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If you want a stirring stemwinder on climate action, here it is.

The speaker is my good friend Drew Jones, coauthor of this guest blog post (”Only the most ambitious emissions reductions under discussion within UNFCCC can achieve climate goals“).

As you’ll see, Drew took to heart my earlier “Advice to a young climate blogger [and public speaker]: Always use WWII metaphors.

*Technically, this can’t be the world premiere since the video is online.  But Drew has withheld posting it anywhere else so this is the official non-YouTube world premiere.

I’m not quite as optimistic as Drew is in this talk, but more good news keeps coming from key countries like China, India, and Japan.  I am going to launch a multipart series on this important topic this week.

For more of Drew’s work, click here.

China’s emissions pledge shakes up Capitol Hill debate

… “That’s encouraging,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “That will help us make decisions on our emission problems.”

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) said … “that’s a step in the right direction.”

That’s the E&E News PM (subs. req’d) headline and a couple of excerpts from their story on Chinese President Hu Jintao’s UN speech.

We already knew that all evidence suggests China will lead (see “Peaking Duck: Beijing’s Growing Appetite for Climate Action“) — if the Congress passes a climate bill (see “ ‘China will sign’ global treaty if U.S. passes climate bill, E.U. leader says“).

Yesterday, Hu said (speech here):

We will endeavor to cut carbon dioxide emissions [per] GDP by a notable margin by 2020 from the 2005 level.Second, we will vigorously develop renewable energy and nuclear energy. We will endeavor to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 15 percent by 2020.

Third, we will energetically increase forest carbon … we will endeavor to increase forest coverage by 40 million hectares and forest stock volume by 1.3 billion cubic meters by 2020 from the 2005 levels.

Fourth, we will step up our efforts to develop green economy, low carbon economy … and enhance research, development and dissemination of climate-friendly technologies.

Certainly, China is going to eat our lunch on clean energy jobs if we don’t pass the clean air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill (see “Invented here, sold there”).  And certainly we need to hear the specific details about the carbon intensity pledge — I’d like to see them commit to reduce CO2 per GDP by more than 50% from 2005 to 2020.

But is the growing willingness of China to make real commitments going to change the dynamics in the Senate, where China’s suppose an unwillingness to act has been one of the two or three biggest objections?  Here are more some excerpts from the E&E story:

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PRESS AVAILABILITY:  I’ll be in Pittsburgh Thursday night and all Friday as press — but if there are any press who want to interview me, just shoot me an email.

G20 PREVIEW:  I don’t normally go to these sort of meetings — CAP’s Andrew Light is the international climate expert (and he’ll be there, too, and available for interviews).   He moderated a discussion with members of the U.N. and CAP previewing what will be discussed at next week’s G20 Summit.  He explains what to expect in this Clean Skies News interview:

And here’s another video if you want the perspective of Sabina Dewan, CAP’s Associate Director of International Economic Policy, on the broader questions:  What is the G-20 and why is it significant? What are leaders expected to focus on at the upcoming Pittsburgh G-20 meeting? What principles should guide discussions of the global economic recovery?

The webcast will be here:  http://www.un.org/webcast/.

Obama should be speaking round 9:30 am EDT depending on length of ceremonial opening.  Many of the other speeches –IPCC head Pachauri, China President Hu Jintao Nobelist Wangari Muta Maathai — are also must-see.

I wanted to get this out today so would show up in people’s inboxes tomorrow morning.  For some background see, “Obama to speak at U.N. special session on global warming.”

Here is the full program:

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Japan’s target for a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 could include purchases of carbon credits from abroad, the country’s new environment minister said on Thursday.

“I’d like to reiterate our party’s stance that we could use measures including the Kyoto mechanism,” Sakihito Ozawa, told a news conference, referring to a scheme to supplement domestic efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

This Reuters story is not terribly surprising.  The country’s new target was going to require a lot of effort (see “Japan’s new prime minister promises to slash CO2 25% below 1990 levels by 2020 — with domestic emissions trading, clean energy subsidies“).  That’s especially true given that Japan is some 10% above 1990 levels as of last year.  No doubt that’s one reason Japan had already made the climate pledge conditional on China, India.

Still, it’s not like Americans can criticize the Japanese, given our too weak target (see “EIA stunner: By year’s end, we’ll be 8.5% below 2005 levels of CO2 — halfway to climate bill’s 2020 target“).  Here’s more:

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The United States created the solar cell industry and literally launched it into space 50 years ago.   And, yes, solar PV is going to be one of the largest job-creating industries of the century, projected to grow “from a $20 billion industry in 2007 to $74 billion by 2017.”

