Monthly Archives: April 2021

How climate change is worsening drought

Spring is in full swing across the U.S. – flowers are blooming, pollen is blowing – and this means that the 2021 heat wave, hurricane, and wildfire seasons are just around the corner.

After the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season produced a record number of named storms and record-breaking wildfires ravaged the Western U.S., vulnerable communities are bracing for more. However, another extreme weather event linked to climate change has been quietly afflicting the U.S. year-round with no signs of letting up and at risk of becoming permanent – widespread drought.

Drought conditions have been ongoing since early summer 2020 – and have persisted, worsened, and expanded dramatically – across vast portions of the continental U.S. Since October 2020, almost all of the High Plains and Western regions and more than half of the South have been experiencing some level of drought. More than 50% of Western drought conditions are categorized as either extreme or exceptional drought. Even more drastically, extreme and exceptional drought have comprised more than 75% of drought conditions across the Four Corners region (Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico) since late autumn.

NOAA predicts that these widespread dry conditions are likely to continue and spread throughout the spring, especially in the Southwest. This poses major threats to the region, including increased risks of wildfires, parched rangelands, stressed irrigation systems, and crop failures.

Just as climate change has worsened many extreme weather events, it has also impacted droughts. The excess heat now trapped in the climate system draws out more moisture from soils, thereby worsening drought conditions. Reduced snowpack volumes, earlier snowmelt, and changing precipitation patterns – also linked to climate change – exacerbate the water stress induced by droughts. And for numerous individual events across the world, scientists have attributed the increased likelihood and severity of droughts to human-driven climate change.

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Posted in Agriculture, California, Cities and states, Economics, Extreme Weather, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Science / Read 2 Responses

Driving the electric vehicle transition: auto companies and states step up to lead

If you watched any major televised sporting events this year, from the NCAA Final Four to the Super Bowl, you saw ad after ad showcasing American auto companies’ new electric cars. It’s proof that electric vehicles (EVs) are ready for a mainstream market – you don’t pay Will Ferrell and LeBron James to promote your car just to niche buyers.

Momentum is clearly building. Companies are prepared to capitalize on the economic benefits of EVs, for both consumers and autoworkers, as well as the climate and health benefits that all Americans will see.

In the last three months, some of the largest automakers in the U.S. and the world have committed to dramatically expanding their EV lineup. They have announced plans to invest billions of dollars in EV development, and plans to transition to an all-electric future by 2035 or earlier.

The Biden administration made a commitment last week to reduce U.S. climate pollution by at least 50 percent by 2030 – a commitment that was supported by major automakers and that will require significant emission reductions from the transportation sector.

States are also playing a leading role in driving progress. Last week, a bipartisan group of 12 governors detailed the important role that states have played in deploying zero-emitting vehicles and urged the Biden administration to move forward with ambitious standards that would eliminate pollution from all motor vehicles. And next week, the California Air Resources Board will hold a workshop related to its development of Advanced Clean Car II standards – standards that are expected to help the state ensure all new vehicles sold in California are zero-emitting by 2035.

The transportation sector is responsible for over a quarter of U.S. climate pollution – more than any other sector. The transportation sector also emits a slew of health-harming pollutants, including oxides of nitrogen and particulate pollution. The transportation sector is key to meaningful climate action.

To achieve meaningful reductions in transportation pollution, it will be key for the administration follow automakers’ commitments and state leadership with bold, decisive air pollution standards that put the U.S. on a path to ensure all new vehicles are zero-emitting no later than 2035 for passenger cars and trucks, and no later than 2040 for freight trucks and buses.

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Posted in Cars and Pollution, Economics, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Jobs, Policy / Comments are closed

How Biden’s climate summit can accelerate global ambition

iStock

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and it is a pivotal one for global climate action. On Thursday and Friday, President Joe Biden will host a virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, fulfilling a pledge he made on the campaign trail.

The ultimate measure of the Summit’s success will only become clear later this year, at the COP26 conference scheduled for November in Glasgow. The Biden administration has been in office fewer than 100 days, and diplomacy takes time; some of the administration’s efforts will undoubtedly only bear fruit in the coming months. Nonetheless, the Summit is a critical first milestone for a president who has pledged to make climate change a top priority. Here’s what to expect from the Summit – and what we are looking for. Read More »

Posted in News / Comments are closed

Offshore wind benefits are within North Carolina’s reach if we act with urgency

This post was authored by Michelle Allen, Project Manager for the North Carolina Political Affairs team.

Offshore wind is taking off in the U.S., and the opportunity to be a key player is within North Carolina’s reach. A recent report commissioned by the NC Department of Commerce demonstrates North Carolina’s unique position to serve the industry’s needs and reap the economic benefits that new manufacturing and other necessary infrastructure will bring. Properly sited offshore wind is easy to get behind. It is reliable, pollution-free power from an established technology that’s already transformed energy economies in Europe and across the globe. The environmental benefits are significant, too. As a lifelong North Carolinian, I’ve seen first hand the impacts of climate change already taking its toll from the mountains to the coast. To make sure we’re doing our part to combat climate change, North Carolina leaders need to swiftly replace polluting power sources with clean energy. With strong winds blowing day and night off the North Carolina coast, adding offshore wind to the state’s generation mix would boost the resilience of our power system, create jobs and help make real progress toward North Carolina’s climate goals.

