Month: June 2020

Politics and Policy

In an opinion essay in The New York Times, Paul Bodnar and Tamara Grbusic of the Rocky Mountain Institute warned that the government’s spending on climate-related disaster recovery is a “rapidly rising fiscal threat”.  Also in the Times, John Schwartz examined the question of whether the Supreme Court ruling on gay and transgender rights will strengthen the argument for using the Clean Air Act to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.  In an interesting article at Vox, David Roberts examined the latest poll of public opinion on climate change and clean energy by the Pew Research Center.  Because of a quiet decision by Facebook, the CO₂ Coalition and other groups that attack consensus climate science can share content that climate scientists have labeled as misleading because Facebook will consider it “opinion” and therefore immune to fact-checking.  A tug of war between preserving living-wage, unionized coal jobs and addressing climate change is playing out across the country at every level of government, pitting environmental and clean energy interests against unions and fossil fuel companies.

The state of Minnesota sued ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and three Koch Industries entities on Wednesday over climate change, claiming they knew about the impacts fossil fuels would have on the environment and misled the public.  On Thursday, D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine sued ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron, asserting that they have engaged in a multimillion-dollar campaign over decades to deceive District consumers about the effects of fossil fuels on climate change.

On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to adopt a new Advanced Clean Trucks regulation that requires everything from small delivery vans to 18-wheelers to transition away from diesel engines to less polluting electric motors powered by batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, beginning with the 2024 model year.  Nevada will be the latest state to adopt California’s low-and zero-emission vehicle rules following similar announcements by Washington in March and Minnesota and New Mexico in September.  President Trump’s Interior Department has approved about half as many wind and solar energy projects on federal lands as the Obama administration had at the same point in its first term, according to a report published on Thursday by the Center for American Progress.  Over the past five years, more U.S. cities have started setting and acting upon renewable energy goals by signing deals that move their own municipal operations away from fossil-fueled electricity and toward renewable energy.

Joe Biden further consolidated the support of mainstream environmentalists by scoring the endorsement of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund on Wednesday.  A report released Tuesday by a think tank founded by Stacey Abrams, the Southern Economic Advancement Project, offers a road map for the South to catch up to the rest of the country in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Also on Tuesday, Environment America unveiled an effort to establish residential solar mandates, similar to the requirement that went into effect this year in California, in 10 states across the country.  A working paper from the University of California, Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas found that, when controlling for year, income, household size, and city of residence, Black renters paid $273 more per year for energy than white renters between 2010 and 2017; Black homeowners paid $408 more.  A national coalition to address the challenges of the working poor released a sweeping legislative platform in a three-hour virtual rally last Saturday, including proposals to address mass incarceration, health care, wealth inequality, and climate change.  A “green bank” is a nonprofit institution that uses public money to help businesses invest in solar panels, wind farms, and energy-efficient building retrofits.  Although several states have developed state-level green banks, there is renewed interest in establishing a national one to help stimulate the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Climate and Climate Science

The thermometer hit 38°C (100.4°F) in the Russian Arctic town of Verkhoyansk on Saturday, a likely record.  Such warming has several impacts, as discussed by Matt Simon at Wired.

Although 90% of the U.S. public is in favor of planting trees to fight climate change, two new studies published this week show how misplaced hopes for tree-planting have been.  Jeff Goodell examined those studies and reviewed the history of the tree planting idea at Rolling Stone.  A study published in Nature Geosciences, explored the consequences of more than 80,000 land purchases by private companies made from 2000 to 2018 across 15 countries in South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, finding that they accelerated tropical deforestation.

With rising temperatures, the world’s food supplies are at risk, with decreasing yields in key staple crops.  Researchers and innovators are looking at more resilient crops and farm animals — from heat-resistant wheat, to drought-resistant rice, to Naked Neck chickens that stay cooler.  Somaliland is drying out faster now than at any time during the past 2,000 years.  As a result, pastoral life has failed, forcing hundreds of thousands of people off the land and into makeshift camps for Internally Displaced People.

According to research published in the journal Global Change Biology, droughts across the mountains and plains of Wyoming can cut the spring growing season from four months to two.  That dries up nutrient-rich green grasses and shrubs, just when they are needed most by migrating mule deer to replenish body fat after the winter and to rear their young.

Research published in Geophysical Research Letters suggests that the use of aerosols to reflect sunlight and cool the planet could weaken storm tracks in the temperate latitudes in both hemispheres, thereby reducing the severity of winter storms but also stagnating weather systems in the summer, which could lead to more intense heat waves, increases in air pollution, and changes in ocean circulation.

Energy

Amazon.com said on Tuesday that it will launch a $2 billion venture capital fund that will focus on technology investments to reduce the impact of climate change and support sustainable development.  David Iaconangelo at E&E News addressed the question of whether this will really help clean energy.  Amazon also said that activities tied to its businesses emitted 51.17 million metric tons of CO₂ last year, the equivalent of 13 coal-fired power plants running for a year.  That’s up 15% from 2018, when 44.4 million metric tons were emitted.

