A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters now believe the United States should remove all its troops from Western Europe and let the Europeans defend themselves. Only 29% disagree, but another 20% are undecided.

Part of President Obama’s plan to cut nearly $500 billion in military spending over the next decade (DOD’s budget will still grow over that same period) includes cutting two Army brigades in Europe.

Back in February, CAP’s Lawrence Korb, Alex Rothman and Max Hoffman praised the Obama plan to scale back from Europe, adding that there is “no reason” to maintain such a large American presence there:

[T]he Obama administration’s plan to remove two brigades from Europe will focus U.S. military resources where they are most needed. There is no reason for the United States to continue stationing 70,000 troops on a stable continent that has more than enough resources to provide for its own defense.

The CAP report notes that the 2010 Sustainable Defense Task Force found the United States can reduce its troop presence in Europe and Asia by one-third without harming American security or interests.” Moreover, “withdrawing 33,000 troops from Europe and 17,000 from Asia — far more than Panetta’s proposed withdrawal of two brigades — would enable savings $80 billion over the next decade.”

by Jeffrey Cavanagh

Even in the midst of an economic crisis, most European countries are staying committed to deploying renewable energy. But with demand starting to lag due to fiscal constraints, the region’s leaders are looking to large developing countries as growth markets for European companies.

A leaked version of the European Commission’s latest energy strategy shows how much importance leaders are putting on emerging markets:  “All in all, renewable energy export opportunities will strongly depend on the elimination of trade barriers in and free access to key emerging renewable energy markets such as in China, India and Brazil.”

China is a growth market with the most potential for Europe.

Last week, energy ministers from all 27 EU member countries met with Chinese ministers and energy policy counterparts in Brussels to discuss energy security, sustainable urban development, and electricity market reform. The two sides agreed to set up an energy partnership and work toward more open market access and transparency.

During EU Commission President José Manuel Durão Barroso’s speech to Chinese leaders, Barroso expressed his strong support for a cooperative energy partnership between Europe and China:

The European Union and China are two of the global economy’s main actors, indeed the EU as the largest single market with a value of 12.6 trillion euros and China as the second largest economy in the world with national income of 5.2 trillion euros, respectively…We are both global stakeholders. Although we have had very different pasts, one thing is clear: We share to a large extent a common future, a future which will be determined by the manner in which we use the resources of our planet.

Leaders from both sides stressed the importance of Sino-EU relations, a partnership that recorded a record high trade volume of $567 billion in 2011. This represented more than $1.5 billion in daily trade.

China has accelerated its renewable energy investments, investing over $45 billion in the sector in 2011. This represented a 95 percent increase over the previous five years. China’s 12^th Five Year Plan similarly calls for aggressive renewable energy spending and development, opening up the largest market for renewable energy in the world.

Barroso pressed China to give European companies more competitive access to Chinese markets. An effective energy relationship, he noted, requires “guaranteeing a ‘level playing field,’ including open and non-discriminatory access to our respective markets.” The Obama Administration has expressed similar needs to leaders in Beijing in order to give American companies easier access to Chinese consumers.

In an op-ed penned by Li prior to his trip, the Vice-Premier offered unequivocal support for European integration, and presented an optimistic outlook for future Sino-EU relations. Europe, Li writes, is a “strategic partner,” and China is ready “to work with Europe to ensure … China and Europe can progress and develop together.”

Developing together also means working through some sticky disagreements — most notably over Europe’s emissions trading scheme that would penalize Chinese airlines flying into the region. China is a vocal opponent of the EU ETS and has even threatened retaliatory measures.

Another issue is how to finance the Green Climate Fund. The planned global relief fund was launched during last year’s climate change summit in Durban, and would provide $100 billion per year in adaptation and mitigation funding by 2020. It was a key bargaining chip for China to consider future negotiations over binding carbon-reduction targets. But financial problems have left European countries unsure how they’re going to fulfill commitments to the fund after 2013.

There are a lot of moving parts to a clean energy relationship between Europe and China. But ultimately, the economic potential for both parties is too great to avoid pursuing.

Jeffrey Cavanagh is an intern on the energy team at the Center for American Progress.

