Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Averting our eyes
James Hansen, Gristmill
Guest essay by pioneering climate scientist Hansen
—
….Most of the increase of CO2 in the air today, relative to pre-industrial times, is due to burning of fossil fuels. The fossil fuel contribution to CO2 in the air today is due about 50% to coal, 35% to oil, and 15% to gas. The annual increments for the past few decades have been slightly larger for oil than for coal, but coal use has accelerated in the past few years and in the long run coal will be the greatest source because of its larger reserves (discovered deposits) and estimated resources (deposits still to be discovered).
There is a raging battle today about the size of fossil fuel reserves and resources, with “peakists” claiming we are already at or near peak production of both oil and coal because the amounts of economically recoverable fuels in the ground are more limited than the fossil fuel industry has admitted. Evidence that reserves and resources have been overstated is strong. But it is also clear that, absent a price on carbon emissions, as the price of energy rises the amount of economically extractable fossil fuels increases, including unconventional fossil fuels. Regardless of reserve and resource uncertainties, we know that there are enough fossil fuels to destroy the planet as we know it, if their CO2 is released into the atmosphere.
But the potential contributions of oil and gas to future CO2 are limited (PDF), even if we accept industry estimates. CO2 from oil can be further limited via a gradually increasing price on carbon emissions that discourages industry from going to the most extreme environments in the world (such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Antarctica) to extract every last drop of oil.
Actions needed to stabilize climate.
Two fossil fuel facts define the basic actions required to preserve our planet’s climate:
- It is impractical to capture CO2 as it is emitted by vehicles (the mass of emitted CO2 is about three times larger than the mass of fuel in the tank), and
- there is much more CO2 contained in coal and unconventional fossil fuels than in oil and gas.
As a consequence, the strategy for saving creation must have two basic elements. First, and this is 80% of the solution, coal use must be phased out except where the CO2 is captured and sequestered. Thus there should be a moratorium on construction of new coal- fired power plants until the technology for CO2 capture and sequestration is ready.
Second, there must be a moderate price on carbon emissions, and both businesses and consumers must recognize that this carbon price will continue to increase in the future.
(28 November 2007)
Cities Brace for Global Warming (Part 1) (Audio)
Karen Kelly, The Environmental Report
When we think about climate change, many of us think about it as a national, even international, problem. But a growing number of officials at the local level are beginning to see it as a local problem as well. Karen Kelly brings us the first of a two-part series on what cities are doing to prepare for global warming:
Part 2
Cities can expand mass transit, getting more cars off the road and giving people more options to help reduce emissions that contribute to global warming.
Census figures show that more and more North Americans are now living in cities. For those who want to fight climate change, that means changing the way these urban folks live. In the second of a two-part series on climate change, Karen Kelly has the story of one city councilor who’s made that his mission:
(26 November 2007)
Global Warming Is Reversible
Bernie Sanders, The Nation (web only)
Scientists now tell us that the crisis of global warming is even worse than their earlier projections. Daily front-page headlines of environmental disasters give an inkling of what we can expect in the future, multiplied many times over: droughts, floods, severe weather disturbances, loss of drinking water and farmland and conflicts over declining natural resources.
Yet the situation is by no means hopeless. Major advances and technological breakthroughs are being made in the United States and throughout the world that are giving us the tools to cut carbon emissions dramatically, break our dependency on fossil fuels and move to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. In fact, the truth rarely uttered in Washington is that with strong governmental leadership the crisis of global warming is not only solvable; it can be done while improving the standard of living of the people of this country and others around the world. And it can be done with the knowledge and technology that we have today; future advances will only make the task easier.
What should we be doing now?
(27 November 2007)
Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist senator from Vernmont. -BA
(28 November 2007)
World Must Fix Climate In Less Than 10 Years: UN
Raymond Colitt, Reuters
BRASILIA – Unless the international community agrees to cut carbon emissions by half over the next generation, climate change is likely to cause large-scale human and economic setbacks and irreversible ecological catastrophes, a United Nations report says on Tuesday. The U.N. Human Development Report issues one of the strongest warnings yet of the lasting impact of climate change on living standards and a strong call for urgent collective action.
“We could be on the verge of seeing human development reverse for the first time in 30 years,” Kevin Watkins, lead author of the report, told Reuters.
The report, to be presented in Brasilia on Tuesday, sets targets and a road map to reduce carbon emissions before a U.N. climate summit next month in Bali, Indonesia.
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere help trap heat and lead to global warming.
“The message for Bali is the world cannot afford to wait, it has less than a decade to change course,” said Watkins, a senior research fellow at Britain’s Oxford University.
Dangerous climate change will be unavoidable if in the next 15 years emissions follow the same trend as the past 15 years, the report says.
(27 November 2007)
Also at Common Dreams.
World Bank’s Mani says new international trade agreement should account for climate change (Video and transcript)
Monica Trauzzi, OnPoint, E&E TV
With the U.N. Framework Convention’s climate negotiations set to resume in Bali, Indonesia next week, the issue of international trade is a topic that will likely be discussed at the meeting.
During today’s OnPoint, Muthukumara Mani, senior environmental economist at the World Bank and author of the new report, “International Trade and Climate Change: Economic, Legal, and Institutional Perspectives,” explains how the World Trade Organization and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change can address trade issues associated with climate change.
Mani explains why he believes tariffs and taxes should be removed so developing nations can gain easier access to clean technologies. He also discusses how emissions created through the trade process should be handled.
(27 November 2007)
Pew’s Elliot Diringer discusses expectations for upcoming UNFCCC talks in Bali (Video and transcript)
Monica Trauzzi, OnPoint, E&E TV
As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee takes up the Lieberman-Warner climate bill next week, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change resumes international climate discussions in Bali later this month, questions remain about the Bush administration’s role in climate talks as it heads into its final year.
During today’s OnPoint, Elliot Diringer, director of International Strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, previews the upcoming Bali discussions. He also discusses what impact Lieberman-Warner discussions will have on the international community.
(29 November 2007)
