Month: November 2021

We Told You So – 1984 NOAA Film: “The Climate Factor”

Things you come across when looking for other things.
The NOAA produced video above features J. Murray Mitchell, who also appears in my collection of archive footage below.

It’s always good to review the lessons of the past, even if those are terribly sad and harsh.

And, probably owing to the YouTube algorithm, the next thing I see is a clip of, among others, Stephen Schneider from 1981, below..

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Vietnam Kicks Coal – Is This Coal’s Vietnam?

Southeast Asia is one area most at risk from rising seas and intensifying storms.
It’s also been a growth market for coal burners – but that seems to be ending.

Bloomberg:

Vietnam made a surprise commitment at the COP26 climate summit to stop building new coal power plants, as Southeast Asian nations once seen as growth markets for the fuel start to turn their backs on it.

Vietnam was a full signatory to a U.K.-backed pledgeat the conference calling for countries to stop permitting and building new coal power plants, and to fully transition away from the fuel by the 2030s for major economies and by the following decade for developing countries. 

The move, along with Vietnam’s pledge on Monday to reach net zero emissions by 2050, came as a surprise, said Caroline Chua, an analyst with BloombergNEF. Coal power has grown from about 18% of Vietnam’s total to more than 50% in the past decade.

Power Magazine:

At least 23 nations, including five notable coal-dependent countries—Indonesia, Vietnam, Poland, South Korea, and Ukraine—made new commitments during the COP26 conference in Scotland on Nov. 4 to phase out unabated coal power.

In total, 47 countries supported the “Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement” at the international climate talks underway in Glasgow. In the statement, they committed to cease new construction of and issuance of new permits for “new unabated” coal-fired plants and end “new” direct government support for unabated international coal generation. In addition, the countries are committed to “rapidly scaling up deployment” of clean power generation and boosting energy efficiency measures. They will also work to “rapidly scale up technologies and policies” over the next 10 years to support a transition away from coal in the 2030s for major economies and in the 2040s globally. 

Along with Indonesia, Vietnam, Poland, South Korea, and Ukraine, countries that signed the statement include Albania, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Chile, Cote d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Philippines, Portugal, Senegal, Singapore, the Slovak Republic, Sri Lanka, the UK, and Zambia.

The Manchin Factor limited US participation:

New York Times:

More than 40 countries pledged to phase out coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, in a deal announced Thursday at the United Nations climate summit that prompted Alok Sharma, the head of the conference, to proclaim “the end of coal is in sight.”

But several of the biggest coal consumers were notably absent from the accord, including China and India, which together burn roughly two-thirds of the world’s coal, as well as Australia, the world’s 11th-biggest user of coal and a major exporter.

The United States, which still generates about one-fifth of its electricity from coal, also did not sign the pledge.

The new pact includes 23 countries that for the first time have promised to stop building and issuing permits for new coal plants at home and to eventually shift away from using the fuel. Among them are five of the world’s top 20 power-generating countries: Poland, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam and Ukraine.

The decision by the United States to abstain appeared to be driven by American politics.

President Biden’s domestic agenda is split between two pieces of major legislation that have been pending on Capitol Hill and that hinge on the support of Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia. Mr. Manchin’s state is rich in coal and gas, the senator has financial ties to the coal industry and he is sharply opposed to any policy that would harm fossil fuels.

Two administration officials in Glasgow said discussions with the British government over the pledge to end coal stretched into Wednesday night, with the United States arguing in favor of an exception for coal plants that have technology to capture and store carbon dioxide. (Only one such plant has been built in the United States to date, and it ceased operating this year.)

Ultimately, though, U.S. officials decided that signing the pledge could anger Mr. Manchin, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the negotiations. A spokeswoman for Mr. Manchin did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House National Security Council said in a statement late Thursday that the coal pledge “includes specifics on permitting that is under legal and technical review” by the federal government and added that the administration’s considerations for joining “are based solely on that reasoning.”

Man Sets 2050 Target for Net Zero Beer

The Shovel (Sydney):

A Sydney man has set an ambitious target to phase out his alcohol consumption within the next 29 years, as part of an impressive plan to improve his health.  

The program will see Greg Taylor, 73, continue to drink as normal for the foreseeable future, before reducing consumption in 2049 when he turns 101. He has assured friends it will not affect his drinking plans in the short or medium term.