Of course, austerity hasn’t just hurt the UK. Across Europe, austerity is not having the effect that conservatives said it would. Instead, it’s simply prolonging the continent’s economic pain. (HT: Reuters)

Indeed, the French vote, alongside elections in Greece in which voters abandoned pro-austerity parties in droves in favor of extremists, was a stark reminder that voters have no patience with forced economic sacrifice that isn’t paired with efforts to boost growth and create jobs. And here are three charts showing that the austerity policies adopted by European nations have certainly not delivered. The first, from the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf, shows that austerity goes hand in hand with a contracting economy:

This chart shows that the U.S., which hasn’t embraced austerity, is doing better than both the Eurozone and the austerity happy United Kingdom:

And finally, the Washington Post’s Brad Plumer flags this chart showing that, according to the International Monetary Fund, “Income and employment don’t fully recover even five years after the austerity program is enacted”:

Of course, European leaders are not the only ones slow to learn the lessons that failed austerity is teaching. After all, despite seeing what has happened in Europe following severe budget cuts, American Republicans are still pushing the same medicine.

But it doesn’t appear that Romney, nor his staff, feel the same way about America’s European allies. Back in March, Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron had a friendly visit in Washington and the Guardian reported yesterday that the Romney campaign didn’t like it too much:

Senior advisers to Mitt Romney have bitterly criticised David Cameron’s recent White House “love-in” with Barack Obama before Romney’s first visit to London for the opening of the Olympic Games.

Referring to Cameron’s highly flattering toast to Obama during a banquet given in the prime minister’s honour when he visited Washington in March, a senior aide said: “You don’t take sides in an election year“.

The aide said that Cameron’s visit to the White House showed a “lack of experience,” that he was “not very skillful” and that the visit “infringed” on the U.S.-U.K. special relationship.

It seems that trashing America’s European allies is a hallmark of the Romney campaign. “We’re becoming far more like a European social welfare state and people don’t want to see that,” the presumptive GOP nominee says regularly. And in his New Hampshire primary victory speech back in January, Romney had particularly harsh words for Europe, suggesting that European countries aren’t “free and prosperous“:

[Obama] wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. We want to ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity.

This President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe; we look to the cities and small towns of America. [...]

I want you to remember when our White House reflected the best of who we are, not the worst of what Europe has become.

And in a recent speech given at a private fundraiser, Romney said he wants to restore “the principles of liberty and freedom and entreprenuership and innovativeness” to the United States, as opposed to countries in Europe, which are becoming weak by “sacrificing their military.”

Romney’s hypocrisy on keeping conversations with allies private doesn’t stop with his and his campaign’s public criticism of America’s European friends. Last month, the Romney campaign called on Obama to “release the notes and transcripts of all his meetings with world leaders so the American people can be satisfied that he’s not promising to sell out the country’s interests after the election is over.”

-Zachary Bernstein

“The European Convention on Human Rights does not require member states’ governments to grant same-sex couples access to marriage,” the court found in a case “involving a lesbian couple in a civil partnership who complained the French courts would not allow them to adopt a child as a couple.” It argued that civil unions are comparable to marriage:

‘With regard to married couples, the court considers that in view of the social, personal, and legal consequences of marriage, the applicants’ legal situation could not be said to be comparable to that of married couples.’

Opponents of extending marriage to gays and lesbians have already seized on the ruling, arguing that “The ruling from the ECHR will embolden those whose concerns about same-sex marriage and adoption are not inspired by personal hatred and animosity, but by a genuine concern for the well-being of children and the welfare of society.” Earlier this week, “Muslim and Sikh groups said legalizing gay unions was ‘unnecessary and unhelpful‘ after Christian leaders had spoken out against the plans.”

“The results are in — and they’re exactly what three generations’ worth of economic analysis and all the lessons of history should have told you would happen,” Krugman wrote. “None of the countries slashing spending have seen the predicted private-sector surge. Instead, the depressing effects of fiscal austerity have been reinforced by falling private spending.”

In Britain, a large package of budget cuts and austerity measures which rolled out in 2010 has not unleashed the proverbial job creators in the private market. Instead, the country is still shackled with an economic growth trend that’s even worse that what it suffered in the aftermath of the Great Depression.

In the Eurozone as a whole, the European Central Bank and other relevant authorities have so far insisted on massive austerity measures from struggling countries in exchange for fiscal aid. Here, too, the result has not been a revitalized economy but a continuance of dismal growth rates.

Here at home, the effect of 2009′s recovery package and the tax deal in December 2010 was more than offset by cuts in state budgets. By the end of 2009, the combined budgets of the federal and state governments had entered a period of fiscal contraction from which they have yet to emerge.

The portions of Obama’s economic policy which actually passed simply made the economic hole created by state-level cuts less deep. Which was a valuable and necessary function, but insufficient to actually boost the economy back to healthy growth. Contrary to Republicans’ claim that Obama’s first two years were a period of unbound Keynesian experimentation, austerity is the budgetary policy reality which has accompanied America’s stagnant economic growth.