Satellites are becoming increasingly popular for detecting methane leaks from pipelines and other natural gas infrastructure, and they are finding significant leaks all over the world.  British power company Drax is partnering with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to test solvents developed by MHI for their ability to capture CO₂ from the flue gas from power plants burning biomass.

On Wednesday, Ford Motor Co. announced a new goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.  A paper in the journal Joule provided a comprehensive estimate of fuel costs during the 15-year life of an EV compared to a gasoline model car, with specifics for each state.  The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has pledged $100 million in funding for the development of an industry-ready, heavy-duty, hydrogen-powered, fuel-cell truck.  Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a new direct borohydride fuel cell that achieves an operating voltage twice that of hydrogen fuel cells, thereby widening the number of possibilities that could be powered by fuel cells.  A new report released by The Brattle Group this week established that there could be anywhere from 10 to 35 million EVs on the road by 2030, and the U.S. electric power sector would need to invest between $75-125 billion to be able to serve 20 million.

The U.S.’s three separate power grids largely operate independently and exchange very little power, thereby preventing all sorts of efficiencies.  Last week, an effort was launched to address that: the Macro Grid Initiative, which seeks to expand and upgrade the nation’s transmission network.  With fewer and fewer fossil generators left in the UK generation mix, and with more and more renewables, the grid is under strain.  But more than 100 large wind farms are now providing grid services to balance out the variable nature of renewables.

China has nearly 250 GW of coal-fired power plants now under development, more than the entire coal power capacity of the U.S., a new study said on Thursday, casting doubt on China’s commitments to cutting fossil fuel use.  Oil and gas giants, mining interests, and coal-fired power plants have all received financial and regulatory relief as governments around the world enact pandemic recovery plans.  These moves threaten to create a dirty, high-carbon legacy that long outlasts the current crisis.

Potpourri

The authors of a new paper published in WIREs Climate Change explained the actors and factors behind online misinformation and why social networks are such fertile ground for misinformation about climate change to spread.  The coronavirus pandemic and climate change are both collective action problems; unfortunately, some Americans have trouble accepting the actions required to deal with such problems.  At Yale Climate Connections, SueEllen Campbell provided links to a number of articles about the common ground shared by activists for a livable climate, racial justice, climate justice, and environmental justice.  At the same site, Michael Svoboda brought together twelve books for our armchair travel this summer.  At Burning Worlds, Amy Brady interviewed poet Susan Barba about her new book, Geode.  A team from James Madison University earned first-place honors in the “project development” category at this year’s DOE’s Collegiate Wind Competition.

Closing Thought

This week, listen to a 17 minute conversation between Vicki Robin and Bill McKibben.

Politics and Policy

Researchers at the University of Oxford surveyed 80,000 people in 40 countries to learn what they think about climate change.  In cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, the International Energy Agency (IEA) launched its Sustainable Recovery Plan in a “World Energy Outlook Special Report.”  The report lays out a series of measures that the agency says would ensure 2019 was the “definitive peak” for global emissions.  The Guardian quoted Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA as saying “This year is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound.”  If you’re curious about what the rest of the world is doing to promote a “green recovery” from the economic slowdown associated with the coronavirus, you might want to check out Carbon Brief’s new interactive tracker, which will be updated on a regular basis.

A very thought-provoking opinion piece at The Hill outlined a strategy that the U.S. could follow to meet the triple challenges of the slow demise of the post-World War II international order; America’s massive inequality, poor public health, and economic insecurity; and climate change.  House Democrats unveiled a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan Thursday that includes $70 billion for clean energy projects.  In addition, a group of 180 Democratic lawmakers wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) asking for congressional action to help the “decimated” clean energy sector.  Ignoring objections from coastal residents, politicians, and government agencies, the Trump Administration is moving forward with its intent to conduct seismic tests for oil off the Atlantic Coast.  The American Council on Renewable Energy and Americans for a Clean Energy Grid on Wednesday launched a campaign to build support for a stronger U.S. electrical transmission system, including upgrades to interregional lines and the development of a nationwide, high-voltage direct current network.  The Democratic National Committee’s council on climate change irked party leadership when it published policy recommendations this month that ventured beyond presidential candidate Joe Biden’s plan, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Never heard of the Transportation Fairness Alliance?  Then you should read this piece at DeSmog that discusses them.  Mississippi’s House and Senate have passed legislation placing new penalties on protests against fossil fuel infrastructure, making them the 13^th state to do so in the past three years; the governor is expected to sign the legislation into law.  Efforts to undermine climate change science in the federal government, once orchestrated largely by President Trump’s political appointees, are now increasingly driven by midlevel managers.

