Secretary of State John Kerry delivered another set of powerful remarks on climate change last night. But all his poignant words will come to nought — indeed, they’ll come back to haunt him — if he makes the wrong decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

How precisely could Kerry lobby other countries to join an international climate treaty (and move away from fossil fuels) — perhaps his primary goal as Secretary — after enabling the accelerated exploitation of one of the dirtiest sources of fossil fuels in the world?

I had thought that Obama’s strong post-reelection words on climate, coupled with the choice of climate hawk Kerry as Secretary of State, might be a double signal that the administration was prepared to kill the Keystone XL pipeline. But last week, the White House started sending signals “the president is inclined to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.”

Keystone is a gateway to a huge pool of carbon-intensive fuel most of which must be left in the ground — along with most of the world’s coal and unconventional oil and gas – if humanity is to avoid multiple devastating impacts that may be beyond adaptation. That can’t happen without some sort of international agreement (or multi-lateral or bilateral agreements). And such an agreement is not possible without the U.S. taking a leadership role, since we are the richest country and the biggest cumulative polluter.

Kerry certainly understands the risks posed by climate inaction. Yesterday at the National Geographic Society’s Ross Sea Conservation Reception, he said:

I have seen this fragile ecosystem change before our very eyes, whether it’s a problem of acidification, a problem of pollution and development, a problem of ice melt and potential ecosystem collapse, to the rise of the sea levels, which is happening in various parts of the world….

The entire system is interdependent, and we toy with that at our peril….

So climate change is coming back in a sense as a serious international issue because people are experiencing it firsthand. The science is screaming at us, literally, demanding that people in positions of public responsibility at least exercise the so-called “precautionary principle” to balance the equities and not knowing completely the outcomes at least understand what is happening and take steps to prevent potential disaster.

… I’m here to tell you that, proudly, President Obama has put this agenda back on the front burner where it belongs, that he has in his Inauguration Address and in his State of the Union Address and in the policies he’s working on now said we are going to try to exercise leadership because of its imperatives.

[Well, figuratively, not literally....]

But I’m not sure if Kerry has thought through the international implications of approving Keystone. The United States has already undermined its standing to cajole other countries into climate commitments by expanding oil and gas drilling as well as coal exports. But none of those were Kerry’s decision, whereas Keystone is.

Yes, the U.S. has a serious shot at hitting Obama’s Copenhagen pledge of a 17% cut in CO2 emissions from 2005 levels — if the President embraces strong emissions reductions from existing power plants. But let’s not pretend that target is either especially hard to hit or scientifically meaningful (see “Developed Nations Must Cut Emissions In Half By 2020, Says New Study“).

That is to say, the fact Kerry can go to the other big emitters and commit to meeting Obama’s pledge is a necessary minimum condition to achieve a climate agreement — but it is not sufficient. He needs some moral standing, he needs to be able to demonstrate to the world the U.S. understands that far deeper cuts are needed post-2020 and that means not sticking new spigots into huge, dirty carbon pools like the tar sands.

Kerry needs to show that his words are more than words, that he actually hears the screams from the science — and from generations yet unborn. Kerry must recommend to Obama that Keystone be killed. And Obama must agree — and no, Kerry will not gain anything if Obama were to over-rule him. Quite the reverse: That would be a vote of no-confidence in his Secretary of State on climate issues and make of Kerry a paper tiger.

Kerry starts as Secretary with clean hands on climate. But approving Keystone would be like dipping his hands into the dirtiest, stickiest tar imaginable — they could never be cleaned again.

Colorado's North Fork Valley, sitting on top of fossil fuels.

If an oil and gas company has proposed to drill on federal lands near you, shouldn’t you be able to find out the name of that company?

Common sense says, “you bet.” But common sense is sometimes a stranger at the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is fighting a legal battle in federal court on behalf of its pals in the oil and gas industry who want that information kept under wraps.

A federal judge has ruled against the BLM and in favor of a western Colorado citizens group, Citizens for a Healthy Community, that has been fighting a proposed 20,000 acre oil and gas lease sale in the rural North Fork Valley and thinks it ought to be able find out who the companies are that want to drill their backyard.