This matters because, now that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are winding down, the Bush tax cuts and the lingering effects of the recession remain the two primary drivers of the U.S. federal deficit. While the Republicans insist on not only maintaining all the tax cuts, but blowing an even larger hole in our revenue with added tax relief for the wealthy, Obama has proposed raising new revenue by allowing the Bush cuts for the top income rates to expire and by eliminating other injustices in the code which go to the benefit of the wealthiest Americans.

Even more importantly, because our tax system pulls in a percentage of the country’s overall wealth production, tax revenues will continue to underperform as long as our GDP production remains below capacity. The perverse irony of austerity as an immediate response to economic recession is that it drives down demand and GDP, thus driving down revenues and deepening the deficit hole it seeks to mend. In the opposite direction, a sudden positive jump in GDP could bring our economy back into line with its pre-recession trend and bring tax revenues back up without any change in tax rates or policy at all. The policy history in Britain, Europe, and here in America since the end of 2008 shows the Republicans’ austerity fixation won’t deliver this reinvigoration. But a recommitment by the government to boost demand could do the trick.

Obama’s budget, while imperfect, aims for the proper balance and the proper order of repairs: Investment now in jobs, infrastructure, state aid, extensions for the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance, and other immediate boosts to demand, followed by longer-term deficit cutting once the economy is again firing on all cylinders. If the GOP had not been using every political tool at their disposal to undermine this approach during the last four years, the president could probably have done considerably more.

Even with a few countries pulling back on government support of the industry because of fiscal troubles, 2011 was still a huge year for deployment — with wind and solar alone representing almost 70% of new capacity.

That’s almost a 10-fold increase over deployment in 2000, when only 3.5 GW of renewable energy projects were installed. Last year, 32 GW of renewables — mostly wind and solar — were deployed across European countries.

The figures come from the European Wind Energy Association, which just released a report on industry growth.

Growth in Europe has consistently outstripped forecasts. The EU currently has a target of getting 20% of its final energy (heat, electricity and fuels) from renewable energy. Numerous countries have already surpassed their needed targets in the electricity and heating sectors, and it’s likely that the entire region will move past the goal well ahead of schedule.

It’s expected that renewable electricity sources will meet 34% of demand in Europe by 2020, with 25 of 27 countries to surpass their targets beforehand.

In 2011, solar PV accounted for 26.7% of capacity additions, wind power accounted for 21.4% of additions, and natural gas made up 22% of installations. Below that was coal at 4.8%, fuel oil at 1.6%, large hydro at 1.3%, and concentrating solar power at 1.1% of capacity.

(A side note to anyone confused by terms: It is always important to remember that “capacity” is the ability to do work. It is completely different than actual electricity generation. Just because 68% of new capacity was added in 2011, doesn’t mean that Europe will get 68% more electricity from renewables. Hence, the major differences in generation figures).

So what does Europe’s power capacity mix look like today?

Notice the stunning increase in wind, solar and natural gas — by far the top three choices for developers in the region. However, coal and fuel oil still have a very large market share. Some experts are concerned that a roll back of nuclear in various countries will increase the share of fossil fuels, particularly coal.

But with wind, solar and gas prices all declining to record lows, the combination of those three resources could prevent a sizable increase in coal development.

Related Posts:

• Offshore Wind Could Meet 14% of Europe’s Energy Demand by 2030, Leveraging $193 Billion in Investments
• Clean Energy Stunner: Renewable Power Tops Fossil Fuels for First Time

[T]he probability of cold winters with much snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer. Scientists of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association have decrypted a mechanism in which a shrinking summertime sea ice cover changes the air pressure zones in the Arctic atmosphere and impacts our European winter weather. These results of a global climate analysis were recently published in a study in the scientific journal Tellus A.

That’s the news release for yet another new study examining what will inevitably be the huge implications for extreme weather from the massive amount of heat released by the declining Arctic sea ice cover.

Arctic sea ice in September 2007 reached its lowest extent on record, approximately 40% lower than when satellite records began in 1979. Sea ice loss in 2011 was virtually tied with the ice loss in 2007, despite weather conditions that were not as unusual in the Arctic. ”Such a large area of open water is bound to cause significant impacts on weather patterns, due to the huge amount of heat and moisture that escapes from the exposed ocean into the atmosphere over a multi-month period following the summer melt.”  Image: Cryosphere Today.

