The Week in Climate Change
Nov. 13 — Nov. 19, 2017
Moment of the week: protesters interrupt Trump administration’s pro-fossil fuel panel at the U.N. climate conference in Bonn.
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We’re in Rhineland, Germany, just about 45 minutes from the U.N. climate summit in Bonn. We’re standing in front of the largest open-pit coal mine in Europe, the largest open-pit mine of any kind in Europe. A banner is being unfurled that. It says, “It’s Up to Us to Keep It in the Ground.” It’s a red banner. People kneeled around it as they unfurled it. And we’re in front of the Hambach mine. This mine has already destroyed 90 percent of the ancient forest in the area. Their point is not to get arrested, but to arrest, to stop, this coal mine from operating. — Democracy Now!, Nov. 17, 2017
#COP23
Civil Society/Activism
Policy/Negotiations
The current alliance includes a few nations like Fiji that do not use coal and does not include any Asian countries where much of the world’s coal is used. Australia, the region’s biggest supplier of coal, has refused to join. But Nick Mabey, chief executive of the E3G thinktank, said: “The launch of this new alliance is a political watershed moment. Governments have now grasped the reality that coal use can end, and fast. The only way for coal is down.”
Environmental groups often criticize the use of trees and other plant matter in energy production, saying it can lead to the diversion of land use from food crops and destruction of natural habitats.
The 19 represent half the world’s population and 37 percent of the global economy.
According to funding proposals for the 54 projects approved so far, as well as a record of objections raised by board observers, other projects that have raised red flags include:
• $25 million in equity and grants administered from Mauritius, a corporate tax haven, for off-grid solar power in Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda;
• $50 million in loans and grants to repair a Soviet-era dam in Tajikistan, even though experts have warned that hydropower there is vulnerable to the retreat of the snow melt that feeds dams;
• $9 million in loans to a renewable energy project in rural Mongolia that observers worried would be used to power coal mining.
Interviews/Other
Science/Effects
“African-Americans are exposed to 38 percent more polluted air than Caucasian Americans, and they are 75 percent more likely to live in fence-line communities than the average American,” the report said, referring to neighborhoods adjacent to industrial facilities.
“In the current regulatory environment, the disproportionate burden of pollution will only increase for low-income communities and communities of color,” the report added.
Politics
“[The lawsuit] had some major racist overtones. They were basically saying that we were not intelligent enough to know for ourselves what the possibilities were in case the pipeline were to leak. They were basically saying we were manipulated,” said Linda Black Elk, a member of the Catawba Nation who lives on the Standing Rock reservation and organized against the pipeline months before the protests began. “I think the whole purpose of it is to scare tribes from further activism when it comes to the fossil fuel industries and to scare these green groups to keep them from supporting us in those future fights.”
The green-labor breakdown is the party’s biggest political obstacle. But its second problem is that Democratic voters still don’t care about climate change very much. Like other Americans, most of the party’s electorate experience it as a “low-intensity” issue. Though a majority of Americans in every state believe in climate change, very few people use climate policy to decide whom to vote for. Even Democrats say that a candidate’s proposed climate policy matters less when making a voting decision than his or her proposed policies about jobs, health care, the economy, education, income inequality, and terrorism.
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The party could do any of these things. But a glance around the infrastructure of the Democratic establishment reveals that little of this planning work is actually getting done. There is no consensus about whether a carbon tax is a good idea. There is no ideal policy embraced by Democrats in lieu of a carbon price. There is, as far as I could find, no think tank putting a bill together or thinking through legislative language. I could barely find professional Democrats planning how a future offensive on the issue would look.
In its recent proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan, a contentious Obama-era rule that sought to curb CO2 emissions from power plants, the EPA buried a significant haircut to the cost of carbon. The new calculations place it anywhere between $1 and $6 — a cut of between 87% and 98%. Mr Pruitt, who has zealously applied himself to undoing the work of the past administration, could use the revised number to justify wiping away reams of environmental regulation that are based on it.
Energy
Opponents of Keystone XL, which is proposed to run about 1,100 miles and would become part of the Keystone system, quickly cited Thursday’s spill as evidence of the risks posed by such pipelines, and urged Nebraska regulators to take note.
“We’ve always said it’s not a question of whether a pipeline will spill, but when, and today TransCanada is making our case for us,” Kelly Martin of the Sierra Club said in a statement. “This is not the first time TransCanada’s pipeline has spilled toxic tar sands, and it won’t be the last.”
“Every year that goes by without an emissions peak,” Mr. Peters said, makes the job of cutting greenhouse gases quickly enough to stabilize global warming this century “that much harder.”
One of the scenario’s most intriguing findings is that adding universal energy access and massive pollution reductions to the menu is relatively cheap. Relative to the NPS, universal energy access would require $793 billion more investment, and pollution reductions $772 billion more investment, cumulatively through 2040. That amounts to about two years of US military spending — peanuts in the grand scheme of things, for a gigantic advance in human welfare.
Safety features include automatic braking, lane tracking, and “nuclear explosion-proof glass” for the windshield.
The truck can gain 400 miles of range with just a 30-minute charge from a “megacharger,” and its operating cost per mile is 20 percent below that of conventional diesel semi trucks.
The news of restoring permanent power at the hospital comes as millions of people in Puerto Rico continue to rely on generators for electricity. As of Wednesday morning, the Electric Power Authority reported that its power service was at 25 percent.
The task of rebuilding Puerto Rico’s power grid is expected to take months and to cost as much as $5 billion.
Activism/Other
At each rally, activists will dedicate and seal time capsules that depict the current state of the fight against climate change. The rallies and time capsule project provide young people with a venue to voice their concerns about climate change and hold national and local leaders accountable for inaction. “The purpose is to provide a space for Americans to grapple with this moment of reckoning,” says Varshini Prakash, a Day of Dedication organizer who attended COP23.
In his message, the Argentine pope denounced that efforts to combat climate change are often frustrated by those who deny the science behind it or are indifferent to it, those who are resigned to it or think it can be solved by technical solutions, which he termed “inadequate.”
“We must avoid falling into these four perverse attitudes, which certainly don’t help honest research and sincere, productive dialogue,” he said.
The city authorities had engaged a state-owned helicopter company to spray water over Delhi in the hope of settling the thick haze of pollutants. But on Monday administrators were told they would be unable to help dissipate the smog until the smog itself had cleared.
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A study on Monday found the air quality in Varanasi, in Modi’s home constituency, had even worse air than Delhi. The Indian prime minister is yet to comment on the crisis.