But the BLM has another month to decide whether to appeal the decision by U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch. In both this Colorado case, which has national implications, and as it finishes up a new set of rules on hydraulic fracturing on public lands, the BLM should come down firmly on the side of more rather than less public information.

The decision on whether to appeal could prove to be a critical juncture for the Colorado BLM and its director Helen Hankins, who until some recent reversals have been earning a well-deserved reputation for being too cozy with the oil and gas industry they are supposed to regulate.

As the Checks and Balances Project recently noted:

Since assuming her post in 2010, Dir. Hankins has executed her job as if she were a real estate agent for oil and gas companies. She has proposed allowing drilling on lands near national parks, Denver’s watershed in South Park, agricultural communities … anywhere that industry asked for it.

In addition to the controversy over proposed drilling in the North Fork Valley, a prime area for organic agriculture and viniculture, Hankins has fueled protests with other plans to drill near Mesa Verde National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, and parts of a 1,000 square mile region of Colorado called South Park that supplies municipal water to the cities of Denver and Aurora.  While decisions on those plans have been deferred in the face of vigorous protests, they could still be revived in future lease sales.

The public’s frustration with the Colorado BLM office was on display last month at meetings of the agency’s resource advisory councils. In comments delivered to the BLM, some 2,000 South Park residents and more than 11,000 Colorado residents called on the BLM to do more careful planning and evaluation of oil and gas impacts on wildlife, recreation economies, and water supplies before making drilling decisions.

In the court case, the BLM has argued that oil and gas companies that nominate federal land parcels for development should not be identified because it would give their competitors an unfair advantage in subsequent lease sales.

In his decision, Matsch reminded the BLM what a “public sale process” means, that competition helps get “a fair price for a lease of publicly-owned minerals.” The BLM ought to consider its responsibilities to the public rather than the industry and take a pass on any appeal.

Tom Kenworthy is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

You may know the United Arab Emirates for planning a refrigerated beach or an indoor ski slope. You may know it for the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

You most likely know it for the large quantities of oil and gas it has sold on the global market for over three decades. You may know it for Masdar City, billed as the world’s first carbon-neutral city. You may also know it gets a lot of sun.

What you may not know is that the UAE will use that insolation to power the region’s largest solar plant, which came online Sunday.

Dr Adnan Amin, Secretary General of the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency understands the skepticism:

The question was often asked, why would a renewable energy agency be headquartered in an oil-producing country, which was well endowed [with fossil resources] as the UAE…. Behind us, you have the proof.

The Shams One plant is a concentrated solar, or solar thermal power plant with a capacity of 100 MW. It tracks the sunlight using parabolic curved mirrors which then focus the sun’s rays into 120 kilometers of tubes filled with liquid, which when heated is used to create steam that turns a turbine. The electricity generated is expected to power 20,000 homes in the U.A.E. and offset 175,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Though silicon-based photovoltaic solar products have seen their prices fall recently, concentrated solar power has the important potential benefit of addressing the problem of intermittency, to an extent. The heated liquid can be stored and used when the sun does not shine. Right now Shams One does not have such storage capability — it will rely on natural gas at night. Fortunately, peak electricity demand is during the hottest parts of the day, which is when solar power is most abundant. The plant will also use a dry cooling system, significantly reducing water consumption.

The new solar plant in the UAE is a first step in a larger effort to diversify the Middle East’s energy portfolio. Saudi Arabia is raising $100 billion to generate 41,000 megawatts from solar energy by 2032, or one third of its demand. Until these recent renewable energy investments, many nations in the region were powered entirely by fossil fuels — most without nuclear or hydropower to diversify. Recently, economic powers have begun to see renewable energy investments as growth opportunities:
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Kyocera Solar and VGI Energy are teaming up to bring solar power to affordable multifamily housing units in Urban Chicago, according to an announcement flagged by SolarLove.org.

VGI Energy is a “socially and green-minded company” as SolarLove.org puts it, and Kyocera is a solar manufacturer that produces, among other things, the MyGen Pro system — a package of solar modules and mounting equipment that can be sized for the architectural specs and power requirements of most residential and light commercial buildings, according to its press release. The partnership is part of a push by VGI to bring more sustainability and energy independence, as well as more efficient appliances, infrastructure and plumbing, to residents of Chicago’s low-income urban areas:

VGI’s retrofitted buildings throughout Chicago have been outfitted with 20kW rooftop solar arrays, providing electricity from the clean, renewable energy of the sun and contributing to VGI’s goal of achieving zero-net-energy-capable buildings.