You may recall the recent repost of the discussion by meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters (see “Our Extreme Weather: Is Arctic Sea Ice Loss Partly to Blame?” the source of the figure above):

“The question is not whether sea ice loss is affecting the large-scale atmospheric circulation…. It’s how can it not?” That was the take-home message from Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, in her talk “Does Arctic Amplification Fuel Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes?”, presented at last week’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Dr. Francis presented new research in review for publication, which shows that Arctic sea ice loss may significantly affect the upper-level atmospheric circulation, slowing its winds and increasing its tendency to make contorted high-amplitude loops. High-amplitude loops in the upper level wind pattern (and associated jet stream) increases the probability of persistent weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere, potentially leading to extreme weather due to longer-duration cold spells, snow events, heat waves, flooding events, and drought conditions.

The new German study looks at the specific case of winters in central Europe.  The UK Independent story explains, “A growing number of experts believe complex wind patterns are being changed because melting Arctic sea ice has exposed huge swaths of normally frozen ocean to the atmosphere above.”

As cold weather hit much of Europe, the story describes the findings this way:

In particular, the loss of Arctic sea ice could be influencing the development of high-pressure weather systems over northern Russia, which bring very cold winds from the Arctic and Siberia to Western Europe and the British Isles, the scientists believe. An intense anticyclone over north-west Russia is behind the bitterly cold easterly winds that have swept across Europe and some climate scientists say the lack of Arctic sea ice brought about by global warming is responsible.

“The current weather pattern fits earlier predictions of computer models for how the atmosphere responds to the loss of sea ice due to global warming,” said Professor Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “The ice-free areas of the ocean act like a heater as the water is warmer than the Arctic air above it. This favours the formation of a high-pressure system near the Barents Sea, which steers cold air into Europe.”

Sea ice covering the Barents and Kara Seas has been exceptionally low this winter, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado. But air temperatures above the Barents and Kara Seas have been higher than average. The relatively mild westerly winds that have kept Britain from freezing much of this winter have been blocked by fierce high pressure over north-west Russia, centred on an area just south of the Barents Sea.

Indeed, as the story makes clear, although the impacts are complicated, more and more climate experts have been making the connection:

Professor Rahmstorf said the Alfred Wegener study confirms earlier predictions from computer models by Vladimir Petoukhov of the Potsdam Institute, who forecast colder winters in western Europe as a result of melting sea ice.

Dr Petoukhov and his colleague Vladimir Semenov were among the first scientists to suggest a link between the loss of sea ice and colder winters in Europe. Their 2009 study simulated the effects of disappearing sea ice and found that for some years to come the loss will increase the chances of colder winters.

“Whoever thinks that the shrinking of some far-away sea ice won’t bother him could be wrong. There are complex interconnections in the climate system, and in the Barents-Kara Sea we might have discovered a powerful feedback mechanism,” Dr Petoukhov said.

You can read the original study online: “Impact of sea ice cover changes on the Northern Hemisphere atmospheric winter circulation.”  Here’s more detail for non-scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research news release:

If there is a particularly large-scale melt of Arctic sea ice in summer, as observed in recent years, two important effects are intensified. Firstly, the retreat of the light ice surface reveals the darker ocean, causing it to warm up more in summer from the solar radiation (ice-albedo feedback mechanism). Secondly, the diminished ice cover can no longer prevent the heat stored in the ocean being released into the atmosphere (lid effect). As a result of the decreased sea ice cover the air is warmed more greatly than it used to be particularly in autumn and winter because during this period the ocean is warmer than the atmosphere. “These higher temperatures can be proven by current measurements from the Arctic regions,” reports Ralf Jaiser, lead author of the publication from the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute.

The warming of the air near to the ground leads to rising movements and the atmosphere becomes less stable. “We have analysed the complex non-linear processes behind this destabilisation and have shown how these altered conditions in the Arctic influence the typical circulation and air pressure patterns,” explains Jaiser. One of these patterns is the air pressure difference between the Arctic and mid-latitudes: the so-called Arctic oscillation with the Azores highs and Iceland lows known from the weather reports. If this difference is high, a strong westerly wind will result which in winter carries warm and humid Atlantic air masses right down to Europe. If the wind does not come, cold Arctic air can penetrate down through to Europe, as was the case in the last two winters. Model calculations show that the air pressure difference with decreased sea ice cover in the Arctic summer is weakened in the following winter, enabling Arctic cold to push down to mid-latitudes.

Despite the low sea ice cover in summer 2011, a cold winter with much snow has so far not occurred here in Germany. Jaiser explains this as follows: “Many other factors naturally play a role in the complex climate system of our Earth which overlap in part. Our results explain the mechanisms of how regional changes in the Arctic sea ice cover have a global impact and their effects over a period from late summer to winter. Other mechanisms are linked, for example, with the snow cover in Siberia or tropical influences. The interactions between these influential factors will be the subject matter of future research work and therefore represent a factor of uncertainty in forecasts.”

