Climate News and Resources

An ambitious buyout deal for TXU, a Texas utility, is already being hailed as a pivotal moment in the fight against global warming.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, February 26, 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington today announced the formation of the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative to implement a joint strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Download the PDF announcement here. [PDF/356K]

By Juliet Eilperin
The board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation's leading general science organization, yesterday issued a consensus statement declaring global climate change "a growing threat to society."

EU environment ministers agree in principle to cut emissions by 20% by 2020, and seek a global 30% cut.

By Doug Struck
PINE FALLS, Manitoba -- Here on the edge of the silent and frozen northern tier of the Earth, the fate of the world's climate is buried beneath the snow and locked in the still limbs of aspen trees.

Right now, everyone is using the atmosphere like a municipal dump, depositing carbon dioxide free.

The Gulf Coast oil drilling expansion President Bush signed into law last year contained a strong environmental sweetener that helped push it through Congress.

Al Gore, the Oscar hopeful known to his most fervent fans as "The Goracle", has gone from failed presidential contender to the most unlikely of global celebrities in the wake of the release of his film, "An Inconvenient Truth."[!]

By PAUL KRUGMAN
The fact that California has been able to achieve so much is a good omen for our ability to limit climate change.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Minnesota put its faith in a future fueled by renewable energy Thursday as the governor signed a law requiring utilities to generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and sun by 2025. Considering where Minnesota stands now -- about half the power produced in the state is from coal, and only 5 percent from renewable sources -- the move is the most aggressive in the country, analysts say.

On January 11, 2007, the Arkansas Public Service Commission (PSC) finalized
new Energy Efficiency Rules to spur a statewide focus on conservation and
energy efficiency. The PSC order requires all jurisdictional electric and
gas utilities to begin implementing cost-effective energy efficiency
programs across all customer types by October 2007. The PSC opened this
docket to further Arkansas' Energy Conservation Endorsement Act of 1977,
and came to its decision after a year of inquiry, including a statewide
workshop and stakeholder collaborative process. Prior to these efforts,
Arkansas ranked 45th in energy efficiency spending per capita among the
states.

The Energy Efficiency Rules follow Resource Planning Guidelines that were
issued by the PSC during the first week in January and together represent
the first comprehensive regulatory framework for the way that electric
utilities must plan their future delivery systems and services. The
utilities must look at generation, transmission, and energy efficiency and
demand response options in a comprehensive and holistic manner. Arkansas
PSC Chairman Sandra Hochstetter noted that in many cases demand response,
conservation, and energy efficiency programs can supplant or defer new
electric generation investment. The net effect of the rules, she said,
should be to provide the most stable and cost-effective electricity
delivery system for the future of the state. The EPA-State Energy
Efficiency Renewable Energy Projects provided technical assistance to the
PSC under the energy efficiency docket.

For more information about the Arkansas Energy Efficiency Rules, visit:
http://www.state.ar.us/psc/News1-11.pdf and
http://www.apscservices.info/PDF/06/06-004-r_83_1.pdf

For more information about The EPA-State Energy Efficiency Renewable Energy
Projects visit: http://www.epa.gov/powerprofiler/pdf/eere_factsheet.pdf

*******
State and local officials interested in additional information about
developing and implementing cost-effective clean energy and environmental
strategies that help further environmental and clean energy goals and
achieve public health and economic benefits may visit:
http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/stateandlocal.

By MATTHEW L. WALD
Power companies are planning to build about 150 coal plants in the next few years. Almost none of them will be built to capture carbon dioxide.

The head of the U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday said she could take a piecemeal approach to tackling U.S.

Leading international politicians have reached a new agreement on tackling climate change, at a Washington summit.

Delegates agreed that developing countries would also have to meet targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as well as rich countries.
The informal meeting also agreed that a global market should be formed to cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions.
The non-binding declaration is seen as vital in influencing a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, correspondents say.
The forum's closing statement said man-made climate change was now "beyond doubt".
"Climate change is a global issue and there is an obligation on us all to take action, in line with our capabilities and historic responsibilities," said the statement from the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (Globe).

