Climate Climate & Energy

Why a carbon price beats technology breakthroughs

The decarbonization data makes clear that if you want to beat 450 ppm and avoid catastrophic climate impacts, a significant price for carbon (plus aggressive technology deployment) is much more important than technology breakthroughs.

That is a central point of this post. That is what I learned in the mid-1990s when I helped to run the billion-dollar office at DOE in charge of federal clean energy technology breakthroughs and deployment -- and had the chance to work with the top scientists and technology modelers at the national labs to figure out how we can cut emissions most quickly and cost-effectively.

The pursuit of the Holy Grail of multiple technology breakthroughs is, in fact, a side show -- and for many, like Bush/Luntz/Gingrich/Lomborg, that pursuit is meant as a complete rhetorical distraction to the public so we can continue to avoid action, as I have repeatedly blogged. It was specifically designed by conservative strategist Frank Luntz as a core delaying strategy.

Chevron throws hissy fit that anti-Chevron activists received award

Chevron is throwing a hissy fit over the Goldman Environmental Prize awarded to two Ecuadorian activists who want the oil company to clean up pollution in the Amazon rain forest. Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, dumped 18.5 billion gallons of petrochemical waste in the Amazon between 1972 and 1992. Lawyer Pablo Fajardo […]

One month’s worth of data laughable as proof of global cooling

A top NASA scientist just emailed me the breaking news: "The ice age expired!"

Even more shocking: the rate of warming this year has been just about unprecedented in the historical record -- even faster than I had predicted just last month based on the NASA data from February.

Just look at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies dataset. While January's land-ocean global temperature was a mere +0.12 degrees C above the the 1951-1980 average and the February anomaly was +0.26 degrees C -- the March anomaly was a staggering +0.67 degrees C.

(Warning: the following chart is not suitable for children or those who believe in global cooling. Please cover their eyes since the 2008 data, plotted in red below, might give them nightmares.)

Link between climate change and stronger hurricanes becomes fuzzier

Climate change may not in fact make hurricanes more frequent and intense, says new research published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. While other climate models have reached similar conclusions, this study is notable for having as its lead author atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel, who was one of the first to suggest a […]

The greening of golf, baseball, and the Olympics, oh my!

Your sports roundup for the week: Golf: Golf’s reputation is far from green — but tee-ers are trying their darnedest to move in a green direction. That includes Augusta National Golf Course, current host of the Masters tournament. The club is not on the list of some 300 courses that have received a stamp of […]

Linking green buildings and the smart grid will spawn a green energy ecosystem

A new energy ecosystem is emerging that connects smart, green buildings with a smart, green grid to optimize energy flows. Since commercial and industrial buildings represent around 40 percent of U.S. energy use, and homes another 30 percent, this represents the most significant opportunity for energy efficiency and mass-scale renewable generation.

But creating this new green energy ecosystem means linking what are today heavily "stovepiped" separate systems within buildings and between buildings and the grid. It also means expanding the definition of green buildings to include the digital smarts that connect diverse systems. The Green Intelligent Buildings Conference in Baltimore on April 2-3 focused on ways to cut through "stovepipes" and build those new linkages.

"We need to find ways to make the grid smarter, to make buildings smarter, and to have these smarts communicate with each other," keynoter Jeffrey Harris of the Alliance to Save Energy told attendees. This will require new technologies and partnerships that cross traditional boundaries, said the ASE vice president for programs. "We need not just utilities but private industry to be involved."

One key area where new partnerships are needed is within the building industry itself, between green builders and building intelligence providers.

The carbon offset market needs additionality

This post is the slightly tardy conclusion of a series (see parts one, two, and three).

Let's wrap this up by shifting gears a bit. Additionality is central and essential part of the carbon offset market. Additionality is also, in the long term, probably not relevant to the energy efficiency market. The reason hinges on the difference between carbon offsets and carbon allowances. Both are often lumped together under the term "carbon credits," but they're different in important ways that are sometimes lost in discussions of cap-and-trade systems.

Some basic definitions are in order. Carbon allowances are those things that everyone is eager to auction off these days: pollution permits for greenhouse gas emissions. Under a cap-and-trade system, the government issues a fixed number of these permits, and every year the number drops. That's the cap, and as long as it covers a sufficiently large swath of the economy, it's difficult for polluters to evade. (New Yorkers can't, for example, buy electricity from China.)

Carbon offsets, on the other hand, are pollution permits generated from specific projects that exist outside the cap. For example, no matter how big a chunk of the economy the cap covers, it probably won't cover cow manure on small dairy farms. If you can demonstrate that you took specific measures to reign in a certain number of tons of dairy farm methane, you can use those emissions reductions to satisfy your obligations under a cap.

Entrepreneur Lyndon Rive wants to solarize your house for a low, low price

Would you pay $25,000 to $30,000 to put solar panels on your home? If you’re like most cash-strapped Americans, you’d balk at that five-figure expense, no matter how green you aspire to be. OK, what if you could do it for $1,000 or $2,000? SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive. SolarCity, based in sunny Silicon Valley, has […]

Death, disease, and infection, thanks to our friend climate change

Daniel J. Weiss and Robin Pam of the Center for American Progress have a new article on the health impacts of global warming. As they explain, "Some of the most severe health effects linked to global warming include the following":

• More illness and death resulting from heat waves.
• Worsening air pollution causes more respiratory and cardiovascular disease.
• Vector-borne disease infections will rise.
• Changing food production and security may cause hunger.
• More severe and frequent wildfires will threaten more people.
• Flooding linked to rising sea levels will displace millions.

Already, "WHO now says that 150,000 deaths annually are attributable to the effects of climate change." And we've only warmed about 1.5 degrees F in the past century. We might warm 10 degrees F each century!

The time to act is now.

Hunting and fishing groups worried about climate change’s effects on wildlife

Photo: iStockphoto The hook and bullet crowd, traditionally quite a conservative bunch, is worrying more openly about climate change, particularly its forecasted effects on wildlife crucial to their sports. The Wildlife Management Institute, a sportsperson’s organization, released a report recently highlighting climate change’s possible detrimental effects to oft-hunted species. Disappearing wetlands could contribute to a […]