I added “for now” to the subhed “Less Summer Arctic Sea Ice Cover Means Colder, Snowier Winters in Central Europe” because if we stay on our current emissions path, then the warming is going to be so great in the second half of the century it will generally overcome even these cold blasts.

In the worst case, we get both continuing high levels of emissions and high carbon-cycle feedbacks.  That possibility was discussed here:

• Royal Society Special Issue on Global Warming Details ‘Hellish Vision’ of 7°F (4°C) World — Which We May Face in the 2060s! “In such a 4°C world, the limits for human adaptation are likely to be exceeded in many parts of the world, while the limits for adaptation for natural systems would largely be exceeded throughout the world.”

This would be the worst-case for the 2060s, but is in any case, close to business as usual for 2090s:

This is indeed 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 27°F in the Arctic.  Central Europe sees 11-14°F. So, yes, there will no doubt still be relatively cool winters — but relatively to a vastly warmer average.

Moreover, there is every reason to believe that the earth would just keep getting hotter and hotter:

• Science stunner — On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter:  Paleoclimate data suggests CO2 “may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models”

Steve Easterbrook’s post “A first glimpse at model results for the next IPCC assessment” shows that for the scenario where there is 9°F warming by 2100, you get another 7°F warming by 2300.  Of course, folks that aren’t motivated to avoid the civilization-destroying 9°F by 2100 won’t be moved by whatever happens after that.

Related Post:

• Arctic Death Spiral Continues: Sea Ice Volume Hits Record Low for Second Straight Year

Court Upholds Europe’s Plan to Charge Airlines for Carbon Emissions

The European Union’s highest court on Wednesday endorsed the bloc’s plan to begin charging the world’s biggest airlines for their greenhouse gas emissions from Jan. 1, setting the stage for a potentially costly trade war with the United States, China and other countries.

A group of United States airlines had argued that forcing them to participate in the bloc’s potentially costly emissions-trading program infringed on national sovereignty and conflicted with existing international aviation treaties.

But in its ruling, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg affirmed an opinion issued in October by its advocate general, who had rejected their claim.

“The court confirms the validity of the directive that integrates aviation activities in the system for trading emissions quotas,” the ruling said, adding that it “infringes neither the principles of customary international law at issue, nor the ‘Open Skies’ agreement” concluded with the United States in 2007.

Debt crisis threatens not only euro, but also EU’s ambitious cap-and-trade system

Europe’s main weapon in the battle against climate change is now fighting for its own survival.

In early January, investors in the continent’s cap-and-trade system still had to pay some €14 ($18.30) for the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide into the air. By last week, the price of one emission allowance had tumbled to a meager €6.41 — making it much cheaper to pollute and slashing the financial incentives for companies to invest in low-carbon technologies.

Analysts warn that the prospect of another recession in the debt-ridden continent, and the accompanying decline in emissions, could push prices below €2 by the end of next month.

U.S. helping Britain investigate hacking of climate scientists’ emails

The Justice Department is helping British authorities in an investigation into the hacking of climate scientists’ emails, which caused an uproar among skeptics of global warming when they were released two years ago.

Ten days ago, the Justice Department contacted San Francisco web development company Automattic, asking it to preserve records of three climate skeptic bloggers in the U.S., Canada and Britain who recently received another batch of stolen emails sent from a server in Russia.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the nature of the investigation and did not give Automattic a reason for its request. But the letter to Automattic suggests the request is part of an ongoing investigation by law enforcement officials in Britain.

On Dec. 14, the home of Roger Tattersall, the British blogger “Tallbloke,” was raided by detectives from the Metropolitan Police in London and members of the Norfolk Constabulary, whose jurisdiction in East Central England includes the University of East Anglia, whose scientists’ email accounts were targeted. Tattersall was not arrested, but the police confiscated two laptop computers and other equipment, according to his blog.

Global Warming Wilts Rodent Malaria

A common assumption is that rising global temperatures will increase the spread of malaria — the deadly mosquito-borne disease that affects millions of people worldwide. But a study out today in Biology Letters finds that warmer temperatures seem to slow transmission of malaria-causing parasites, by reducing their infectiousness.

The study was done with rodent malaria, but the researchers, at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, expect the pattern to apply to human malaria and possibly to other mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and West Nile virus.

Studies predicting that warmer climates will increase malaria infections commonly assume that the disease-causing parasites will develop faster and that the ability of the mosquito to acquire, maintain and transmit the pathogen will remain constant. They conclude that as temperature rises, mosquitoes become infectious quicker and therefore malaria transmission increases.

