Climate Progress

In a parting shot at the competition for its fossil fuels supporters, the uber-lame (duck) Bush administration “has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.”

• Drilling for oil and gas, even in pristine areas — hey, we’re former oil company executives.
• Leveling mountains in beautiful West Virginia — we’re all for it.
• Toxic metals from mining — bring ‘em on!
• Logging old-growth forests — what so you think forests are for?

But solar power on publicly owned desert land? We need to study that for two years. Wouldn’t want to risk a rush to clean energy. As Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, this is “the wrong signal to send to solar power developers, and to Nevadans and Westerners who need and want clean, affordable sun-powered electricity soon.”

The only upside of this lame last-minute attack on renewables is that it can be overturned on January 21.

The McKinsey Global Institute has published another terrific piece of analysis, “The carbon productivity challenge: curbing climate change and sustaining economic growth.”

MGI is best known for its comprehensive cost curve for global greenhouse gas reduction measures (reprinted below), which came to the stunning conclusion that the measures needed to stabilize emissions at 450 ppm have a net cost near zero. The new report has its own stunning conclusion:

In fact, depending on how new low-carbon infrastructure is financed, the transition to a low-carbon economy may increase annual GDP growth in many countries.

The new analysis explains that “at a global, macroeconomic level, the costs of transitioning to a low-carbon economy are not, in an economic ‘welfare’ sense, all that daunting — even with currently known technologies.” Indeed, 70% of the total 2030 emissions reduction potential (below $60 a ton of CO2 equivalent) is “not dependent on new technology.”

The final reality is perhaps the most important:

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[I’m not sure this Independent story is quite that big a deal, but it got Drudge all globally hot and bothered with the banner headline and pic below, so at least the deniers and delayers will all see it.]

SHOCK CLAIM:,

NO ICE AT
,

NORTH POLE
,

THIS SUMMER

,

Related Posts:

• Arctic sea ice update: 2008 poised to repeat — or beat — 2007
• Breaking News — Tundra 4: Permafrost loss linked to Arctic sea ice loss
• Forecast: 3-in-5 chance of record low Arctic sea ice in 2008

White House intervention at the EPA is back in the news.

The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming finally received some long-awaited documents from the EPA. In a letter to President Bush, Committee Chairman Markey indicated what the EPA was recommending before the White House stepped in to weaken the regulations. First Representative Markey sets the stage:

On May 14, 2007, you directed EPA, along with other agencies, to prepare a regulatory response to Massachusetts v. EPA by the end of 2007 and to complete it by the end of 2008. According to reports, EPA staff spent about six months developing this proposal, and transmitted both a positive finding of endangerment to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and a draft regulatory proposal to require the equivalent of 35 miles per gallon (mpg) fuel economy standard from the fleet of cars and light trucks by 2018 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in early December, 2007.

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Climate Progress was (or is supposed to be) featured in:

• Great frontline story Tuesday on the human impact today of climate change in Asia and Africa (video online here) — a prequel to a 2-hour special this fall.
• CBS Evening News piece tonight on CIBC oil report (which is how I came to blog on it).
• CNN report tomorrow morning on a new hydrogen fueling station in California.

Energy and climate are hot — stay right here for the cutting edge news and analysis.

How do you return greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 while promoting jobs, competitiveness, and public health? Conservatives in the U.S. Senate think it can’t be done. California knows it can.

The Air Resources Board has just published their Scoping Plan here. How do they cut 169 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2020? Efficiency, efficiency, renewables, renewables, and even some conservation:

Given that the single biggest source of California’s GHG emissions is transportation, surging oil prices will make it that much easier for them to achieve this target and increase the savings for California consumers and businesses.

Unlike U.S. Senate conservatives, Californians understand that the multiple benefits of action — and the cost of inaction — greatly exceed the costs of action:

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CIBC World Markets has just released a stunning yet detailed economic analysis of near-term oil prices and impacts. The PDF has some excellent figures I will convert to JPEGs.

The two key pieces are “Getting off the Road–Adjusting to $7 per Gallon Gas in America” and “Oil and Growth–That 70s show Re-Run“. Main points:

• “That additional 200,000 barrels per day pledged from Saudi Arabia is a pittance compared to the four million barrels per day this year that depletion will hive off world production. What little increase in production Saudi is capable of will probably all be gobbled up by that country’s own voracious appetite for energy.”
• China’s recent oil subsidy drop? Another yawner: “Most North Americans would gladly line up at the pumps for China’s now $3.25 a gallon gas.”
• “The only supply response to date has been yet another round of cost overruns and lengthy project delays running the gamut from Canadian oil sands to deepwater Gulf of Mexico wells.”
• “With the basic laws of supply and demand no longer operative in crude oil markets,” CIBC is”compelled to once again raise our target prices for oil” to “an average price of $200 per barrel by 2010.” That “should translate into a near-$7 per gallon pump price within two years, a 70% increase from today’s already record levels.”
• “Higher oil prices spell stagflation for the US economy next year” and beyond. The report has a good analysis of why “The US economy has managed to avoid feeling the full brunt of oil prices over the last few years, but 2009 will be the year that its luck runs out.”

The analysis seems very solid and suggests the only thing that can “save” us from near-$7 gas by 2010 is a major global recession, but even that would only be a temporary respite. The implications for Detroit is staggering:

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“Rethinking the Country Life as Energy Costs Rise,” was the NYT story yesterday:

Suddenly, the economics of American suburban life are under assault as skyrocketing energy prices inflate the costs of reaching, heating and cooling homes on the distant edges of metropolitan areas.

Green acres is the place to be
Farm living is the life for me
Land spreading out, so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

Just off Singing Hills Road, in one of hundreds of two-story homes dotting a former cattle ranch beyond the southern fringes of Denver, Phil Boyle and his family openly wonder if they will have to move close to town to get some relief.

New York is where I’d rather stay
I get allergic smelling hay
I just adore a penthouse view
Darling, I love you,
but give me Park Avenue.

But life on the edges of suburbia is beginning to feel untenable.

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On Tuesday, the utility Delmarva announced a 25-year contract with Bluewater Wind Delaware, a subsidiary of the Babcock & Brown, to purchase 200 megawatts of power from a wind farm that would be constructed 11.5 miles in the Atlantic off Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach. First power is expected in 2012. The contract locks in the price Delmarva will pay per kilowatt-hour. Bluewater has previously built offshore energy near Denmark.

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Someone sent me the link (here)