'Tipping point'

The two-day meeting brought together legislators from countries including the Group of Eight rich nations, plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin was at the meeting and says that although the declaration carries no formal weight, it indicates a real change in mood.
The legislators agreed that developing countries had to face targets on greenhouse gas emissions, in the same way rich countries do.
They said they wanted a successor to the Kyoto Protocol - which expires in 2012 - in place by 2009.
US senator Joe Lieberman forecast that the US Congress would enact a law on cutting emissions by the end of next year, possibly this year.
And presidential candidate John McCain, who is co-sponsoring climate legislation with Mr Lieberman, was emphatic on the need for new initiatives.
"I am convinced that we have reached the tipping point and that the Congress of the United States will act, with the agreement of the administration," he told the forum.
But Dr John Holdren, the head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), said President George W Bush needed to appreciate that the US economy would not suffer unnecessarily if emission were capped.
"The economic damage from not addressing climate change is much larger than the economic cost of addressing it," he said.

Meanwhile, the Canadian parliament moved to force the government to meet its Kyoto Protocol target for reducing emissions.
The ruling Conservative party argues that meeting the target, of reducing emissions by 6% from 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012, is impossible.
The parliamentary vote gives the government 60 days to formulate a plan for getting back on track.
With United Nations climate negotiations in December failing to agree a timetable for mandating new cuts in emissions when the current Kyoto targets expire in 2012, the British-led Globe set up the Washington meeting in the hope of stimulating progress in a less formal setting.
The UN's panel on climate change said earlier this month that higher global temperatures caused by man-made pollution would melt polar ice, worsen floods and droughts and cause more devastating storms.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/6364663.stm

Was life better when a sheet of ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there?

Al Gore announced on Thursday a series of worldwide concerts to focus on the threat of climate change, with a powerhouse lineup from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Snoop Dogg to Bon Jovi.

The 24-hour event on July 7 is part of a campaign, Save Our Selves - The Campaign for a Climate in Crisis, that promoters hope will trigger a broad movement to address what the former vice president calls a global climate crisis.

"In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to reach billions of people," the environmental activist, filmmaker and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee said in a statement. "The climate crisis will only be stopped by an unprecedented and sustained global movement."

Gore is often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008 despite his repeated statements that he's not running. Recently, some former aides met in Boston to discuss a campaign to draft the former vice president.

The concerts on seven continents will bring newfound publicity to Gore, who already is enjoying celebrity status with his Oscar-nominated documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore said he was thrilled that the film, on the perils of global warming, was nominated for best documentary and for best song, the latter nod coming for Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up."

More than 100 performers are scheduled to appear at the July concerts, including Etheridge, the Foo Fighters, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Duran Duran, Korn, Pharrell, the Black Eyed Peas, Akon, Enrique Iglesias, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.

Promoters said the Live Earth concerts will take place in Shanghai, China; Johannesburg, South Africa; Sydney, Australia; London and cities to be announced in Japan, Brazil and the United States.

Promoters said the concerts - dubbed Live Earth - could reach 2 billion people through attendance or broadcasts. Proceeds will create a foundation to combat climate change led by The Alliance for Climate Protection, which is chaired by Gore.

The Save our Selves campaign was founded by Kevin Wall, who won an Emmy as Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8.

© 2007 Associated Press.

By JOHN TIERNEY
Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could turn out to be more practical than the alternative: persuading six billion people to stop putting it there.
More >>

Boulder, Colorado. As scientists sound daily alarms about the dire consequences of global warming, Americans are asking one question: What can we do about it?

The American Solar Energy Society (ASES) has an answer: Deploy clean energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies now!

On Wednesday morning, January 31, 2007 at a press conference in Washington, D.C., ASES unveiled a 200-page report, Tackling Climate Change in the U.S.: Potential Carbon Emissions Reductions from Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy by 2030. The result of more than a year of study, the report illustrates how energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies can provide the emissions reductions required to address global warming.

