday:

Temperatures reached almost 48 °C on Monday at the Oodnadatta airport in South Australia, and 43 °C on Tuesday in Sydney. The typical January high is 37.7 °C at Oodnadatta. [...]

At least 90 fires were sweeping through New South Wales by Monday, and 100 people remained unaccounted for in Tasmania following major fires covering 60,000 hectares. Bushfire experts warned that things could get worse. “The current heatwave is unusual due to its extent, with more than 70 per cent of the continent currently experiencing heatwave conditions,” says John Nairn, South Australia’s acting regional director for the Bureau of Meteorology, in comments to the Australian Science Media Centre.

Lack of rainfall in recent months has left soils completely dry and unable to release moisture that would take up heat from the air through evaporation. At the same time, vegetation across the continent that had been revived by rains over the past two years is now completely dried out. “Much of this grass is fully dried and is ready to burn,” says Gary Morgan of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre in Melbourne.

The severe fire conditions are expected to continue today. “Any fire that burns under the predicted conditions — 40C temperatures, below 10% humidity, winds gusting over 70km/hr (43mph) – those conditions are by any measure horrendous,” Rob Rogers, the deputy commissioner of the New South Wales rural fire service, told The Guardian.

In 2009, another flurry of wildfires hit the Australian state of Victoria, killing 173 people and causing $4.4 billion in damage. That same year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published predictions that days of extreme fire danger for southeastern Australia would increase 25 percent by 2020, and perhaps as much 70 percent by 2050.

Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard also took up the theme in reaction to the fires: “You would not put any one event down to climate change,” she said, but “we do know over time that as a result of climate change we are going to see more extreme weather events and conditions.”

Here in America, a 2009 report noted a significant uptick in the scale of wildfires, starting around the mid-1990s. Global warming is combining increasing drought conditions with higher temperatures, while also causing warmer winters that reduce snowpack in areas like Arizona and Colorado. At the same time, human development is pushing more people into forested regions, thus increasing the risk of damage. Not surprisingly, local and national officials have noted all these concerns as areas where policy has yet to catch up with reality.

by Peter Bronksi, via the Rocky Mountain Institute

It’s that time of year when people make New Year’s resolutions, commitments to do things differently in the coming year that are going to have a positive impact on their lives. But what would New Year’s resolutions look like if the United States as a nation resolved to decrease its fossil fuel consumption and increase the adoption of efficiency and renewables?

I sat down with program director James Newcomb and principal Lena Hansen to find out. They offered up four New Year’s resolutions that can help make the United States’ electricity system more efficient, more resilient, and more planet-friendly sooner than later.

1. Invest further in end-use efficiency.

Energy efficiency is often considered one of the cheapest and most readily available energy sources. Investments in efficiency programs have been increasing around the country, but significant opportunity remains on the table and many utilities are still incentivized to sell more electricity, rather than to sell more efficiency. Taking end-use efficiency to the next level will require utilities and consumers to work more closely together than ever before. Utilities especially can take several steps to make that happen: a) improve efficiency program marketing to truly engage customers and increase participation, b) streamline program transaction costs, such as by implementing faster and simpler energy audits, c) adopt regulatory mechanisms that remove utilities’ disincentives and create incentives to sell efficiency, and d) embrace collaboration with other stakeholders, including regulators, NGOs, auditors, customers, and architectural and engineering firms.

2. Anticipate and head off friction over solar.

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Last year was officially the hottest ever recorded for the lower-48 states. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric tallied weather and temperature data for 2012, and found that the year was both the warmest and the second-most extreme for weather ever recorded for the contiguous U.S.

According to NOAA’s latest “State of the Climate” report, the average temperature for the lower-48 states was 55.3°, which is 3.2°F above the 20^th century average, and 1.0°F above the previous record-year of 1998.

Last year was marked by an historic drought, above-average wildfires, multiple freak storms that wiped out power to millions, and multiple severe heat waves. According to the U.S. Climate Extremes Index, 2012 was the second most extreme year on record — coming in below 1998, the previous hottest year on record.