Taylor said it was important not to rush the switch to non-alcoholic beverages. “It’s not realistic to transition to zero alcohol overnight. This requires a steady, phased approach where nothing changes for at least two decades,” he said, adding that he may need to make additional investments in beer consumption in the short term, to make sure no night out is worse off.

Taylor will also be able to bring forward drinking credits earned from the days he hasn’t drunk over the past forty years, meaning the actual end date for consumption may actually be 2060.

To assist with the transition, Taylor has bought a second beer fridge which he describes as the ‘capture and storage’ method.

China Skipped COP Meeting, but Roars Ahead on Decarbonizing

Bloomberg:

China has over the course of the year revealed the extensive scope of its plans for nuclear, an ambition with new resonance given the global energy crisis and the calls for action coming out of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow. The world’s biggest emitter, China’s planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35. The effort could cost as much as $440 billion; as early as the middle of this decade, the country will surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest generator of nuclear power.

The government’s never been shy about its interest in nuclear, along with renewable sources of energy, as part of President Xi Jinping’s goal to make China’s economy carbon-neutral by mid-century. But earlier this year, the government singled out atomic power as the only energy form with specific interim targets in its official five-year plan. Shortly after, the chairman of the state-backed China General Nuclear Power Corp. articulated the longer-term goal: 200 gigawatts by 2035, enough to power more than a dozen cities the size of Beijing.

It would be the kind of wholesale energy transformation that Western democracies — with budget constraints, political will and public opinion to consider — can only dream of. It could also support China’s goal to export its technology to the developing world and beyond, buoyed by an energy crunch that’s highlighted the fragility of other kinds of power sources. Slower winds and low rainfall have led to lower-than-expected supply from Europe’s dams and wind farms, worsening the crisis, and expensive coal and natural gas have led to power curbs at factories in China and India. Yet nuclear power plants have remained stalwart.

“Nuclear is the one energy source that came out of this looking like a champion,” said David Fishman, an energy consultant with The Lantau Group. “It generated the whole time, it was clean, the price didn’t change. If the case for nuclear power wasn’t already strong, it’s a lot stronger now.”

IRENA:

IRENA’s annual Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021 shows that renewable energy’s share of all new generating capacity rose considerably for the second year in a row. More than 80 per cent of all new electricity capacity added last year was renewable, with solar and wind accounting for 91 per cent of new renewables.

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Reasons for Climate Optimism

David Wallace-Wells in New York Magazine:

It’s not too late. In fact, it never will be. Whatever you may have read over the past year — as extreme weather brought a global heat wave and unprecedented wildfires burned through 1.6 million California acres and newspaper headlines declared, “Climate Change Is Here” — global warming is not binary. It is not a matter of “yes” or “no,” not a question of “fucked” or “not.” Instead, it is a problem that gets worse over time the longer we produce greenhouse gas, and can be made better if we choose to stop. Which means that no matter how hot it gets, no matter how fully climate change transforms the planet and the way we live on it, it will always be the case that the next decade could contain more warming, and more suffering, or less warming and less suffering. Just how much is up to us, and always will be.

Jeff Goodell in Rolling Stone:

Here are ten reasons for optimism:

  1. The worst-case scenarios for climate warming have so far been averted. It’s often argued that the nearly 30 years of climate talks since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 have led to nothing. But that’s not true.  A decade ago, we were heading for a world 4°C (or more) warmer by 2100, which would have been catastrophic for life as we know it. But now, with the policies that are already in place, we’re heading for just under 3°C, perhaps a little lower. With the official pledges updated last month — if successfully translated into effective policies — we would limit warming to around 2.5°C. And since then, another 25 countries have updated their pledges. 2.5 C of warming is still horrific, but it’s far less horrific than 4 C.
  2. The price of clean energy is falling fast. A decade ago, the virtue of coal was that it was cheap and plentiful. No more. Utility-scale solar power declined in cost by 90 percent between 2009 and 2021. The cost of onshore wind power declined by 70 percent over the same period. Even in Big Coal states like Ohio, electricity from solar power will overtake coal by the end of the decade.
  3. The Age of Accountability for Big Oil has begun. Last week, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform grilled Big Oil CEOs for knowingly spreading lies about the risks of climate change. Republicans on the committee, led by James Comer of Kentucky, trotted out 30 year-old myths about energy independence and how fossil fuels are the elixir of working families. But Democrats were merciless. Kati Porter of California used M&Ms and bags of rice to make a point about how much land the oil companies have tied up in land leases. New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was typically sharp about the dangers of life in a rapidly warming world: “Some of us have to actually live the future that you all are setting on fire for us.” The CEOs squirmed, fidgeted, and blustered. Maybe it was all theater. Or maybe it was a foreshadowing of climate accountability to come.
  4. President Biden’s climate agenda is big, smart, and serious. It’s been downsized and cut up. It’s been ransacked and shanghaied by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. But Biden’s Build Back Better Act, which includes $500 billion for climate funding, would still be the biggest investment in clean energy and climate adaptation the U.S. has ever made. It includes investments for virtually every aspect of the economy, from clean energy transmission and storage to tax credits for electric vehicles and the production of low-carbon steel.  Can Biden get it through congress?  That remains to be seen, especially after the drubbing Democrats took in this week’s elections.  The good news is that the U.S. is pressing forward on other fronts, including new rules to limit methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas. Thanks in part to a big push from the U.S., more than 100 nations signed a Global Methane Pledge in Glasgow, vowing to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
  5. Scientists are getting their game on. Michael Mann, Katharine Hayhoe, Gavin Schmidt, Andrea Dutton and Andrew Dessler are all top climate scientists who have a knack for calling out bullshit when they see it. And they’re calling it out more and more. Mann has been particularly aggressive. “Look no further than Australia, a country that deserves better than the feckless coalition government that currently reigns,” he wrote in The Los Angeles Times last week. As Mann points out, Australia’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 26% to 28% by 2030 is half what other industrialized nations such as the U.S. and the European Union have committed to. Mann also roasted Saudi Arabia and Russia for making a mockery of the Glasgow negotiations by agreeing to “a laughably delinquent” date of 2060 for reaching net zero emissions.
  6. The fossil fuel divestment movement is snowballing. As activist and writer Bill McKibben noted in The New York Times last week, $40 trillion in endowments and portfolios has vowed to abstain from investing in coal and gas and oil. “That’s bigger than the GDP of China and the U.S. combined,” McKibben wrote.  There is still a lot of money sloshing around out there for fossil fuel development, but slowing the flow from the spigot sends a powerful signal. Here’s one sign of how well divestment campaigns are working: the West Virginia Coal Association called divestment “the dumbest movement in history.”
  7. Increased focus on the link between the climate crisis and public health. A rapidly warming world, researchers wrote in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, is exposing humans to searing heat and extreme weather events; increasing the transmission of infectious diseases; exacerbating food, water and financial insecurity; endangering sustainable development; and worsening global inequality. “Health is the vector for climate action,” Johan Rockstrom, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in Glasgow. “It is what people care about, and what motivates them to take action.”
  8. The war on coal is getting serious. China has vowed to stop funding new coal plants abroad. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg just launched a new crusade to shut down coal plants in 25 countries. Bloomberg has already waged war against coal in the US, helping to shut down 280 plants. Coal’s demise can’t happen fast enough, but it is happening.
  9. Climate justice takes center stage. What do the rich polluters owe the poor who are suffering the worst climate impacts?  This has always been an issue at previous climate talks. In Glasgow, it’s the issue. And climate justice leaders, who see their very existence at stake in these negotiations, are in no mood to play footsie with the leaders of rich nations. As Fiji’s Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama put it: “We Pacific nations have not travelled to the other end of the world to watch our future to be sacrificed at the altar of appeasement of the world’s worst emitters.”
  10. Writers and artists are finding their voices. “Nothing will be saved without you.”  That’s the first line of a poem by Yrsa Daley-Ward, a writer of mixed Nigeria-Jamaican heritage, which she read in the opening ceremony in Glasgow. If there’s a better one-sentence call to action for the climate movement, I haven’t heard it.

GOP Senators Propose Climate Plan “Lite”

I’m working on a video examining how Republicans are trying to find their footing on climate. The issue is continuing to grow in importance, and their credibility is low.

Washington Times:

A group of Republican senators is introducing a clean energy and climate strategy today that challenges the Biden administration and Democrats’ agenda of massively expanding clean energy while reducing fossil fuel production and use.

Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming — all representing major oil and gas producing states — are releasing the “American Energy, Jobs, and Climate” plan, which aims to cut global emissions up to 40% from today’s levels by 2050, according to a fact sheet obtained exclusively by Josh.

The plan is notable in that Republicans are setting an emissions reduction target (which they haven’t done before).

George David Banks, former international energy adviser in the Trump administration, told Josh that energy-related carbon emissions being 40% less in 2050 would represent a significant change from today.

It’s less aggressive than net-zero pledges most world leaders are now calling for in order to prevent the worst consequences of climate change, but those targets are being set domestically, not globally. He said reducing global emissions by 40% would necessarily require substantial cuts from the U.S.

“People will just dismiss it because it’s not net-zero, but in reality it’s substantial,” Banks said. “If you have a global goal and are designing policy around that, you are acknowledging U.S. responsibility for global emissions. We haven’t done this before.”

But by focusing on global emissions and not setting aside a U.S. goal, Republicans are swiping at President Joe Biden and Democrats for aiming to cut domestic emissions in half by 2030.

Proponents say that an aggressive domestic target inspires the rest of the world to do more. Republicans say U.S. targets mean nothing without international emission reductions, especially from China (the U.S. and China combine for about 40% of global emissions).

Ok, so what’s in it? The plan calls for familiar ideas favored by Republicans, such as developing and deploying clean energy technologies, including carbon capture, advanced nuclear reactors, and battery storage, and exporting those innovations abroad.

It also aims to “revitalize” manufacturing of renewable energy technologies in the U.S, such as solar panels and wind turbines, to lessen dependence on China — a goal shared by Democrats.

And it seeks to reform permitting of energy, infrastructure, and mining projects to ensure they can be built faster.

The plan would “export America’s innovations — not our jobs — and in turn, reduce global emissions,” said Heather Reams, president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a conservative clean energy group.

Fossil fuels remain dividing line: Republican senators diverge from Democrats most glaringly in promoting an expansion of natural gas production at home, while exporting more LNG abroad, which they say would displace dirtier coal in developing countries with growing energy demand. The Republicans don’t acknowledge any need to reduce fossil fuel use or development. They make clear they continue to oppose “mandates, regulations, and taxes.” That would seem to include regulation of methane emissions.

Addressing methane leaks is not mentioned, despite it being a major problem facing the oil and gas industry that raises doubts about Republican claims that natural gas is a “clean” solution for decades to come.

Bezo’s Orbital View Inspires More Billions for Earth, Climate

Yahoo:

On Tuesday, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledged to donate $2 billion of his personal fortune to “restoring nature and transforming food systems” affected by climate change.

“Each year, forests and landscapes absorb 11 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. As we destroy nature, we reverse this process,” the billionaire said in remarks at the U.N. Climate Change Conference. “In too many parts of the world, nature is already flipping from a carbon sink to a carbon source. This is a profound danger to us all.”

That money will be part of Bezos’s $10 billion commitment to fighting climate change this decade, and was, in part, inspired by his trip in July beyond the Earth’s atmosphere in a rocket developed by Blue Origin, his aerospace business venture. 

“Nature is beautiful, but it is also fragile,” he said. “I was reminded of this in July when I went into space with Blue Origin. I was told seeing the Earth from space changes the lens through which you view the world, but I was not prepared for just how much that would be true.”

As John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate, made clear earlier in the day, the coming fight against climate change will be very expensive and will require a massive infusion of cash from the likes of Bezos and companies in the private sector. 

“A hundred billion dollars doesn’t do it, folks,” Kerry told a small gaggle of reporters at the conference that included Yahoo News. “It’s trillions of dollars that are needed. And the only way that we will get this done is if trillions of dollars are forthcoming. And they are. [On Wednesday] there will be an announcement. I’m not going to jump the announcement, but there will be tens of trillions of dollars announced that are available to be invested in this transition.”

Kerry noted that banking industry firms in the U.S. have already agreed to chip in.

“Let me give you an example,” he said. “My office worked with the six largest banks in America — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, State Street, Bank of America and JPMorgan — they publicly stood up a number of months ago, it wasn’t much noticed, and they announced that they will, over the next 10 years … they will invest $4.16 trillion.”

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