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Posted in Cities and states, Energy, Jobs / Read 1 Response

DOE’s SuperTruck 3 Can Help Us Reach a Zero-Emission Future – If We Have the Right Clean Truck Standards Too

Cleaning up pollution from the U.S. trucking industry is an urgent need for the U.S. For the past decade, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SuperTruck Program has helped showcase solutions for a cleaner future. Now Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has announced a new generation of the DOE SuperTruck program – SuperTruck 3 – that will focus on higher efficiency and zero-emission solutions.

Through the SuperTruck 3 program, DOE will provide $162 million in funding to “pioneer electrified medium- and heavy-duty trucks and freight system concepts that achieve even higher efficiency and lower emissions.” The funding focuses on a range of approaches, including all-electric systems, plug-in hybrid systems using renewable biofuels, and hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.

Previous generations of the SuperTruck have delivered much needed advancements. For example, major manufacturers including Navistar, Freightliner, Peterbilt and Cummins developed trucks that achieved between 10.7 and 13 miles per gallon – significantly better than the previous average of about five miles per gallon. These trucks were critical to developing and demonstrating technical solutions that fleets across the country are using in new trucks today to burn less fuel. SuperTruck 3 could have a major impact on the market too – if it is paired with a new round of Clean Truck multipollutant standards that further drive us to the zero-emission future that is both possible and desperately needed.

There is a lot of work between a successful demonstration project and truck fleets saving billions of dollars annually from fuel-saving technologies. Well-designed federal Clean Truck standards are a key element to making this leap. The required improvement and market certainty that these standards provide fosters the innovation necessary to bring more efficient and lower emitting trucks to market.

The results of the first generation of the DOE SuperTruck program came out between 2014 and 2016, while the Obama administration was considering a second round of emission standards for heavy-duty trucks. Those standards have pushed manufacturers to bring more efficient trucks to market. For example, the International LT Series improved efficiency by over 8% between 2020 and 2021.

Zero-emission truck technology has also made enormous strides since 2016, when that last generation of the EPA’s heavy-duty emission standards were finalized. Back then, there were a total of seven zero-emission truck models that were either commercially available or in advanced demonstration, and most of the available models were post-production retrofits.  Today there are over 125 models that are either available, in production or at an advanced stage of demonstration, most with established manufacturers. We are also seeing very large fleet deployments and major fleets, such as FedEx, stepping forward with clear timeframes for transitioning to 100% zero-emission fleets.

It is time to embrace this rush of innovation and further accelerate it through more protective standards – 100% zero pollution new trucks and buses by 2040, with key vehicle segments moving even faster. With the current generation of zero-emission technology, we can achieve wide spread electrification for most heavy-duty vehicles, including school buses, package delivery trucks, garbage trucks, and regional haul trucks. These vehicles typically travel 200 miles or less each day and return to a centralized depot where they can be recharged. New research investments in areas like more rapid charging can further enhance the  case for electrification of these vehicles. These investments can also expand zero-emission solutions into more challenging uses, such as long-haul trucking. These advancements can support the ability of manufacturers to accelerate fleet-wide deployment even sooner than 2040.

Clean Truck standards should be paired with ambitious societal investments that ensure zero-emission vehicles are deployed first and foremost to reduce pollution in communities that have long borne the brunt of vehicle pollution. President Biden’s infrastructure package is a good first step in this direction. Congress needs to move forward to enact this plan.

States also have a critical role to play in this transition. They need to develop the charging infrastructure for electric trucks while leveraging lowest-cost solutions, such as managed charging and battery storage,and adopting the Advanced Clean Truck Rule and Heavy-Duty Omnibus Regulation.

If we pair together these critical steps – technology development, federal emission standards, state-leadership, and societal investments – the impact would be massive. Moving to 100% zero pollution new trucks and buses by 2040 would:

  • Prevent as many as 57,000 premature deaths in total through 2050
  • Eliminate more than 4.7 billion tons of climate pollution cumulatively by 2050
  • Provide America with up to $485 billion in health and environmental benefits alone as a result of pollution reductions

As the new SuperTruck 3 program makes clear, there are a lot of gains we can still make in cleaning up trucking. Now is the time for a bold, achievable vision of a zero-emission future for our truck and bus fleet.

Posted in Cars and Pollution, Economics, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Policy / Read 2 Responses

The U.S. Department of Energy can marshal its innovation efforts toward beating the climate crisis. Here’s how.

This post was co-authored by Steve Capanna, Director for U.S. Climate Policy and Analysis

In a new policy blueprint, EDF offers recommendations for how the Department of Energy can align its innovation budget with the climate challenge across its technology programs.

President Biden has pledged to deliver the largest ever federal investment in clean energy innovation — $400 billion over 10 years — to combat the climate crisis. And last Friday, the administration reasserted this commitment in its discretionary budget request, which aims to put us on “a path to quadruple clean energy research government-wide in four years, emphasizing U.S. preeminence in developing innovative technologies needed to tackle the climate crisis.”

This shows a recognition that, while technological innovation alone will not solve climate change, it plays a critical role in improving the costs and performance of essential climate technologies like wind turbines and electric vehicles, allowing the United States to more rapidly reduce greenhouse gases, eliminate health-harming pollution and create jobs in emerging energy sectors. Innovation is also essential for developing and commercializing the next generation of clean energy tools such as clean hydrogen and carbon removal that we need to reach net-zero emissions in the U.S. no later than 2050.

While the Department of Energy funding has helped reduce the costs and improve the performance of several key climate technologies, resulting in huge economic and environmental benefits, the agency’s innovation priorities and budgets have, to some extent, failed to keep pace with the extraordinary challenges and opportunities in front of us.

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Posted in Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions / Comments are closed