As the Philippines begins to bury more than a 1,000 disaster victims in mass graves, Philippine President Benigno Aquino has ordered an investigation into last weekend’s flash flood and landslide, including looking at the role of illegal logging. Officials have pointed to both climate change and vast deforestation as likely exacerbating the disaster.

The involvement of the IMF has, like always, gotten Republicans in the U.S. Congress all bent out of shape, since the U.S. is an IMF contributor. According to the Republicans, the IMF lending money to European nations would be indirectly approving of those nations’ fiscal choices.

“Europe is going to default eventually, so why would you socialize their profligate spending?” asked Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). “The reason we’re in the situation we’re in [is] because of excessive debt in the industrialized world,” agreed Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT).

A lot of mythology has been built up regarding why Europe is in the shape it’s in, but this theory leads the pack — Europe is collapsing because its governments were out-of-control spenders. However, there’s one problem with the theory. As Martin Wolf noted in the Financial Times, the claim that Europe’s most troubled nations spent their way into a crisis is simply not true:

Take a look at the average fiscal deficits of 12 significant (or at least revealing) eurozone members from 1999 to 2007, inclusive. Every country, except Greece, fell below the famous 3 per cent of gross domestic product limit. Focusing on this criterion would have missed all today’s crisis-hit members, except Greece. Moreover, the four worst exemplars, after Greece, were Italy and then France, Germany and Austria. Meanwhile, Ireland, Estonia, Spain and Belgium had good performances over these years. After the crisis, the picture changed, with huge (and unexpected) deteriorations in the fiscal positions of Ireland, Portugal and Spain (though not Italy). In all, however, fiscal deficits were useless as indicators of looming crises.

Now consider public debt. Relying on that criterion would have picked up Greece, Italy, Belgium and Portugal. But Estonia, Ireland and Spain had vastly better public debt positions than Germany. Indeed, on the basis of its deficit and debt performance, pre-crisis Germany even looked vulnerable. Again, after the crisis, the picture transformed swiftly. Ireland’s story is amazing: in just five years it will suffer a 93 percentage point jump in the ratio of its net public debt to GDP.

These charts show that, according to deficits and debt, countries like Spain and Ireland were acting much more responsibly than Germany and France — therefore it can’t have been deficits and debt that caused their problems. As The American Prospect’s Harold Myerson put it, “some of Europe’s current basket cases were actually running budget surpluses in the years before the Lehman meltdown. Ireland and Spain weren’t overspending at all — but the banks and investors speculating on their housing markets most certainly were.” What Europe needed was better regulation of its financial sector and a central bank willing to take the steps necessary to lessen the pain of the Great Recession, neither of which it had.

Republicans like to claim that if the United States doesn’t slash its budget to the bone, then it will wind up like Europe, careening towards a crisis. But it’s simply a myth that it was spending that got Europe into trouble — and austerity is certainly not going to save it.

Canada tar sands

Despite the urgency of the Durban climate talks, industry interests have largely undercut global progress on lowering greenhouse gases. One example is the news that the United Kingdom has been quietly working to prevent a European Union climate penalty on Canadian tar sands oil. Throughout Europe’s negotiations, the U.K. government has been in close contact with oil companies Shell and BP:

At least 15 high-level meetings and frequent communications have taken place since September, with David Cameron discussing the issue with his counterpart Stephen Harper during his visit to Canada, and stating privately that the UK wanted “to work with Canada on finding a way forward”, according to documents released under freedom of information laws.

As Europe grapples with cutting greenhouse gases, U.S. activists are fighting the development of the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline. Tar sands produce an even dirtier form of oil than conventional crude, with 23 percent higher greenhouse pollution, and NASA scientist James Hansen says development would mean “game over for the climate.”

The Guardian’s revelation about lobbying in the U.K. simply highlights how special interests have swayed decision-makers both domestically and abroad. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has lobbied seven state governments to approve the project. And in Canada, TransCanada lobbyists have met with Canadian officials at least 56 times since May.

President Obama’s decision regarding Keystone XL, as well as the European vote on tar sands penalties this Friday, present opportunities for nations to finally put public interest ahead of Big Oil’s gains.

Cain’s campaign website on “foreign policy and national security” leaves a little something to be desired in terms of basic geography: It lists Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom as countries in “the Americas.” Take a look at a screen shot of the campaign website, with those countries highlighted:

While the downloadable version of the document does indeed have a subject heading for “Europe,” where part of Russia and the whole of Germany and the U.K. are located, the website version leaves it out. Cain’s team, it seems, has a problem with editorial oversight on even the most basic subjects.