But while conservatives  work hard to kill the clean  air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill that is America’s  only real hope of remaining globally competitive, the rest of the world eats our lunch, a lunch we  were kind enough to cook for them using on our own no-longer-secret recipe.  As Tom Friedman explains:

Applied Materials is one of the most important U.S. companies you’ve probably never heard of. It makes the machines that make the microchips that go inside your computer. The chip business, though, is volatile, so in 2004 Mike Splinter, Applied Materials’s C.E.O., decided to add a new business line to take advantage of the company’s nanotechnology capabilities — making the machines that make solar panels. The other day, Splinter gave me a tour of the company’s Silicon Valley facility, culminating with a visit to its “war room,” where Applied maintains a real-time global interaction with all 14 solar panel factories it’s built around the world in the last two years. I could only laugh because crying would have been too embarrassing.

Not a single one is in America.

Let’s see: five are in Germany, four are in China, one is in Spain, one is in India, one is in Italy, one is in Taiwan and one is even in Abu Dhabi. I suggested a new company motto for Applied Materials’s solar business: “Invented here, sold there.”

As the National Renewable Energy Laboratory documents, “From 1980 to 1985, the U.S. industry dominated the world market contributing 50% or more of world production.”  But then President Reagan gutted Jimmy Carter’s renewable energy program (see “Who got us in this energy mess? Start with Ronald Reagan“).  President Clinton began to increase federal efforts and incentives, so our  market share began to increase.  Then the Gingrich Congress started to roll back Clinton programs, especially those aimed at clean energy deployment or those aimed at increasing the competitiveness of US solar manufacturers.  Finally, the Cheney-Bush administration came in and started a major effort to gut all clean energy deployment programs, just as our competitors were seriously ramping up their efforts.

And so our market share in solar has plummeted in the past decade, as the NREL figure below makes all too painfully clear:

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While Nicholas Stern, the world’s top climate economist, recently endorsed 350 ppm as “a very sensible long-term target,” he laid out two blunt messages about our current do-nothing strategy in a talk to students in Beijing’s People’s University:

Stern warned that if the world continued to emit around the same levels of greenhouse gases every year, there was a 50 percent chance temperatures would rise more than five degrees Celsius (nine degrees Fahrenheit) within 100 years.

Stern knows the scientific literature (see “M.I.T. doubles its projection of global warming by 2100 to 5.1°C” and Hadley Center warns of “catastrophic” 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path“).

A rise of “five degrees Celsius has not been seen on this planet for 30 million years — we as humans have been here for only 200,000 years,” he said.

“This type of temperature change involves radical dislocation, it involves re-writing where people can live, it would involve the movement of hundreds of millions, probably billions, of people.”

“This would result in extended, serious global conflict.”

It would result in Hell and High Water.

The second message was aimed at China, and equally blunt.  As Treehugger put it:

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Japan’s new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has promised to make ambitious cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, months before world leaders meet for crucial climate change talks.

Hatoyama, who will take office next week, said Japan would seek to reduce CO2 emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, but said the target would be contingent on a deal involving all major emitters in Copenhagen in December.

“We can’t stop climate change just by setting our own emissions target,” he said at a forum in Tokyo. “Our nation will call on major countries around the world to set aggressive goals.”

The announcement today by Japan’s prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama (pictured above) is not a big surprise (see “Japanese opposition easily wins elections — running on a much stronger climate target“).  But it is nice to see politicians keep their promise — or try to.  The business lobby opposes the target.

Today’s Guardian story notes:

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This guest post is by Julian L. Wong and Austin Davis at the Center for American Progress.

Multiple news outlets have been reporting that yesterday’s news conference with China’s top climate change ambassador, Yu Qingtai, marked a significant departure from China’s established attitudes toward climate change. He also expressed a degree flexibility regarding China’s previous demands that developed nations pledge to reduce their carbon emissions 40% by 2020 from 1990 levels at Copenhagen this December.

It’s true: Wednesday’s conference provided a more explicit explanation of China’s position on climate change than had been offered previously. Yu reaffirmed China’s commitment to eventually reducing its carbon emissions while giving more specific details as to China’s position on the Copenhagen talks.

Great quotes like “there is no one in the world who is more keen than us to see China reach its emissions peak as early as possible” may have caused a stir among the western media, but this is not really news.

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This guest post is by Julian L. Wong and Dan Sanchez at the Center for American Progress.

South Korea may not be outdoing the United States’ clean energy commitments yet, but it has just announced intentions to adopt a 2020 emissions cap, the first developing (non-Annex I) country to do so. Reuters explains:

The government said it would choose a target this year from three options: an 8 percent increase from 2005 levels by 2020, unchanged from 2005, or 4 percent below 2005. Its emissions doubled from 1990 to 2005, the fastest growth in the OECD….  Officials said they marked a big commitment to head off an estimated 30 percent rise in emissions that would result if no action were taken.