One impact of all of the things that have been happening lately is an increasing awareness of environmental justice issues.  For example, the National Black Environmental Justice Network is relaunching.  In a Q&A at Inside Climate News, Robert Bullard, often called the father of environmental justice, said he is more hopeful about the future of environmental justice than ever.  Still, from New York to Los Angeles, Minneapolis to the Gulf Coast, people of color are suffering disproportionately from pollution, callous government, and climate change.

Climate and Climate Science

Following a May that tied for the hottest on record, the U.S. is heading into a potentially blistering summer, with hotter than normal temperatures expected across almost the entire country into September, NOAA researchers said on Thursday.  This raises the question of how cities will cope with the dangerous combination of high temperatures, COVID-19, and high unemployment.  Meanwhile, wildfires are raging across parts of the desert Southwest and California, where scant rainfall, sweltering temperatures and wind are combining to create ideal conditions for rapid fire spread.  A prolonged heatwave in Siberia is “undoubtedly alarming”, climate scientists have said.  The freak temperatures have been linked to wildfires, a huge oil spill and a plague of tree-eating moths.

As reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, scientists have discovered that summer sea ice in the Weddell Sea area of Antarctica has decreased by an area twice the size of Spain in the last five years, with implications for the marine ecosystem.  In addition, around the world, glaciers are melting.  Consequently, climatologists and chemists are collecting and storing ice core samples for future analysis.

Americans are growing increasingly concerned about health risks linked to global warming, according to a newly released survey from Ipsos alongside Yale and George Mason researchers.  People living in the world’s tropical forest regions, from Brazil to Indonesia, face heightened risk to their health this year from a potentially deadly combination of forest fires and the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists warned on Wednesday.  According to research published Thursday in JAMA Network Open, pregnant women in the U.S. exposed to high temperatures or air pollution are more likely to have children who are premature, underweight or stillborn, and African-American mothers and babies are harmed at a much higher rate than the population at large.  Columbia Journalism Investigations and the Center for Public Integrity investigated the CDC’s “Climate-Ready States and Cities Initiative” to determine what they have done to help localities prepare for and respond to the impacts of increasing temperatures on citizens’ health.  Jeff Goodell at Rolling Stone reported on their investigation.

In the coming decades, the Arctic Ocean will absorb significantly more CO₂ than has been predicted by climate models, according to new research published in the journal Nature.  The increased rate of ocean acidification, combined with other rapidly changing chemical conditions, could ultimately disrupt the entire Arctic food chain.

According to a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, climate change models have underestimated the amount of CO₂ that will be emitted from thawing permafrost by as much as 14% because they don’t account for photomineralization of the released organic matter.

Energy

BP has released the 69^th edition of its annual “Statistical Review of World Energy”, covering calendar year 2019.  Carbon Brief’s examination of the report revealed that renewables were the largest source of new energy in 2019, although there were still record highs for oil and gas consumption, and for CO₂ emissions.  Gains for wind and solar, combined with a fall in coal output, meant that low-carbon electricity generation matched coal-fired generation for the first time.  On the other hand, the IEA warned that next year the world’s oil demand could climb at its fastest rate in the history of the market, and may reach pre-crisis levels within years, unless new green policies are adopted.  To the surprise of scientists studying them, global CO₂ emissions have rebounded very quickly as countries have opened up their economies after the shutdowns in response to the novel coronavirus.

At BBC “Future Planet”, Lowana Veal examined a number of techniques being used in Iceland to remove CO₂ from their industrial processes, many spurred by the unusual geology of the island.  Without major new subsidies from the American public, technologies for capturing heat-trapping CO₂ from coal- and natural gas-fired power plants will remain uneconomical.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced plans Tuesday to develop a port and staging area to construct wind turbines for installations along the Eastern Seaboard.  The governor’s goal is for New Jersey to be the focal point for the off-shore wind industry in the mid-Atlantic region.  However, according to an interview with Dominion Energy’s vice president of generation construction, Mark Mitchell, Norfolk, VA, hopes to fill that role.  One day, someone will want to build U.S. offshore wind farms with floating turbines, in which case they may well use 3-D printing to build the anchors.

In a special report, Reuters catalogued a litany of horror stories about methane leaking from abandoned oil and gas wells.  On a positive note, Dominion Energy is investing in systems to capture methane and other gases from the digestion of manure on dairy farms, clean it, and use the resulting green methane in natural gas systems.

Green-energy investing will account for 25% of all energy spending in 2021 and, for the first time ever, surpass spending on traditional fuel sources like oil and gas, Goldman Sachs predicted in a Tuesday note.  According to a study from the California Energy Commission, hydrogen prices in the U.S. are headed downward and could be as affordable as gasoline within the next five years.  Decarbonizing hydrogen will take time, thought, and investment, but Europe’s industry says it is committed.

