Climate 411

Donlen, GreenDriver and EDF Commit to Reducing 20% of Fleet Emissions by 2016

By Sharyn Stein / Published: September 21, 2010

(Posted earlier today on our sister blog, EDF Innovation Exchange)

Today, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) joins with Donlen, a leading fleet management company, and GreenDriver™ in a commitment towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the commercial fleet sector by 20% over the next five years. This pledge is being made at the annual Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting, attended by Gary Rappeport, Donlen CEO; and Fred Krupp, President, EDF. We invite others to join this effort too, including commercial fleets, fleet management companies and environmental organizations. Together, we can make a difference.

Stabilizing the Earth’s climate is the critical environmental challenge of our time. Many effects of global warming are already being felt and will only grow worse with inaction. Vehicles in corporate fleets release 45 million metrics tons of emissions each year. Reducing the emissions from commercial fleet vehicles can be part of the solution to tackling this challenge.

Opportunities for reducing emissions are plentiful. Right-sizing vehicles to match the job at hand, reducing miles through improved routing, moving to more efficient models, adopting “fuel-smart” driving behaviors [PDF], cutting idling, and deploying advanced technology vehicles are a few of the tactics available. All of these offer significant payback on investment. A few require no upfront investment at all. Each of these tactics is delivering emissions reductions today.

Good emissions management is not unlike good business management. For any company to get the most out of these or other tactics, it needs a long-term vision and a strategic plan formulated for its unique needs and circumstances. Our joint commitment through the Clinton Global Initiative provides joining companies a vision: reduce emissions 20% between now and the end of 2016. Because it is performance-based, the commitment is agnostic on the pathway accompany uses to meet the goal. It remains incumbent on the company to undertake the planning process on how to meet the goal.

The goal is in reach for many companies already. Consider that 80 of the 300 companies with 1,000 or more vehicles have a publicly announced greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. Many companies have already achieved reductions of this magnitude in fleet emissions. The next five years will also see the availability of more efficient vehicles through increases CAFE standards, while electric and other advanced technology vehicles will become more widely available too. Together, the fleet industry can meet this challenge.

Of course, a few companies will face greater challenges given the specific requirements for their vehicles. We welcome these companies into the fold too. Every ton reduced matters.

During the past five years, the commercial fleet industry has created infrastructure to track emissions and developed a deep understanding of how to successfully deploy many emission reducing tactics. EDF believes that the industry is ready to take the next step and start to collectively act towards this aggressive, yet achievable emissions reduction goal.

We applaud Donlen and GreenDriver™ for taking a central role in coordinating this commitment. We look forward to working with both companies and the entire fleet industry to meet this challenge. Together, we can make a difference.

For information about how your company can join this effort, visit http://www.donlen.com/clinton-global-initiative.aspx.

Also posted in Cars and Pollution / Comments are closed

Green Jobs: California’s Economic Bright Spot

By Sharyn Stein / Published: August 9, 2010

One of the strongest arguments for passing a climate and clean energy bill is that it will boost the economy and create jobs.

Here’s more evidence to support that claim: an updated map compiled by Environmental Defense Fund that shows more than 3,500 “green” businesses in California alone.  

EDF’s Tim Connor wrote about the map on our California Dream 2.0 blog. He says:

Naysayers often claim that we should slow down our progress on clean energy and clean air because the overall economy is struggling.  The truth is that the green economy is a bright spot, generating jobs, investment and business growth.

This map may focus on California — but that statement applies to all of America.

Also posted in Economics, Green Jobs, Jobs / Comments are closed

NOAA Report Confirms: Yes, the World Is Warming

By James Wang / Published: July 30, 2010

A report released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides new evidence that global warming continues relentlessly.  The report comes after climate science was found to be solid in several official investigations into the so-called “Climategate” controversy, and it adds even more urgency to the need to reduce global warming pollution to prevent severe impacts in the future.

The report, “State of the Climate in 2009,” was authored by more than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries.  It confirms that each of the past three decades was warmer than the last, with the 2000s being the warmest in the 150-year record.

The latest data from all the regions of the world are presented for a variety of climate indicators.  Ten of the indicators most closely related to surface temperature all support the idea that the Earth is warming.

Specifically, seven indicators are rising, indicating a warming world:

  • air temperature over land
  • sea-surface temperature
  • air temperature over oceans
  • sea level
  • total heat content of the ocean
  • humidity
  • tropospheric temperature (in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface)

And three indicators are declining, also indicating a warming world:

  • Arctic sea ice
  • glaciers around the world
  • spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere

These climate indicators represent many independent lines of evidence for global warming.