One might argue if South Korea is really a developing country—it is considered one under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was adopted in 1992, but was in 1996 subsequently admitted to the OECD, which is usually thought of as a club of the rich countries.

One might also question the choice of a 2005 baseline rather than 1990, which all the targets in the Kyoto Protocol are keyed to.  The reasoning behind the choice of a 2005 baseline is obvious from the quote above, which explains that South Korea’s emissions have risen steeply in the years since 1990.  The result is that none of the three choices will result in reductions from a 1990 level.

Nevertheless, the symbolic significance of the announcement cannot be overstated–South Korea is the first non-Annex I country to indicate that it will adopt quantifiable emissions targets for 2020.  While the article notes that South Korea’s commitment could be “voluntary,” the 2020 timeframe suggests that the country may be open to a binding emissions cap in the December round of international climate talks in Copenhagen, where a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, will be negotiated and likely to cover the period of 2013 through 2020.

Why is South Korea doing this?

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Its detractors should note: the L’Aquila conference did move vital climate change legislation forward.

If you believe recent media reports, the two international climate change meetings held last week in L’Aquila, Italy, at best failed to do anything and at worst signal that no serious progress will be made on a global climate agreement this year.

If true, this is bad news. According to the byzantine rules of the Kyoto Protocol, set to expire in 2012, a successor to that treaty must be decided this December at the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen.

The good news is that many of the assessments of these meetings are incomplete, if not inaccurate.  A New York Times editorial on Friday, for instance, based its argument in language from a draft of a declaration — not from the document itself. The Times described the recognition by the world’s major carbon emitters that temperatures should not increase more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as an “aspirational” goal. They concluded that “with global climate talks in Copenhagen only five months away, aspirational goals won’t carry things very far.” But this weakened, “aspirational” language was struck in the final version of the document, rendering this claim obsolete.

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Shangri-La is in trouble.

According to an article by Stephen Faris in Foreign Policy and the IPCC, the Himalayan glacier in the Kashmir province that provides 90 percent of Pakistan’s water for agricultural irrigation will disappear by 2035 as a consequence of climate change.

Appropriately titled “The Last Straw,” the article reviews water conflicts exacerbated by climate change in general while focusing on Pakistan’s unsustainable dependence on Kashmiri waters – a dependence that only exacerbates the long-standing historical, cultural, and religious animosity between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir territory.

Faris reports that a shocking “ninety percent of Pakistan’s agricultural irrigation depends on rivers that originate in Kashmir.” This water comes from three of the six tributaries that India and Pakistan split in their 1960 Indus Waters Treaty. Is the treaty’s continued existence a testament to how future resource shortages will draw normally hostile states into cooperating? Perhaps – the agreement has so far survived three major wars and nearly 50 years of hostile exchanges.

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Since the big international climate negotiation will be in Copenhagen this December, we can expect way too-much commentary by and coverage of the second most famous Danish delayer (after Hamlet).  Bjorn Lomborg may be the most widely debunked of that (small) group who claim to believe the IPCC science but who in fact spend all their time trashing both climate science and climate scientists (although Roger Pielke, Jr. is probably a close second).  I have certainly spent my fair share of time on him [see “Lomborg skewers the facts, again” and "Debunking Lomborg — Part III and "Voodoo Economists 4: The idiocy of crowds or, rather, the idiocy of (crowded) debates"].

Today’s guest debunking is by Michael Pawlyn, Founder of Exploration Architecture –- a practice that proposes new design solutions to global challenges based on biomimicry.  Pawlyn “was one of five winners in ‘A Car-free London’ – an ideas competition for strategic solutions to the capital’s future transport needs and new possibilities for urban spaces.”

Well I guess Bjorn Lomborg was hardly likely to welcome the news that his main argument has collapsed.   But that was the gist of what I said when I had to oppose him at the BCO conference (one of the major annual construction industry events in the UK) in May.

Nevertheless, it was surprising, and somewhat satisfying, to see how unhappy he was about this, given his calm and unflappable reputation. Unfortunately Lomborg refused to be filmed but you can see my talk here in three parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, with the full transcript copied below).  This post is a summary of the second half of my presentation -– the first half describes some positive solutions based on applying biomimicry ideas to architecture. Lomborg’s presentation was very close to his set piece so those unfamiliar with his position may want to see his TED talk here.

