Climate 411

Oregon’s cap-and-invest program clears first legislative hurdle

By Pam Kiely / Published: May 17, 2019

By Pam Kiely, Sr. Director of Regulatory Strategy for U.S. Climate, and Katelyn Roedner Sutter, Manager for U.S. Climate

Mount Hood, Oregon. Image by David Mark from Pixabay.com

Oregon today advanced nationally-leading policy that would catapult Oregon into the top-tier of U.S. states taking ambitious climate action.

The cap-and-invest bill (HB 2020), which passed 8-5 out of its first committee late Friday afternoon, places a firm limit on the state’s climate pollution while ensuring continued investments in resilient communities, green jobs and clean energy.

Oregon’s cap-and-invest program sets the bar for what true climate leadership demands: putting in place policies that actually will achieve pollution reductions consistent with what scientists say is necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change. Read More »

Posted in Carbon Markets, Cities and states, News, Policy / Read 1 Response

Four reasons why Wheeler’s Clean Power Plan “replacement” will lead to more pollution

By Rama Zakaria / Published: May 14, 2019

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has sent a draft rule that would roll back the Clean Power Plan to the White House for review – a step that suggests the rule is close to being finalized and released.

If this final rule looks anything like the hopelessly flawed and inadequate proposal that was released last August, it will scrap the Clean Power Plan – our nation’s only national limit on carbon pollution from the power sector – in favor of a “do-nothing” program that could actually increase pollution from inefficient, highly-polluting coal-fired power plants.

Even as the nation reels from wildfires, flooding, and hurricanes exacerbated by climate change, Wheeler’s proposal would place no meaningful limits on one of our nation’s largest contributors to climate-destabilizing pollution.

If our experience with the proposal is any guide, we can also expect the release of the final rule to be accompanied by a bevy of misleading assertions that Wheeler’s “replacement” for the Clean Power Plan is just as effective in protecting climate and public health.

Wheeler has already been making such claims. For instance, in testimony before the House of Representatives last month, Wheeler said that EPA’s proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan would reduce carbon pollution from the power sector by 34 percent once fully implemented, and would go a long way towards meeting our carbon reduction goals for the country. These comments build on Wheeler’s claims during his Senate confirmation process that equated his replacement to the Clean Power Plan.

Here are four reasons why his claims are false: Read More »

Posted in Clean Air Act, Clean Power Plan, EPA litgation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, News, Policy / Comments are closed

Colorado charges forward with Zero Emission Vehicle proposal

By EDF Blogs / Published: May 10, 2019

This post was written by EDF attorney Laura Shields 

Colorado moved farther down the road toward a cleaner, less-polluting transportation sector today.

The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission unanimously voted to move forward with a formal hearing to consider adoption of state Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) standards.

The ZEV standards would provide for manufacturers to sell a certain number of clean zero-emitting vehicles in Colorado. That would deliver vital reductions in climate pollution, smog, and other harmful air pollution. At the same time, it would help save Coloradans hard-earned money through major fuel cost savings.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Air Division’s initial economic impact analysis projects Colorado ZEV standards would reduce the state’s greenhouse gas pollution by roughly 2.2 million metric tons between 2023 and 2030.

The analysis also projects that a ZEV program would decrease the contaminants that contribute to ground-level ozone (otherwise known as smog) in the state. Colorado has struggled to meet both the 2008 and 2015 health-based National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ground-level ozone, and the American Lung Association’s 2019 State of the Air report ranked Denver the 12th most ozone-polluted city in the nation.

Read More »

Posted in Cars and Pollution, Cities and states, Climate Change Legislation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, News, Policy, Smog / Comments are closed

What role do emissions from international shipping and aviation play in the global climate?

By Casey Ivanovich / Published: May 6, 2019

And what do those sectors need to do to help keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius?

https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-airplane-during-sunset-99567/

Silhouette of Airplane during Sunset. Pixels.com

In advance of the United Nations Secretary General’s climate summit in September, many countries are vowing to ramp up their Paris agreement commitments to help limit the increase in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, the growing emissions from two economic sectors – international shipping and international aviation – remain largely outside most of those commitments and could cause significant warming.

In a new study, researchers have found that, absent any climate action, the rising carbon dioxide emissions of international shipping and aviation could consume nearly one-third (15 to 30 percent) of our remaining “allowable warming” – the amount of additional warming that can occur before the world’s average temperature surpasses 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels – by the end of the century.

The international shipping and aviation sectors need to implement policy solutions with integrity and extend them over time to reduce their future warming and align with the 1.5 °C global temperature threshold.

Read More »

Posted in Aviation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Science / Comments are closed

Indigenous mobilization wins battle in President Bolsonaro’s war on indigenous peoples

By Steve Schwartzman / Published: May 3, 2019
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agenciasenado/47651605312/

Indigenous people mobilizing for land rights during the Free Land Encampment (Acampamento Terra Livre) in Brasilia, Brazil on April 25, 2019. Photo: Leopoldo Silva/Agência Senado via Flickr

Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s personal crusade to extinguish indigenous rights and devastate indigenous territories just hit a wall. Two, actually. Both Brazil’s Supreme Court and Brazil’s top congressional leaders handed Bolsonaro setbacks over his executive decision to move control of protecting indigenous lands to the agriculture ministry, which is controlled by members of the agribusiness lobby known for its opposition to indigenous land rights.

Taken together, this means that Bolsonaro’s signature action to start the rollback of indigenous territories and declare open season on Amazon deforestation – which needs both congressional and judicial approval to fly – looks to be crashing on takeoff. It’s also a glimmer of hope for indigenous and environmental protections in a country now led by a president openly hostile to Brazil’s indigenous peoples and Amazon rainforest – repositories of its vast social and biological diversity, and key to stabilizing the global climate.

Read More »

Posted in Brazil, Forest protection, Indigenous People / Comments are closed

The Trump Administration’s Budget Would Make our Climate Crisis Even Worse

By Keith Zukowski / Published: April 30, 2019

Scientists around the world are telling us, in no uncertain terms, that we – as in humankind — have little time left to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Those include: widespread coastal and riverine inundation, stronger storms and wildfires; new disease vectors; agricultural and other economic disruption. That is the reality and scope of the challenge we face.

There are, of course, things we can do — things we must do – to respond to the climate crisis, both to learn more about its causes and consequences and to activate solutions to prevent as much damage as possible.

Those solutions, for the most part, fit into four areas: investment, innovation and technology; science and research; mitigation, adaptation and relief; and policy. An intransigent and shortsighted White House has made the achievement of any significant policy gains difficult in the short term. Now, the latest federal budget proposed by the Trump Administration has sought to undercut those other three potential progress areas, exacerbating America’s susceptibility to climate disaster and running down the clock on desperately needed action.

Read More »

Posted in Health, Jobs, Policy, Science / Read 1 Response