This report comes on top of a set of recent reports by the National Academy of Sciences that provide yet more evidence that human-produced pollution has caused the warming observed over the past several decades and that continued warming poses serious and costly risks to society.  Together, these latest scientific reports show that global warming is happening and will only get worse unless we seriously cut back our global warming pollution.

As evidenced yet again by the new NOAA report, the science is very clear:  We must begin cutting our emissions now to avoid even more dramatic cuts later, since global warming gases stay in the atmosphere for decades or even centuries and keep accumulating there. A delay of two or three years will make the necessary pollution cuts more severe and expensive.

My colleague Chris Scott will in touch regarding sending the proposal to you. If you need to contact us at all next week, please call or email Chris on +44 1722 320596 or chris.scott@headscape.co.uk.
Also posted in Science / Comments are closed

From the blogosphere: the latest on the climate bill

By Rebecca Rasch / Published: July 22, 2010

Not surprisingly, a number of blogs today talked about Senator Reid’s (D–Nev.) statement that he’ll move forward with a somewhat scaled-back energy bill. The legislation is slated to include a response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and energy efficiency incentives, but omit a carbon cap or many of the broader climate change measures that were part of the House version of the bill. For the state of play, CleanTechies includes a helpful bulleted list of “highlights of legislation introduced in the Senate that may contribute language to the final package.”

The Vine questions the political strategy of splitting a response to the oil spill from a broader energy and climate bill while acknowledging that an oil spill response is far more likely to receive the bipartisan support necessary for passage. Post Partisan regrets that the Senate is passing on what it calls “the most efficient policy available – placing a price on carbon.” On Firedoglake, David Dayen says the oil spill response must move, irrespective of the fate of the larger climate and energy bill.

Also posted in Climate Change Legislation / Comments are closed

From the blogosphere: DOE does cool, Google goes with wind

By Rebecca Rasch / Published: July 21, 2010

CleanTechies joined several of their online colleagues in enthusiastically reporting on cool roofs, which “could help reduce global temperatures and offset the heat from as much as two years of global greenhouse gas emissions,” according to a new report from the Berkeley Lab. The report found that “increasing the reflectivity of roofs and pavement in cities with populations greater than 1 million would have a one-time cooling effect equivalent to reducing global CO2 emissions by 57 billion metric tons.” And more good news: “As part of an initiative to promote a transition to cooler surfaces, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu directed all department offices to install cool roofs on any new buildings or when replacing old ones.”

Another widely-discussed piece today was about internet giant Google. As reported in Huffington Post, “Hot on the heels of its $38.8 billion investment in two wind farms in North Dakota, Google has just signed a 20-year contract with an Iowa wind farm that enables the search giant to purchase wind power at a set rate over the next two decades.” Treehugger goes on to praise the contract for not only taking a step toward the company’s stated goal of becoming carbon neutral, but also for providing critical funding for clean energy projects.

Also posted in Energy / Comments are closed

A Cap on Carbon is a Private Sector Stimulus Bill

By Sharyn Stein / Published: July 21, 2010

About one million new jobs in the clean energy field have been created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus bill. That’s according the latest report from the Council of Economic Advisers.

That’s good news for the clean energy economy, and for those Americans who are looking for work. But we can’t rely on tax dollars to finance growth indefinitely. The stimulus bill is a jump start, not a long-term fix.

We need to harness the power of private sector investment if we hope to see long-term growth and job creation. And the best way to do that is through a clean energy bill with a limit on carbon pollution.

That’s what EDF’s president Fred Krupp says in today’s column by New York Times writer Tom Friedman:

As Fred Krupp, the president of Environmental Defense Fund, notes: U.S. utility companies today “are sitting on billions of dollars in job-creating capital — but they will not invest in new energy projects until they have certainty on what their future carbon obligations will be. In just one state, Indiana, there are 25 power plants 50 years old or older. The fleet needs to be modernized, and Senate paralysis is keeping it from happening. A recent study from the Peterson Institute projects annual investment in the sector in the next 10 years would rise by 50 percent as a result of climate legislation — an increase of nearly $11 billion a year.”

That’s new employment from a private sector stimulus.

Political analyst Joe Lockhart is saying almost the same thing. Lockhart is quoted in the Atlantic’s blog in a piece, Cap-and-Trade: The Next Best Stimulus?

We’re rapidly approaching the end-date of our near-term economic solutions – and it’s not clear that we have a policy to get private dollars moving again once those solutions end. That makes movement on a utility-first cap on carbon emissions essential.

The bottom line: If we pass a climate and clean energy bill with a carbon cap, we’ll create jobs without increasing deficit spending.

Also posted in Economics, Greenhouse Gas Emissions / Comments are closed