The press event included remarks from report editor Chuck Kutscher, ASES Executive Director Brad Collins, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) climate scientist James Hansen, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, Senator Jeff Bingaman, and Congressmen Henry Waxman and Christopher Shays. According to Hansen, “We must begin fundamental changes in our energy use now in order to avoid human-made climate disasters.”

To develop the report, ASES recruited a volunteer team of top energy experts. These experts produced a series of nine papers that examined how energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies can reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions—the main cause of global warming.

ASES collected the nine papers together and added an overview of the studies to create the report. It covers energy efficiency in buildings, transportation, and industry, as well as six renewable energy technologies: concentrating solar power, photovoltaics, wind power, biomass, biofuels, and geothermal power. The results indicate that these technologies can displace approximately 1.2 billion tons of carbon emissions annually by the year 2030—the magnitude of reduction that scientists believe is necessary to prevent the most dangerous consequences of climate change.

The report illustrates how energy efficiency measures could keep U.S. carbon emissions roughly constant over the next 23 years as the economy grows, and how renewable energy technologies could make deep cuts below today’s emissions. Wind energy provides about 35% of the renewable energy contribution, while the rest is divided about evenly among the other technologies. “Energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies can begin to be deployed on a large scale today to help save us from the worst consequences of global warming,” said Kutscher. “With continued R&D to lower costs and a reasonable level of policy support, they have the potential to meet most, if not all, of the carbon reductions that will be required in the future.”

The report is available as a free download at www.ases.org/climatechange. High-quality graphics showing the various emissions reductions and deployment locations are also available at that site.

For more information, contact Brad Collins, 303/443-3130 x102,
E-mail: bcollins at ases dot org.

By Anthony Faiola
KAMIITA, Japan -- When the Japanese government issued a national battle cry against soaring global energy prices this winter, no one heeded the call to arms more than this farming town in the misty mountains of western Japan.

You could be excused for thinking that we'll soon do something serious about global warming. Last Friday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- an international group of scientists -- concluded that, to a 90 percent probability, human activity is warming the Earth. Earlier, Democratic congressional leaders made global warming legislation a top priority; and 10 big U.S. companies (including General Electric and DuPont) endorsed federal regulation. Strong action seems at hand.

But Southern Baptist Convention forbids environmental activism.

By Matt Curry
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, February 08, 2007

DALLAS - Texas Baptist leaders are working to block Republican Gov. Rick
Perry's plan to speed the approval process for 18 new coal-fired power
plants - an unusual move because the largest national Baptist
organization officially opposes environmental activism.

Are we running out of oil? No. Are we running out of affordable oil? Probably. We are certainly running out of the cheap oil that has powered the world economy since the 1950s. Those of us who are willing to face reality have begun to search in earnest for alternative energy solutions.

When I met Grantham last autumn he, quite rightly, refused to confirm that the vice president was a client. But you can see the evidence in Cheney's own personal financial disclosure.

By WILLIAM K. STEVENS
It has been pointed out many times that we are engaged in a titanic global experiment. The further it proceeds, the clearer the picture should become.

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and ANDREW C. REVKIN
The report said warming and its harmful consequences could be substantially blunted by prompt action.

By CORNELIA DEAN
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will moderate its gloom on sea level rise, lowering its worst-case estimate.

By BRYAN WALSH
The debate on global warming is over.

A GAO report from last December that contains important background information on Federal support for advanced energy technologies, including energy efficiency and renewable energy. Among other things, it shows that DOE's budget authority for energy R&D dropped by more than 85% from 1978-2005.

Meantime, as we know, our dependence on foreign oil has grown to record levels, and it continues to grow.

Download the report. [PDF / 1.5MB]

Potential U.S. Carbon Emissions Reductions from Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency by 2030

Energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies are among the most desirable of our options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions – but how much of a contribution can they make? According to this new study sponsored by the American Solar Energy Society, they can contribute a lot more than commonly believed.