EU May Begin to Show that Climate Action and Markets can Work Together

Europe has agreed to new 2030 targets for emissions reductions. They will bring thei economy-wide targets from 20% reduction by 2020 to a 30% reduction by 2030. 

Some campaigners, quoted in this NY Times article see this as a step back from Europe's role of climate leadership. 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/business/international/european-union-lowers-ambitions-on-renewable-energy.html?_r=0&referrer=

However, maybe we should question these campaigners. Groups like Greenpeace and Freinds of the Earth play an important role as a country's environmental conscience, but we should be careful about handing them the keys to the store. 

The truth is that the EU has been bold in making a choice to reduce emissions. They have been a leader in this for over a decade. I do not see why you need a target for renewables percentage to go along with that. The atmosphere literally doesn't care if you achieve emissions reductions through enhanced renewables, greater efficiency, cultural change, biofuels, or fuel switching. 

So- good for them for making a real effort to reduce emissions, and good for them for realizing that you don't need mandatory ways to reduce emissions. I suspect that the renewables penetration will be much higher in 2030 than any of these predictions, but that's a good thing!

Bangladesh

Bangladesh and the Northeastern part of India is a fascinating place - would love to travel there someday. Over the past several years, I've gotten to know General Muniruzziman well - and he would show the area very well.

I'm reading "Crossing the Bay of Bengal" by Sunil Amrith right now - and he makes a very clear case of that region as being a cohesive whole unit, with significant history of cross-border traffic. He also clearly shows how the environment, particularly the success or failure of the monsoon, is such a critical part of the region's success and failure.

The great rivers of the region - the Brahmaputra, the Meghana, the Ganges - are the lifeblood of the region, but they also cross major militarized international borders.

Here's a great travelogue article in the Economist's Banyan blog about a trip up to a mine in northern Bangladesh. Oh to have a job like his. The Post's travel section had a great article this past weekend about a trip into Arunchal Pradesh.

One day, I'll convince someone to pay my way for a fact-finding mission over to that area of the world. I'm convinced that it will one day soon become a hinge around which much greater geopolitical forces play. I've written some about the water issues in the region, and I'd be keen to write more.

Europe's High Energy Prices are Not Due to its Climate Policies

Connie Hedegaard, EU Climate Commissioner
NOT responsible for high energy prices

A commentary by UK Tory MP John Redwood in the Commentator really got me fired up this morning. He claims that European citizens are beginning to turn against the "climate agenda" because of high energy prices.

Here is an extended quote:

"Europe has a problem. Dear energy makes European industry much less competitive, at a time when Asia is challenging and the USA has opted for cheap gas. Dear energy squeezes the budgets of individuals and families, at exactly the point where wage growth is also being cut by the rigours of the Euro and the pressures of global competition.

Politicians have assumed that most people in the EU agree with global warming theory. They have assumed that people will therefore buy into the “solution”, burning less fossil fuel.

"The politicians who believe that this crusade is the most important task modern humanity faces, have been altogether quieter about explaining that their policy means dear energy, which in turn means lower living standards."

But his premise is entirely wrong! Climate policies aren't the reason for Europe's high energy prices: it is a lack of investment in energy infrastructure combined with the fact that almost all of their energy has to be imported. 

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is widely seen as a failure because the carbon price is too low not too high. 

Unless Europe finds new sources of gas or oil within its borders, the prices of energy will remain high, regardless of climate policy. 

Politicians should not scapegoat climate policy when other problems are more important. The first step in solving a problem is to diagnose the cause. 

New article on the Weather Channel and Sustainable Security: National Security and the Typhoon

I've got an article on how Super Typhoon Haiyan's impacts on the Philippines show how climate and natural disasters are impacting national security that has been posted on Sustainable Security and on The Weather Channel. Here's an excerpt:

On Friday, November 8, Super Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the Central Philippines, around the island of Leyte, as possibly the most powerful tropical cyclone on record. Reports of the death toll range as high as 10,000; President Aquino believes the final toll will likely be in the range of 2,000-2,500. After the Typhoon passed through, the situation of the survivors has become dire – with over 600,000 people displaced and food and fresh water in short supply.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the USS George Washington and her battle group from Hong Kong to the Philippines to provide humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of the typhoon. Already, about 90 U.S. Marines and sailors have deployed from Okinawa to the Philippines and are on the ground providing support. Prime Minister Cameron has ordered the Royal Navy’s HMS Daring to the region as well.

Read the rest at Sustainable Security or The Weather Channel.

A Quiet Hurricane Season? Tell that to the Filipinos

[Note from Andrew: After a long hiatus here, I'm going to be re-publishing all my blog posts, whether from ASP, Energy Trends, or others on this blog, so I have a central location. Feel free to comment here]

From ASP's Flashpoint blog:

Some have called this hurricane season a bust after a very quiet Atlantic storm season.(Here's Climate Central's Andrew Freeman detailing why its been a quite Atlantic season). However, just because storms aren't running up the east coast of the United States into the media-friendly New York metro area, doesn't mean that there are no storms and that they aren't affecting people's lives.

Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Central Pacific is a massive storm that is poised to do extreme damage. As Brian Kahn, aslo of Climate Central, writes, right now it is on a direct beeline to the Philippines.  With maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour and a predicted storm surge of over 16 feet, this storm is likely to do massive damage to that country. This is the 5th typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, and the cumulative effect of that much rain alone is likely to cause mud slides and extensive damage.

Over in the Bay of Bengal, the East Coast of India was hit by Cyclone Phailin in October. Fortunately, preemptive evacuations saved many lives, but reports now indicate that relief and recovery after the storm has been difficult. Japan, too, was hit hard by Typhoon Wipha in mid October, killing many on an offshore island, and flooding some of the water cooling tanks at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.

An increase in both the severity and frequency of tropical storms (hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones, depending on the area of the world) is a predicted result of global climate change. The extent to which these storms will be caused by climate change is disputed in the scientific community, with only a medium confidence expressed by the IPCC in the findings.

 This year's storms in the Pacific underscore Admiral Lockelar's (the US Pacific Commander) statement that climate change is most likely to undermine the security of the region. As the US Navy has done in the past, they will participate in relief efforts in the Philippines from this storm. ASP's Global Security Index on Climate a change indicates that the Philippines is aware that these storms are a security risk, but still lacks the capacity for support.

 Last year, Sandy brought the conversation in the US back around to climate change. However, this year's quiet season seems to have quieted that talk. The truth remains, however, that we cannot afford to continue to take risks with a loaded dice.  Just because this year the Atlantic Coast didn't role craps, that doesn't mean that climate change shouldn't remain at the top of the agenda. The problem is global, and the effects are global.

Could Unlimited Clean Power Have Problems? Not Compared with Today's Energy Problems

I have been having trouble getting my head around this article in the New Scientist: Power paradox: Clean might not be green forever (H/T WSJ TechEurope). Basically, what they're saying is that the waste heat from all the energy we use will cause warming itself. The thesis is that all energy production and use give off some heat as waste. I have no problem with this; its true, but it is so small as a part of the total heat that the earth takes in from the sun and radiates away into space that we don't contemplate it.

The article says that if we forever generate more energy - so long as it is external from the solar energy that the Sun sends us, like nuclear fusion or fission or fossil fuels - then that waste heat will eventually cause global warming on its own, regardless of greenhouse gas emissions. Again – this is true, but so far in the future that its really not worth contemplating. In the science fiction world that this article is creating, it claims we could have access to almost  limitless energy (they posit a world that uses 5000 Terwatts per year; we use 16 TW now).

My problem is that this is so far beyond any reasonable time horizon that it's not worth contemplating or planning for. If humanity is able to generate more than 300 times as much energy as we use now, then we'll also have limitless energy to build the giant mirrors to reflect some sunlight away or some such geoengineering scheme.

To compare - if, say scientists in Edinburgh in the 1750s had determined that all the coal they were burning was going to cause global warming in the first half of the 20th Century - 250 years ahead - would they have planned for that? I don't think so. Let's focus on the problems of today: energy security, economic instability, and environmental sustainability. We'll let our great-great-great-great grandchildren deal with these consequences.

Keystone To Be Rejected

- Cross Posted from ASP's Flashpoint Blog - 

It looks like the the long saga of the Keystone XL pipeline is finally going to come to a close, as the Washington Post reports that "The Obama administration will announce this afternoon it is rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate a massive oil pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border."

I have written previously on this blog, in a very long post, that the Keystone XL Pipeline was simply not necessary for America's energy security. The very real environmental costs, including increased greenhouse gas emissions and substantial environmental degradation in northern Alberta, are not worth the questionable benefits to American security, especially given that much of the imported Canadian oil would simply be re-exported due to changes in America's refining capacity.

On the cynical side, some will see this as a move that will help the President shore-up his support among environmentalists. Certainly, the protests in November that surrounded the White House with activists opposing the pipeline showed that the environmental movement was able to put some political weight behind its opposition.

However, I think there is a case to be made that this is about more than simply naked political calculation. Instead, this should be seen as a decision that is part of a larger strategic move away from oil. This administration has supported alternatives to oil, including next-generation biofuels and electrified cars, as well as pursuing efforts to reduce demand for oil by increasing fuel economy standards for American autos.

Although largely unremarked upon, I think that 2011 will go down as the most significant year for America's energy security since 1991, when the fall of the Soviet Union and the invasion of Iraq combined to secure new sources of oil that would help fuel the substantial global economic growth of those two decades (you can read more about why I think 1991 was so important in my article published in The Atlantic, "Race Around the World, The 20-Year Contest for Oil").

2011 was so important because it saw real course changes on both the supply-side and the demand side of energy. We are seeing new energy production within the Continental U.S. - whether from shale gas, oil from the Bakken field, or the world-leading increase in alternative energy. We are also seeing new policies that will increase energy efficiency and reduce energy demand - like the new rule that will double America's fuel economy by 2025 and the move toward green buildings.

President Obama will have the opportunity to place the canceling of the Keystone XL pipeline within this context at next week's State of the Union address. If he doesn't mention energy - something he skipped last year - it will be a missed opportunity.