Other areas of Cain’s plan defy his simplistic foreign policy credo of “peace through strength and clarity” — namely, that he admits having no clarity at all on Libya. The intervention in Libya and its nascent transition to democracy have bedeviled the former pizza company C.E.O. Asked about it earlier this month, Cain gave a bizarre and rambling five-minute answer heavy on long, dramatic pauses. Months before that, though, he did have some clarity on the matter: opposing whatever President Obama was doing. Cain’s answer, which he blamed on a lack of sleep (promising to take a nap upon taking the White House), dovetails nicely with the declaration on his website that he “needs clarity” on Libya. That should come as no surprise from a man who thinks the Afghan Taliban insurgent group took over the North African country. (HT: UN Dispatch)

That’s according to new figures released by Europe’s wind trade group, the European Wind Energy Association. In a report issued earlier this month, EWEA projects that the European offshore wind market will grow from 3.9 gigawatts of capacity today to 40 gigawatts of capacity, generating roughly 148 terawatt-hours of energy annually — or about 4% of Europe’s electricity demand. By 2030, cumulative installation levels could reach about 150 GW — enough capacity to generate roughly 14% of European demand.

That compares to the 30 GW of capacity expected for China’s offshore wind market by 2020, as projected by the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.

Assuming these projections are accurate, the employment numbers could be substantial. EWEA estimates that 40% of jobs in the European wind industry will be offshore by 2020, accounting for just under 170,000 jobs. And if recent growth is anything to judge by, a major boom in offshore projects through the next two decades is very likely.

Like many other energy sectors, the offshore wind industry was slowed by the global economic malaise and subsequent European Debt Crisis. But even during three years of economic troubles, offshore wind projects have grown substantially, from 318 MW in 2007 to 883 MW in 2010. Offshore installations are expected to reach roughly a gigawatt this year.

That doesn’t mean the sector is completely dry yet. The evolving debt crisis is may create yet another bottleneck into 2012 and 2013, says Christian Kjaer, the CEO of EWEA:

“The sector is coming out of the financial crisis but is still facing a potential worsening of the general economic crisis. The number of banks providing capital for offshore wind farm investments is steadily growing, although there is a continued need for attracting an increasing number of large institutional investors to offshore wind farms – presently the largest construction projects going on in Europe.”

Investors are increasingly seeking equity investments in projects, selling off stakes in offshore projects to develop new wind farms. And while no debt-based transactions were completed in the first half of this year, there are at least 900 MW of projects currently nearing closure.

Meanwhile, China is starting to keep pace with the Europeans. Developers in that country reportedly have about 1 GW of projects in varying phases of development.

Need we remind our readers that after ten years, America’s first offshore wind project — the 420-MW Cape Wind Project — is still stalled?

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• Wind Electricity To Be Fully Competitive With Natural Gas by 2016, Says Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Defense Scientists Want Climate Change Intel

The United States’ Department of Defense needs to know more about how climate change affects global security, recommends a report by the the department’s science advisers, the Defense Science Board (DSB).

“Changes in climate patterns and their impact on the physical environment can create profound effects on populations in parts of the world and present new challenges to global security and stability,” wrote Defense Science Board co-chairs, Larry Welch and Willian Howard in a letter preceding the DSB report, Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security.

“Failure to anticipate and mitigate these changes increases the threat of more failed states with the instabilities and potential for conflict inherent in such failures,” the DSB co-chairs warned.

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Africa was of particular concern to the DSB.

“Climate change is already intensifying environmental and resource problems that communities are facing. In recent decades, social conflict has been particularly prevalent in Africa,” said the report.

Republicans Cut Top Science Office by 1/3

Scientists are regarding it as yet another attack on science by a political party that has, in the words of GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, become “the antiscience party.”

A 2012 spending bill expected to be approved this week slashes the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) budget by a whopping 32 percent. The cuts “will have real consequences on OSTP’s operations,” said spokesperson Rick Weiss.

The OSTP is the White House’s overall coordinating agency for federal science initiatives ranging from clean energy research to economic competitiveness to space exploration to climate change to education.

Cutting the top office responsible for insuring scientific integrity in government is the latest action by a Republican party whose leadership seems to be prosecuting an assault on science at almost every level, including House Speaker John Boehner’s attempts to have creationism taught in science classes and his false assertion that climate scientists are arguing carbon dioxide is a carcinogen.

Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), who chairs the House appropriations panel that oversees NASA and the OSTP, is a fierce opponent of the Chinese government and doesn’t want any cooperation between the US and China. “Frankly, it boils down to a moral issue,” said Wolf. “Would you have a bilateral program with Stalin?” Wolf inserted two sentences into the April 2011 spending bill that prohibit any joint scientific activity between the two nations that involves NASA or is coordinated by the OSTP.