Potpourri

Peter Sinclair has a new “This Is Not Cool” video at Yale Climate Connections, this one about the flooding events that have occurred around the country recently as a result of increased rainfall intensity.  High school students from the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn were among the grand-prize winners in the NPR Student Podcast Challenge for their episode about climate change and environmental racism.  “At War with the Dinosaurs” is a new documentary that explores the future of hydrogen fuel cells.  You’ve probably heard of “Climate Stripes”, created by climate scientist Ed Hawkins using annual temperature anomalies (the difference from long-term average).  Now, Climate Central has made them available for all 50 states and many cities.

Closing Thought

I’m ending this week with Bill McKibben’s column from The New Yorker, which provides a ray of hope as well as a shot in the arm from his interview with Jane Fonda about her weekly series of civil-disobedience actions that she calls Fire Drill Fridays.

Politics and Policy

On Wednesday, two House committees injected environmental justice into the larger national conversation about racism in America. The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change heard that communities of color suffer disproportionate effects from pollution and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Natural Resources Committee hosted a forum on post-pandemic environmentally focused economic growth that touched heavily on racial disparities. Even though clean energy has resulted in many new jobs, there is racial inequity within the industry. At The Washington Post, Dino Grandoni reported on the impacts of recent Trump administration cutbacks of environmental regulations on communities of color. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management is considering a plan that would expand drilling into some of northern New Mexico’s last available public lands, threatening the desecration of sacred Native American sites.

The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has released a new report “Politics & Global Warming” based on their most recent national survey completed in April. Economist Stephanie Kelton, a leading proponent of “modern monetary theory” (MMT), has a new book about it. Brian Kahn, managing editor of Earther, interviewed her about MMT and how it provides a path forward on climate change and other big issues. (MMT is at the heart of the Green New Deal. If you are like me and were unaware of it, I encourage you to read the interview.) Rocky Mountain Institute has developed a new stimulus strategy that comprises four priorities: create jobs and grow the economy; support public health and reduce air pollution; enhance economic, energy, and climate resilience; and decarbonize. A new study from UC, Berkeley, and GridLab concluded that the U.S. could transition to 90% renewable energy by the year 2035. The changeover would cost no more than what the utility industry will spend during the next 15 years anyway and create a half million new high value jobs. In addition, the wholesale cost of electricity would be 13% less than it is today. At Bloomberg Green, Michael Bloomberg argued for leaders who recognize the opportunity to build a better, smarter future and can remake a devastating crisis into a turning point. Also, Dorothy Gambrell and colleagues presented 26 ways to launch a clean energy future out of the pandemic recovery. At Yale Environment 360, Professor David Victor of UC, San Diego, made the case for why Europe must lead the global green recovery. On a related topic, Sonja van Renssen of Foresight: Climate and Energy examined the role of central banks in the energy transition, with particular reference to the European Central Bank.

The Trump administration is taking the first steps toward lifting restrictions on the financing of advanced nuclear energy projects for export by the Development Finance Corporation, thereby helping provide reliable, emission-free power to developing countries, while also helping the U.S. nuclear industry compete with China and Russia. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Friday vetoed a bill that would have stiffened penalties for trespassing on pipelines, levees, and a long list of other facilities in the state.

The difference between President Trump and former Vice-President Biden on the environment is larger than their perceived differences to voters over race relations, the economy, and health care, according to recent polling. A second term for President Trump would mean a more aggressive dismantling of environmental policy and an expansion of the fossil fuel industry, according to energy advisers who work closely with the White House. U.S. taxpayers could be responsible for billions of dollars in climate-related property losses as the government backs a growing number of mortgages on homes in the path of floods, fires, and extreme weather.

Climate and Climate Science

Carbon dioxide emissions have rebounded around the world as lockdown conditions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have eased. Emissions had fallen by a quarter when the lockdowns were at their peak, and are still down relative to 2019 levels, but only by 5% on average globally. Be sure and look at the graphic of emission reductions at the Global Carbon Project. On the subject of CO2 emissions, scientists who sampled dry streambeds at 200 locations around the world were surprised to find significant emissions from them, independent of location, climate zone, or type of waterway.

If you follow the weather, you are probably aware of times when the weather gets “stuck” and we get extended periods of clear blue skies or gray cloudy ones. When that happens, the TV weather may refer to a “blocking” pattern. Carbon Brief examined blocking weather events and asked whether climate change is causing more of them. In a study published in the journal Climatic Change, researchers used the emerging science of climate change attribution to determine that at least $67bn of the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 can be attributed directly to climate breakdown.

Nizhnyaya Pesha, on the Northwest fringes of Russia above the Arctic Circle, recorded a temperature of 30°C (86°F) on Tuesday afternoon, although temperatures there do not usually climb that high until July or August, if at all. It is possible this early warming of the Arctic is due the reduction in sulfate aerosol emissions associated with the reduced energy use caused by COVID-19.