Since 2010, VGI has installed Kyocera solar modules on six Chicago buildings ranging in size from 18 to 70 units, providing more than 600 people with the opportunity to use renewable energy in their daily lives.…

“Our housing developments aim to enhance the quality of life for each resident with programs that integrate independent lifestyles with a sense of community; utilizing solar energy to reduce the environmental footprint is a key component,” said Van Vincent, CEO, VGI Energy.

The announcement is an encouraging sign for several overlapping reasons. First, low-income Americans often have less support and resources than their wealthier fellow citizens — the bulk of public housing assistance goes to homeowners and single-family units, even though most low-income Americans rent or live in multi-family residences. In fact, over half of all federal assistance in 2010 went to households making over $100,000. So any program that scales up investment in the quality and infrastructure of affordable housing is a welcome development.

Second, low-income Americans can also be vulnerable to power outages. After Hurricane Sandy, affordable and public housing projects were left without power for 11 days or more, even while power to wealthier adjacent neighborhoods was quickly restored, leaving residents to tackle dropping temperatures, health problems and disability on their own. Conceivably, outfitting affordable and mutli-family residences with solar arrays provides the opportunity for a bit more energy independence should the grid fail them.

Scientist: “With the global warming we have had during the 20th century, we have already crossed the threshold where more than half of all ‘Katrinas’ are due to global warming.”

New Orleans post-Katrina. Credit: NOAA.

By Aslak Grinsted via the Nils Bohr Institute.

By examining the frequency of extreme storm surges in the past, previous research has shown that there was an increasing tendency for storm hurricane surges when the climate was warmer. But how much worse will it get as temperatures rise in the future? How many extreme storm surges like that from Hurricane Katrina, which hit the U.S. coast in 2005, will there be as a result of global warming? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute show that there will be a tenfold increase in frequency if the climate becomes two degrees Celcius warmer. The results are published in the scientific journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, PNAS.

The extreme storm surge from Superstorm Sandy in the autumn 2012 flooded large sections of New York and other coastal cities in the region – here you see Marblehead, Massachusetts. New research shows that such hurricane surges will become more frequent in a warmer climate.

Tropical cyclones arise over warm ocean surfaces with strong evaporation and warming of the air. The typically form in the Atlantic Ocean and move towards the U.S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. If you want to try to calculate the frequency of tropical cyclones in a future with a warmer global climate, researchers have developed various models. One is based on the regional sea temperatures, while another is based on differences between the regional sea temperatures and the average temperatures in the tropical oceans. There is considerable disagreement among researchers about which is best.

New model for predicting cyclones

“Instead of choosing between the two methods, I have chosen to use temperatures from all around the world and combine them into a single model,” explains climate scientist Aslak Grinsted, Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

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By Jane Dale Owen via chron.com

All the hype by the fossil fuel industry about energy independence from fracking (hydraulic fracturing) in tight gas reservoirs like the Barnett Shale has left out the costs in energy, water and other essential natural resources.

Furthermore, a recent report from the Post Carbon Institute finds that projections for an energy boom from non-conventional fossil fuel sources is not all it’s cracked up to be.

The report cites a study by David Hughes, Canadian geologist, who says the low quality of hydrocarbons from bitumen – shale oil and shale gas – do not provide the same energy returns as conventional hydrocarbons due to the energy needed to extract or upgrade them. Hughes also notes that the “new age of energy abundance” forecast by the industry will soon run dry because shale gas and shale oil wells deplete quickly. In fact, the “best fields have already been tapped.”

“Unconventional fossil fuels all share a host of cruel and limiting traits,” says Hughes. “They offer dramatically fewer energy returns; they consume extreme and endless flows of capital; they provide difficult or volatile rates of supply over time and have large environmental impacts in their extraction.”

We must ask, is it worth the cost when it takes from 3 million to 9 million gallons of water per fracture to extract this fuel? The withdrawal of large quantities of surface water can substantially impact the availability of water downstream and damage the aquatic life in the water bodies, says Wilma Subra, scientist and national consultant on the community and environmental impact of fracking. When groundwater resources are used, aquifers can be drawn down and cause wells in the area to go dry.