Precipitation was also down significantly in 2012. Average rainfall for the lower-48 states was 2.57 inches below average, contributing to the severe drought that gripped the nation and helping make the wildfire season the third most destructive on record.

To see how these and other billion-dollar extreme weather events impacted Americans, check out the Center for American Progress report, “Heavy Weather: How Climate Destruction Harms Middle- and Lower-Income Americans.”

Here’s how NOAA breaks down last year’s temperature records:

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Global warming has given new meaning to “off-the-charts” heat wave in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The Bureau of Meteorology’s interactive weather forecasting chart has added new colours – deep purple and pink – to extend its previous temperature range that had been capped at 50 degrees [122°F].

The Australian government’s new forecasting map now has colors that go up to 54°C [129°F].

Many parts of the country have already set local records with temperatures as high as 118°F. It remains to be seen whether temperatures blow past 122°F [50C] – or already have (“large parts of central Australia have limited monitoring”).

How unprecedented is the Australian heat wave? As meteorologist Jeff Masters explains, it is both deep and widespread:

It’s been a summer like no other in the history of Australia, where a sprawling heat wave of historical proportions is entering its second week. Monday, January 7, was the hottest day in Australian history, averaged over the entire country, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The high temperature averaged over Australia was 105°F (40.3°C), eclipsing the previous record of 104°F (40.2°C) set on 21 December 1972. Never before in 103 years of record keeping has a heat wave this intense, wide-spread, and long-lasting affected Australia. The nation’s average high temperature exceeded 102°F (39°C) for five consecutive days January 2 – 6, 2013–the first time that has happened since record keeping began in 1910. Monday’s temperatures extended that string by another day, to six. To put this remarkable streak in perspective, the previous record of four consecutive days with a national average high temperature in excess of 102°F (39°C) has occurred once only (1973), and only two other years have had three such days in a row–1972 and 2002 (thanks go to climate blogger Greg Laden for these stats.) Another brutally hot day is in store for Wednesday, as the high pressure region responsible for the heat wave, centered just south of the coast, will bring clear skies and a northerly flow of air over most of the country.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology doesn’t pull punches on what is driving this astounding heat:

‘‘The current heatwave – in terms of its duration, its intensity and its extent – is now unprecedented in our records,’’  the Bureau of Meteorology’s manager of climate monitoring and prediction, David Jones, said.

‘‘Clearly, the climate system is responding to the background warming trend. Everything that happens in the climate system now is taking place on a planet which is a degree hotter than it used to be.’’

As the warming trend increases over coming years, record-breaking heat will become more and more common, Dr Jones said.

‘‘We know that global climate doesn’t respond monotonically – it does go up and down with natural variation. That’s why some years are hotter than others because of a range of factors. But we’re getting many more hot records than we’re getting cold records. That’s not an issue that is explained away by natural variation.’’

The world’s continued inaction on limiting carbon pollution, coupled with ever-more worrisome observations and analysis, has led a number of Australian researchers to join the ever-growing club of unexpectedly blunt scientists:

According to a peer-reviewed study by the Australian-based Global Carbon Project, global average temperatures are on a trajectory to rise a further four to six degrees [C] by the end of this century, with that rise felt most strongly over land areas. It would be enough to tip Tuesday’s over-40 temperatures over much of mainland Australia very close to 50 degrees in some parts.

“Those of us who spend our days trawling – and contributing to – the scientific literature on climate change are becoming increasingly gloomy about the future of human civilisation,’’ said Liz Hanna, convener of the human health division at the Australian National University’s Climate Change Adaptation Network.

‘‘We are well past the time of niceties, of avoiding the dire nature of what is unfolding, and politely trying not to scare the public. The unparalleled setting of new heat extremes is forcing the continual upwards trending of warming predictions for the future, and the timescale is contracting.’’

The time to cut carbon pollution sharply was a long time ago, but acting now is still much less suicidal than delaying further.