Brazil’s space research agency reported that 3,911 sq. miles of deforestation occurred in the Amazon from August 2018 through July 2019; a rise of 34.4% over the same period a year earlier. Their government has renewed for 30 days a presidential decree allowing the deployment of the military to combat rising deforestation. Based on new data for 2019 released by the University of Maryland and the World Resources Institute, Mongabay updated its analysis of forest loss since 2002. As efforts grow to store more CO2 emissions in forests, one sector has been overlooked — small, family-owned woodlands, which comprise 38% of U.S. forests. Now, a major conservation initiative is aiming to help these owners manage their lands for maximum carbon storage.

Although the Four Corners region began 2020 with a strong snowpack, after an exceptionally dry spring, drought has set in and is predicted to linger into summer, with forecasts of yet more heat waves, wildfire, and water supply shortages. A recent study in Science concluded that global warming is responsible for about half the severity of the emerging megadrought.

Energy

Global investment in new clean energy capacity rose 1% last year to $282.2 billion according to research by the UN Environment Program and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. In terms of capacity, 184 GW of new clean energy was added last year, up 12% from 2018. Unfortunately, most clean energy technologies worldwide are not advancing rapidly enough to meet the goals set by the Paris Climate Agreement, according to a new analysis by the International Energy Agency. Some oil and gas companies claim to be investing in renewables, but this chart by Axios shows what is really happening.

Dan Gearino at Inside Climate News presented a detailed examination of Germany’s failure to address CO2 emissions from the transportation sector. Ford Motor Co. plans to have all-electric versions of the Ford F-150 pickup and Ford Transit van to market by mid-2022. The world’s 14 biggest carmakers are on course to miss globally agreed upon climate targets, a leading sustainable finance think tank said on Wednesday, urging investors to do more to pressure boards to change their production plans. Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), the Chinese company that makes electric-car batteries for Tesla and Volkswagen, is ready to produce a battery that lasts 16 years and 1.24 million miles, and would cost about 10% more than the batteries now inside EVs.

At Green Tech Media, Justin Gerdes had an interesting article outlining the issues associated with transforming buildings to all-electric operation.

The coronavirus pandemic and a very mild winter in the northern hemisphere have put global natural gas demand on course for the biggest annual fall on record, the International Energy Agency said. In the U.S., the Energy Information Administration said Tuesday that electricity consumption will drop by a record 5.7% in 2020 due to business closures for coronavirus-linked lockdowns. Thanks to the pandemic, Britain reached an energy milestone on Wednesday by going two months without any generation of electricity from burning coal.

Researchers at the nonprofit Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy studied nine states to identify which peaker plants have the greatest potential to be replaced by clean energy alternatives, such as battery storage. One finding was that many in the northeastern U.S. are old, inefficient, and burn oil, making them ripe for replacement.

Potpourri

Beth Gardiner interviewed activist Elizabeth Yeampierre, who sees the fights against climate change and racial injustice as deeply intertwined. At The New York Times, Somini Sengupta put together a reading list about climate change and social inequities. Also at the NYT, Jack Davis reviewed the new book, Disposable City, Miami’s Future on the Shores of Climate Change, by Mario Alejandro Ariza. Travel to India with Joanna Slater to determine whether it can chart a low-carbon future. Jenny Valentish reviewed the documentary “The Weather Diaries”, which premiered June 10 at the Sydney film festival, as part of their all-digital on-demand program, which runs until June 21.

Closing Thought

Last week I put Black climate expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s perspective from The Washington Post in the first paragraph of the Roundup. This week, I’m closing with the bits that got left on the cutting room floor, thanks to Emily Atkin at Heated.

Politics and Policy

Many articles this week addressed the intersection of climate and racism.  Here are a few that caught my eye: Black climate expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s perspective in The Washington Post addressed how “Racism derails our efforts to save the planet;” Somini Sengupta’s “Climate Fwd:” newsletter in The New York Times was devoted to a conversation with black climate activists about the connections between racism and climate change; author and activist Keya Chatterjee’s opinion piece at the Thomas Reuters Foundation news site declared “The climate crisis is, at its core, a racial injustice crisis;” a group of journalists at Inside Climate News reported on the way in which a variety of climate groups responded; and Claire Elise Thompson’s compilation of comments from five environmental justice leaders at Grist presented a variety of ideas on the issue.  You might also be interested in an anti-racist reading list.

The U.S. is far behind other industrialized nations on environmental performance and now ranks 24th in the world, according to a new analysis by Yale and Columbia universities.  Hungary has set a climate neutrality goal for 2050, in a law passed by parliament on Wednesday, signaling support for the EU net zero emissions strategy.  There were several articles this week about the weakening of environmental regulations under the Trump administration.  One concerned a report by a group of former EPA employees called “Save EPA”, which wrote “Virtually all the changes that Trump has made have one thing in common: They help polluters and harm the public, now and in the future.”  A second, an article at Yale Climate Connections, asserted that “Most Trump environmental rollbacks will take years to be reversed.”  A third reported that President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday instructing agencies to waive long-standing environmental laws, such as the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, to speed up federal approval for new mines, highways, pipelines, and other projects, given the current economic “emergency.”  Also on Thursday, EPA released a proposed overhaul of how major clean air rules are written by changing the cost-benefit analysis process.  In addition, on Monday the EPA announced that it had limited states’ ability to block the construction of energy infrastructure projects by revising the rules whereby permits are issued under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act.  Finally, The administration proposed fast tracking logging on public lands, introducing two proposals that would limit the environmental review of new projects.

The Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis of the Democratic National Committee is pressing Joe Biden to back a plan to spend up to $16 trillion to speed the country away from fossil fuels.  In a rare collaboration on climate change, four senators (two from each party) on Thursday introduced a bill that would direct the Agriculture Department to help farmers, ranchers, and landowners use CO₂-absorbing practices to generate carbon credits that could be sold on offset markets.  However, there is great uncertainty over the efficacy of regenerative agriculture, as well as how to certify the amount of CO₂ offset.  Meanwhile, House Democrats rolled out a nearly $500 billion infrastructure bill Wednesday aimed at updating America’s aging transportation system.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts vs. EPA held that greenhouse gases were pollutants that could be regulated under the 1970 Clean Air Act.  At Inside Climate News, Sam Evans-Brown, of New Hampshire Public Radio provided a history of the ruling and looked at threats to it from the Trump administration.  On Thursday, the Edison Electric Institute, the primary industry group for U.S. investor-owned utilities, confirmed that it is staying neutral on a controversial petition asking FERC to effectively declare net metering illegal.  On Monday, sustainable finance nonprofit Ceres released a new report entitled “Addressing Climate as a Systemic Risk: A call to action for U.S. financial regulators.”

Climate and Climate Science

According to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), severe rainfall that once happened every hundred years in North America now happens every 20 years, and events that once happened every 20 years now happen every five.  An E&E News analysis of federal flood insurance payments showed that flooding in the U.S. disproportionately harms African American neighborhoods.  Research published in Geophysical Research Letters examined rainfall-based drought using the latest generation of climate models and found that in the future southwestern Australia and parts of southern Australia will see longer and more intense droughts.  The number of people exposed to water stress could double by 2050 if population growth is high and efforts are not made to limit warming to 2°C.  Furthermore, even if warming is held below 2°C and population growth is low, the number of people exposed to water stress could still rise by 50% by 2050.

Although the coronavirus pandemic slowed CO₂ emissions, the reduction was insufficient to stop the amount in the atmosphere from increasing.  Consequently, the amount in May 2020 hit an average of slightly greater than 417 ppm, the highest monthly average value ever recorded.  Furthermore, a recent paper in AGU Advances revealed that the ocean is so sensitive to changes in the atmosphere, such as declining greenhouse gas emissions, that it immediately responds by taking up less CO₂.

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffered its most extensive coral bleaching event in March, with scientists fearing that it is not going to recover to what it was even five years ago, much less thirty years ago.  In addition, warming ocean temperatures and acidification are threatening the survival of glass sponge reefs unique to the waters of the Pacific Northwest.  In the Chesapeake Bay, as seagrasses photosynthesize, they form tiny crystals of calcium carbonate, which they hoard both inside and on the surface of their leaves.  As the external crystals wash off and flow down the bay, they help to neutralize the acidifying water.

Scientists with the Copernicus Climate Change Service announced on Friday that Earth had its hottest May ever last month, as 2020 is set to be among the hottest years ever, with a higher than 98% likelihood it will rank in the top five.  An analysis of weather records by Brian Brettschneider of the Capital Weather Gang at The Washington Post revealed that summers in Canada and the U.S. have increased by an average of seven days over the past 30 years, whereas winters have decreased by 15 days.

The sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth is accelerating, according to an analysis by scientists published in the PNAS.  More than 500 species of land animals were found to be on the brink of extinction and likely to be lost within 20 years.  A study published in the journal Science examined the ability of mangroves to withstand sea level rise and found that without significant reductions in CO₂ emissions, by 2050 mangroves would be unable to keep up with the rate of sea level rise, causing their extinction.

Energy

At E&E News, Benjamin Storrow wrote: “Climate researchers increasingly believe 2019 may represent the world’s peak output of carbon dioxide, with a combination of the coronavirus pandemic and a rapid expansion of renewable energy putting a cap on emissions years earlier than expected.”  A report from financial thinktank Carbon Tracker asserts that the coronavirus outbreak could trigger a $25tn collapse in the fossil fuel industry, thereby posing “a significant threat to global financial stability”.  On the other hand, some analysts think that the current contraction may result in a strengthening of the major oil and gas companies through acquisition of wells and reserves at bargain basement prices.  Massachusetts’ Attorney General asked the state’s public utilities regulator to probe the future of the natural gas industry as the state moves away from burning fossil fuels.  The Sierra Club and Rocky Mountain Institute, along with Mothers Out Front and Physicians for Social Responsibility, have issued a report summarizing 20 years of studies on the impact of gas stoves on indoor air quality and calling for regulators to issue indoor air quality guidelines.