Wind Rush: Europeans Take The Credit

European wind companies have played a major role in the development of the US wind energy sector, even as shadows loom over the industry and the global economy.

Vestas, the world’s largest turbine manufacturer, clearly has high hopes for its US business, with a market share of 18.7% and room for growth. In recent years Vestas had invested in two blade factories, a nacelle facility and a tower facility in Colorado. It also has R&D hubs in Texas, Massachusetts and Colorado.

It is not yet clear whether these facilities will feel the impact of a radical reorganization at Vestas to be announced in February 2012 to reduce annual costs by at least €150 million.

Siemens, Acciona, Clipper and Gamesa are just some of the other companies from Europe that entered the US market because of its potential for growth and incentives such as the Production Tax Credit and the Section 48C program for advanced energy manufacturing facilities.

Euro zone crisis to widen climate fund gap – report

A worsening of the euro zone debt crisis could increase a climate funding gap to $45 billion by 2015 as governments struggle to maintain levels of climate change investment due to austerity measures, Ernst & Young said on Thursday.

Even under current cost-cutting measures, it is likely a gap of $22.5 billion in investment in renewable energy, clean technology, pollution-cutting measures and subsidies will emerge by 2015 across 10 of the world’s major economies, the accounting and consultancy firm said in a report.

Those countries are Germany, France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Japan, the United States, Australia, South Africa and South Korea.

The report comes ahead of a U.N. climate summit starting on Nov. 28 in Durban, South Africa, where negotiators will work on a new global climate deal.

Expectations are low for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which limits greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries, to emerge in Durban. There are also concerns that governments will not be able to commit the full $100 billion a year pledged to help the most vulnerable countries tackle climate change.

“The enormous projected funding gap revealed by this report suggests continuing economic uncertainty is pushing a low carbon economy further out of reach,” said Juan Costa Climent, the firm’s global climate change and sustainability services leader.

Global Temps `Virtually Certain’ to Rise: UN

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whirrs into action this week with a significant assessment of extreme events and disasters. The final report is due on Nov. 18. A draft summary for policymakers obtained by Bloomberg shows the caution and rigor with which scientists approach attributing observed trends to man-made climate change.

The panel says it’s “virtually certain” that warm daily temperature extremes will increase in this century. It’s “likely” that human influences have led to a warming of extreme daily minimum and maximum temperatures across the globe, and that instances of heavy rainfall will increase. The report finds the average maximum wind speed of hurricanes is likely to increase, though storm frequency is likely to drop or remain the same.

“Likely” or “virtually certain” imply precision in science that’s generally absent from everyday speech. So when they say “virtually certain,” they’re using a definition of 99 to 100 percent probability. “Very likely” is 90 to 100 percent, and “likely” is 66 to 100 percent.

The values assigned in this week’s report are meant to inform and constrain public policy discussions, and will be fodder for delegates to chew on at the UN’s annual climate treaty talks which start Nov. 28 in Durban, South Africa. NASA climatologist and IPCC contributor Gavin Schmidt explains how nonscientists might interpret these assessments: “If it is likely to rain, will you take an umbrella with you? If people answer yes, then that is your answer — responses to likely events are sensible. If they answer ‘no,’ then there isn’t much point in continuing the conversation.”

Climate change: Sea rise could kill vital marshes

The critical tidal marshes of San Francisco Bay – habitat for tens of thousands of birds and other animals – will virtually disappear within a century if the sea rises as high as some scientists predict it will as a result of global warming.

The sea would inundate the coastline and eliminate 93 percent of the bay’s tidal wetlands if carbon emissions continue unchecked and the ocean rises 5.4 feet, as predicted by scientists under a worst-case scenario, according to a new study by PRBO Conservation Science.

The tidal areas closest to the Golden Gate, including Richardson Bay in Marin County and much of the East Bay coastline, were identified as most vulnerable to sea level rise.

“Marshes cannot keep up with the high-end sea level rise predictions,” said Diana Stralberg, a research associate with PRBO, also known as the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, and the lead author of the study, which was published Wednesday in the online science journal PLoS One.

“If we can’t slow down sea level rise,” said Stralberg, who is working on a doctorate degree at the University of Alberta, “we will need to identify and protect areas where marshes can migrate to.”

The researchers measured the depth of mud, sediment and plant material in the existing marshes along the San Francisco Bay coastline and analyzed the impact on the wetlands under a variety of different scenarios.