After a year of warnings, mishaps, and legal violations, the press is paying closer attention to Shell’s efforts to drill offshore for oil in Arctic waters.

But few have depicted what it really means to drill in such a remote region with almost no infrastructure to deal with an oil spill.

Now that people are coming to grips with the kind of emergencies that could take place in the remote region, it’s helpful to revisit an important resource put together last year by my colleagues on the oceans team at the Center for American Progress. They documented roads, airports, disaster response staging areas, coast guard stations, and everything else needed to respond to an oil spill in the Arctic. They then compared that infrastructure to the Gulf Coast, where response crews dealt with a massive well blowout in 2010 that spewed 5 million barrels of oil into ocean — a crisis that lasted three months, even with an all-out emergency response.

So what would happen if there’s a major blowout in Arctic waters? Here’s a stunning visual representation of just how little is available for response. (Click to enlarge). An explanation follows below.

In 2011, the Admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard, Robert Papp, summed up the situation pictured above in testimony to Congress: “If this [an oil spill] were to happen off the North Slope of Alaska, we’d have nothing. We’re starting from ground zero today…We have zero to operate with at present.”

When we consider all of Shell’s mishaps this year, most of them occurred in very benign settings where help was close by. When Shell’s underwater oil spill containment unit failed during testing and “crushed like a beer can,” it was in the Puget Sound — a completely different setting from the harsh conditions of the Arctic.

And when Shell’s Kulluk drilling rig ran aground near a remote Alaskan island during a nasty storm, the company was lucky enough to have a permanent Coast Guard station 50 miles away. As a result, the situation was under constant monitoring and the Coast Guard was able to respond quickly to the incident. By comparison, the closest permanent Coast Guard station to Shell’s proposed offshore drilling site is 1,000 miles away by plane, and more than 2,000 miles by sea.

Here are some more stark comparisons between the Gulf Coast and the Arctic in that recent CAP report, called “Putting a Freeze on Arctic Drilling“:

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It’s official: 2012 was one of the most extreme year ever recorded for weather in the U.S. As a devastating drought, destructive wildfires, multiple severe heat waves, and destructive storms pounded the country last year, more Americans woke up to the reality of our changing climate.

“You look out the window and you see climate change in action,” said Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research this summer. “This is the way it gets manifested.”

Indeed, as the ever-talented Peter Sinclair documents in his latest video compilation, 2012 was the “year climate change got real” for Americans and many others around the world:

A new commission formed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, charged with figuring out how New York should adapt in the long term to cope with worsening storms amid climate change and population growth, has recommended an extensive menu of programs. [New York Times]

The development of Alberta’s oil sands has increased levels of cancer-causing compounds in surrounding lakes well beyond natural levels, Canadian researchers reported in a study released on Monday. And they said the contamination covered a wider area than had previously been believed. [New York Times]

Two recent studies have shed some light on how climate change is helping fuel the assault of bark beetles, and what’s likely to happen in a world that continues to warm. [Climate Central]

Now that President Obama has proposed new national security Cabinet members, the White House may be able to move to the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency. [The Hill]

Natural gas companies have yet to flock to Otsego County, New York, located at the foot of the Catskills. But the debate between supporters and critics is so caustic it is as if rigs were already sinking pipe into every farm and backyard. [New York Times]

The intense drought that crippled much of the growing season for numerous states in the nation’s mid-section in 2012 is showing little sign of easing early in the new year, weather officials say. [Wichita Eagle]

Barge operators on the Mississippi River say the worst drought in 80 years may put at risk the emergency dredging and rock removal aimed at keeping the nation’s busiest waterway open at least for this month. [Bloomberg]

Australia is baking in a record-breaking “dome of heat”, threatening to unleash the worst firestorms since those that claimed hundreds of lives in 2009. Temperatures reached almost 48 °C on Monday at the Oodnadatta airport in South Australia, and 43 °C on Tuesday in Sydney. [New Scientist]