The International Renewable Energy Agency said that if energy companies replaced 500 GW of their most expensive coal-fired power plants with new solar power projects or onshore wind farms, they could save up to $23bn every year and wipe out 5% of global carbon emissions.  According to the International Energy Agency, if floating wind turbine technology were widely adopted, the industry would have the technical potential to eventually supply the equivalent of 11 times the world’s demand for electric power.  For this to be realized, however, both technical and economic problems must be overcome.

In a new study published in the journal Joule on Tuesday, scientists reported that two-sided sun-tracking solar panels produce an average of 35% more energy than immobile single-panel systems and are 16% more cost-efficient.

At The Conversation, Tom Baxter, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Aberdeen, made the case for battery-powered passenger cars being more energy efficient than cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells.  Germany said it will require all filling stations to offer electric car charging to help remove range anxiety and boost consumer demand for EVs.  General Motors is developing an electric van aimed at business users, joining a growing list of carmakers planning EVs for the same segment.  Norsk Hydro and Northvolt have set up a joint venture that will focus on the recycling of both battery materials and aluminum from Norway’s electric vehicle sector.

A metal organic framework (MOF) is a human-made substance that contains a very large surface area per unit volume.  This gives them a large potential for absorbing things from air.  Now, engineers at Monash University in Australia have devised an MOF with the ability to take up large quantities of CO₂ and then release it in concentrated form for storage, all with very low energy requirement.

Potpourri

At The Tyee, Andrew Nikiforuk wrote “Normal has become a pathological state.  After the random normlessness of this pandemic, I don’t want to go back to normal either.  Or its idiotic child, “the new normal.”  A new documentary was released on June 5, World Environment Day.  It is from Australia and is entitled 2040.  According to a post on RealClimate, it is focused on hope and rational thinking.  You can watch the trailer here.

Closing Thought

This week, take 4½ minutes to listen to some early morning birdsong or listen to 13 birds one can hear around NYC.

Politics and Policy

The UN announced on Thursday that COP26, originally scheduled for November of this year, will be postponed until 1-12 November of next year.  The summit will take place in Glasgow as previously planned.  The European Commission announced its green recovery plan on Thursday and Damian Carrington of The Guardian wrote that “It sets a high standard for other nations.”  Reuters provided a list of its spending proposals.  Some were not excited about the plan because it relies heavily on borrowing.  Major European electricity groups issued a joint call urging the European Commission to prioritize renewable hydrogen in its pandemic recovery plan.  New research in the journal Environmental Science and Policy by European modelers and social scientists found that President Trump’s reelection would likely cause a significant delay in meeting global carbon emission reductions.  At the New York Times, Somini Sengupta sought to clarify what all of these changes mean for climate change.

At Vox, David Roberts argued that there is a broad alignment forming within the Democratic Party around a climate policy platform that is both ambitious enough to address the problem and politically potent enough to unite all the left’s various interest groups.  In a subsequent post, Roberts said that if former Vice President Joe Biden embraces a bold climate policy he has a good chance of turning out the voters he needs to win.  Two conservative clean energy advocates have said that Congress “should seize this opportunity to modernize the nation’s power system with investments that will pay dividends for the economy and the environment for generations.”  If Biden wins, he may have difficulty persuading Congress to adopt his climate program.  Timothy Cama examined his options in that case.  Twenty-three states sued the Trump administration on Wednesday over its reversal of fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks.  Furthermore, states have challenged virtually every effort by the EPA and other agencies to walk back Obama-era rules and have won 80% of the cases so far.

In an opinion piece in The New York Times (NYT), former Federal Reserve governor and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Sarah Bloom Raskin argued that the Fed should not be directing money to further entrench the carbon economy.  The U.S. Treasury Department released guidance Wednesday that offers onshore wind and solar projects more time to meet tax credit deadlines, an acknowledgment of the challenges brought by the coronavirus lockdown.  On Wednesday, the oil and gas industry lost appeals in two major climate damages cases brought by cities and counties in California.  The Bureau of Land Management abruptly postponed a scheduled auction of the right to drill for oil and gas on 45,000 acres in New Mexico scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday of last week.  The Rocky Mountain Institute published a translation of an op-ed that appeared in Caijing Magazine, an influential Chinese publication that covers social, political, and economic topics.  The op-ed reviewed China’s leadership in clean energy and urged the government to allocate sufficient COVID-19 recovery resources to support China’s transition to clean energy, just as the EU is planning.

The Ohio Power Siting Board ruled Thursday that the Icebreaker windfarm project in Lake Eire could move forward, but only if blades on the demonstration project’s six turbines are turned off every night for eight months of the year, a stipulation that “may well be fatal to the entire project.”  A federal appeals court on Thursday turned down the Trump administration’s request to revive a permit program for new oil and gas pipelines.