“Once water is used for fracking, it is lost to the water cycle forever,” Subra says.

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Winterization installs energy-efficient windows

The recently released Senate and House budget resolutions for fiscal year 2014 reflect diametrically opposed visions of American’s energy and climate futures. The Senate budget invests in clean energy technologies that reduce carbon pollution responsible for climate change. The House budget, on the other hand, ignores climate change and defunds clean energy technologies.

The proposed Senate budget resolution — “Foundation for Growth: Restoring the Promise of American Opportunity,” authored by Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) — would boost the United States into the 21st century by investing in the clean energy industry, which will be a $1.9 trillion market from 2012 through 2018. In addition, the Senate resolution would attack the carbon pollution that is responsible for climate change.

Michael Linden, Director for Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress, noted that Sen. Murray’s overall budget “would promote immediate job creation, lay the foundations for future broad-based growth, and responsibly pursue deficit reduction.” The Murray budget’s funding proposals would also help address the fundamental challenges of clean energy development and slow climate change.
Meanwhile, the House budget resolution — “The Path to Prosperity: A Responsible, Balanced Budget,” written by House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) — would continue investment in the dirty fossil fuels of the past while disinvesting in clean energy. And it ignores the looming disruptive and expensive threat of climate change.

Reducing oil dependence and carbon pollution from transportation

Traffic congestion in the United States, partly due to damaged roads and inadequate access to public transit, wastes 2.9 billion gallons of gasoline annually, or nearly 196,000 barrels of oil per day, according to the latest Urban Mobility Report published by the Texas A&M University Transportation Institute. The study also estimated that “additional carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions attributed to traffic congestion: 56 billion pounds—about 380 pounds per auto commuter.”

Sen. Murray’s budget would eliminate some of this oil waste and carbon pollution by investing $50 billion in “repairing our nation’s highest priority deteriorating transportation infrastructure … [including] fixing crumbling roads, bridges … [and] updating our mass transit.” Her budget would also provide “$10 billion to create an infrastructure bank that will leverage investment from the private sector” for additional road and transit projects.

Conversely, the Ryan budget would increase oil use and carbon pollution by slashing investments in transportation below current levels.

Fighting climate change and investing in clean energy technology

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Some critics are saying the EPA must revisit its carbon rule for new power plants because it lumped coal and gas into the same category. [Washington Post]

At issue here is a rule the EPA proposed last March that would set carbon emissions standards under the Clean Air Act for all new coal- and gas-fired power plants built in the United States. Going forward, any new plant would have to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide per megawatt-hour of electricity produced.

Most modern natural-gas plants can meet that standard, so they should be fine. Conventional coal plants, however, average upwards of 1,800 pounds per megawatt-hour. That means it would be impossible to build a new coal facility in the United States unless it could capture and bury its carbon-dioxide — a technology that’s still very much unproven.

The problem with this proposed carbon rule, critics say, is that the EPA took a rather novel step by lumping both coal plants and gas plants together into one “source category” — essentially holding them to the same carbon standard. That’s not how this section of the Clean Air Act is usually implemented.

The question seems to be whether the EPA will delay the rule in order to separate coal and gas into different categories, or if the rule will get delayed in court.

A new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said the U.S. could face a Hurricane Katrina every other year. [USA Today]

The Senate will vote on several amendments today, potentially including: stripping the military biofuels program, requiring federal agencies to plan for climate change and approving the Keystone pipeline. [The Hill]

Approving the Keystone XL pipeline may not even buy President Obama any bipartisan goodwill. [National Journal]

Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) said he would place a procedural hold on Gina McCarthy’s nomination to be EPA Adminstrator until he gets an update on a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project to repair a levee on the Mississippi River system. [The Hill]

UK government plans to remove climate change from the under-14 national curriculum is facing backlash from student and environmental groups. [Guardian]

Coastal communities are continually reminded of the difficulty of adapting to storm surges and damaging Nor’easters. [New York Times]

Could the Chinese solar company Suntech’s default on its debts mean the solar industry will continue to consolidate? [Bloomberg]

President Obama’s nominee to for Secretary of the Interior will appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thrusday. [The Hill]