As Climate Progress regulars will know, Lomborg has been remarkably successful in persuading people that tackling climate change is a low priority. His Copenhagen Consensus was a study paid for by The Economist and took as its starting point the challenge “If we had $50 billion dollars to spend, how could we achieve the greatest possible global good?” The study concluded that, from a list of thirty priorities, tackling climate change was the lowest. The argument could be summarized as follows:

• We’ve only got a limited amount to spend,
• Climate change is far from urgent and,
• Tackling it will be very expensive while doing little good.

While this argument has convinced thousands, every element of it has now been either discredited by the latest science or exposed as statistical trickery.

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Enhancing cooperation on climate change and energy efficiency should be a major plank of U.S. Russia policy and should be discussed at the highest levels when President Obama meets with President Medvedev next week.This Center for American Progress post, by Senior Fellow Andrew Light, Senior Policy Analyst Julian L. Wong, and Fellow Samuel Charap, was first published here.

The summit between President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow on July 6-8 comes in the middle of a packed international schedule of bilateral and multilateral meetings for the United States. on climate change. In the run up to the critical U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen at the end of this year, when the extension or successor to the existing Kyoto Protocol must be agreed upon, it is crucial that the United States and Russia—both major emitters of greenhouse gases and potentially leaders on this crucial issue—explore ways of working together to ensure a positive outcome at these talks. Enhancing cooperation on climate change and energy efficiency should be a major plank of U.S. Russia policy and should be discussed at the highest levels when President Obama meets with President Medvedev next week.

Russia, like the United States, is a significant contributor to global warming. If the European Union is disaggregated Russia is the third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide behind the United States and China and still currently ahead of India. More importantly Russian per capita emissions are on the rise, and are projected at this point to approach America’s top rank as per capita emitter by 2030. Russia is also the third-largest consumer of energy and one of the world’s most energy-intensive economies. Making Russia a partner on these issues could be critical in order to advance a sound global climate change agenda.

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See also: Statement by Professor Pan Jiahua on Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner’s (R-WI) Remarks

A congressional delegation led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently traveled to China to assess the potential for cooperation on international climate change efforts and to survey China’s independent efforts to reduce its CO2 emissions. Ranking member of the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) was part of this delegation. His take away from the trip? Nothing good. At a press conference in Beijing on his way home on May 28, Sensenbrenner said:

“It’s business as usual for China. The message that I received was that China was going to do it their way regardless of what the rest of the world negotiates in Copenhagen.”

The take-home message from his full remarks and previous statements were clear: The United States should do nothing on climate change because China will do nothing. The line that China is not cooperating with the world on climate change is an old wag in the debate over enacting a domestic cap and trade. We’ve seen it emerge again in hearings over the American Clean Energy and Security Act introduced by Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) and we can bet on it coming up when the Senate takes up companion legislation in the coming months.

We already knew that Sensenbrenner is no friend of ACES. But what’s newly troubling is that he based his incorrect comments in Beijing largely on remarks made by a Chinese economist, Pan Jiahua, who directs the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Sensenbrenner used an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that quoted Professor Pan to accuse him of “denigrating the Waxman-Markey [energy and climate] bill,” especially its midterm targets of 17 percent cuts below 2005 by 2020. He also claimed that Professor Pan said that, “China has been too aggressive in reducing their [sic] emissions.” Sensenbrenner insinuated after a personal meeting with Professor Pan that he might be “speaking for the thinking of China,” and concluded that Pan’s position represented a “significant step backwards.”

This story is not over yet. In an exclusive statement released to the Center for American Progress, Professor Pan characterized Sensenbrenner’s selective reading of his comments in the Australian press and the account of their closed-door meeting as both “improper and unethical,” and designed to “frighten the American public and halt U.S. progress on solving the problem of global warming.”

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Today’s guest blogger is Kyle Gracey, Chair for SustainUS and a graduate student in public policy and geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago.

In 2050, I’ll be 77, and given the pace of the climate talks in Bonn these two weeks, I’ll likely spend most of my retirement either under water or on fire.

If finalized in the next climate agreement, the weak targets offered so far by developed countries virtually ensures that greenhouse gas concentrations (and sea levels) will rise to levels well beyond what science says are safe limits to ensure the survival of peoples and nations. Over 100 youth from 6 continents (the Antarctic youth called in sick) participated in the Bonn negotiations, watching our leaders draft an increasingly costly and damaging climate for us to live through.

Daily at the negotiations, youth have shown our governments how vulnerable our generation will be to the warming and climate change they are creating with their short-sighted proposals. We literally brought two camels and tons of sand to the negotiation entrance to highlight the drought and desertification many of our countries increasingly experience. We rapped and rhymed about the threatened survival of nations and developed countries’ weak financing proposals. Youth tracked key negotiators to remind them the next generation is watching, and blogged to their peers in multiple languages.

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