Climate and Climate Science

The human fingerprint on the climate is now unmistakable and will become increasingly evident over the coming decades, the UK Met Office has confirmed after 30 years of study.  Planting a trillion trees as a climate change mitigation strategy has gotten a lot of attention, but climate scientists say it’s not that simple.  Mongabay published an article about how indigenous people in the Amazon are experiencing and responding to climate change.  New research published in the journal Science found that rising temperatures, deforestation, development, and climate-induced disasters are causing bigger trees to be lost at alarming rates, making the planet’s forests shorter and younger.

According to new research in Nature Climate Change, the deep ocean will be warming rapidly by 2050 even if dramatic reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions were to happen today.  On May 19^th a Russian liquefied natural gas tanker became the earliest east-bound shipment on the Northern Sea Route ever for this kind of vessel.  Research using autonomous underwater vehicles with high-resolution mapping capability has revealed that around 12,000 years ago some glaciers in Antarctica were retreating at a rate around ten times higher than even the most rapid retreat seen today.

Contrary to previous research, a new paper in Science Advances has concluded that marshes in the Mississippi River Delta have hit a tipping point and will likely drown this century due to sea level rise.

Research, published in journal The Lancet Planetary Health, revealed that over the past 11 years, the number of deaths attributed to excessive natural heat in Australia is at least 50 times greater than is recorded on death certificates there.

With the Siberian Arctic seeing record warm conditions in recent weeks and months, scientists monitoring wildfire trends are becoming more convinced that some of the blazes erupting in the Arctic this spring are actually left over from last summer, having survived by burning in dry underground peat formations.  A study in Nature Communications suggests that rising CO₂ levels in the atmosphere are causing plants to lose less water throughout the Northern Hemisphere, which in turn causes temperatures there to warm even more than they would from climate change alone.  Atmospheric circulation patterns then transport that heat to the Arctic, warming it faster than it would otherwise.

Energy

Japanese scientists have designed a photocatalyst capable of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen gases with almost 100% efficiency when exposed to ultraviolet light.  Their work suggests that it should be possible to design a photocatalyst capable of doing the same thing with visible light, thereby paving the way for much more efficient systems than electrolysis for producing hydrogen from sunlight.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration announced on Thursday that in 2019 the U.S. consumed more energy from renewable sources like solar and wind than from coal.

A Cessna Caravan, retrofitted with an electric engine, flew for 30 minutes over Washington state on Thursday, in a flawless maiden flight of the largest all-electric commuter aircraft yet.  On the ground, registrations of electric vehicles in Europe doubled during the first months of 2020, while overall passenger car registrations fell by 25.6% compared to the same period last year, according to data by the European Alternative Fuels Observatory.

Power companies have announced plans to close 13 coal-fired power plants this year, according to an E&E News review of federal data and companies’ closure plans.  Two others will be converted to natural gas.  Southern Company, which owns a number of utilities across the South, has joined other major utilities in setting a net-zero carbon target for 2050.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has announced that the 2.64 GW Dominion Energy Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project will utilize its SG 14-222 DD turbine, which has a capacity of 14 MW.  As a result, Siemens Gamesa said that it is considering establishing the first global factory for that turbine somewhere in the U.S.  Atlantic Wind Transfers will provide offshore marine support services for the offshore wind turbines.  The U.S. Coast Guard has concluded that the best way to maintain maritime safety and ease of navigation in the offshore wind development areas south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket is to install turbines in a uniform layout to create predictable navigation corridors.  In Europe, as locations for wind energy fill up onshore and near-shore, companies are deploying floating turbines that can be sited in deep waters, out of view from the coast.  Offshore wind market leader Ørsted will work in and around Copenhagen to decarbonize transport on land, at sea, and in the air by producing hydrogen, from which other fuels can be generated.

Improvements in energy efficiency have slashed carbon emissions from operations at the Empire State Building about 40% in the past 10 years and the owners aim to cut an additional 40% in the decade to come.  Now the owners of the other buildings in the city face the challenge of cutting their energy use.

Potpourri

Are you feeling “Cassandrafreude”?  John Schwartz defined it in the second article of the NYT’s “Climate Fwd:” newsletter.  Heather Grady, Vice President, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, wrote “…2020 can be a super year, not just for nature, but also for people.”  The latest Peter Sinclair video focused on the Florida Keys and whether the communities there can be saved.  Ironically, Sinclair lives in Midland, MI, and wrote about last week’s dam breach there.  On May 5, I included a review of Lydia Millet’s new novel A Children’s Bible.  This week Amy Brady interviewed Millet for “The Chicago Review of Books.”  YouTube has taken down the controversial Michael Moore-produced documentary Planet of the Humans because of a copyright infringement claim by a British environmental photographer.

Closing Thought

Treat yourself to 4½ minutes of stunning photography about “The Beauty of Pollination.”