Climate 411

Four takeaways on climate change and sea level rise in the latest IPCC report

By Tianyi Sun / Published: October 3, 2019

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has published yet another alarming report about the dangers we face from the climate crisis.

The Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate synthesizes the latest science on how the oceans and frozen parts of the world have changed, and will continue to change, because of global warming.

More than 100 scientists from 36 countries summarized findings from almost 7,000 peer reviewed research studies. The authors addressed over 30,000 comments from expert reviewers and governments in 80 countries.

A major focus of the report is sea level rise, a climate change impact that is especially serious to those who live in coastal regions – which is more than a quarter of the world’s population. Recent advances in science, such as higher quality data, improved physical understanding, and agreements across modeling studies have improved understanding of the threat of sea level rise.

Here are four of the report’s most important takeaways on sea level rise:

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Posted in Arctic & Antarctic, Basic Science of Global Warming, Extreme Weather, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Oceans, Policy, Science / Read 3 Responses

Three opportunities for the UN’s aviation agency to deliver climate action

By Annie Petsonk / Published: September 25, 2019

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

As International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) 40th General Assembly kicks off this week in Montreal, aviation faces an existential challenge: the need to zero out its climate impact. Greta Thunberg, whose refusal to fly symbolizes the question every child of her generation will face, leads a climate strike on this Friday, that will march right to ICAO’s gates. Will their demands move the delegates representing 193 countries meeting inside?

Here are three opportunities the Assembly can take to back up their climate commitments with real action.

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Posted in Aviation / Comments are closed

Study: Consumers willing to pay carbon offsets for air travel

By Guest Author / Published: September 25, 2019

New social science research finds people are willing to put a price on carbon; just don’t ask them to pay taxes

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This post was authored by Rainer Romero-Canyas, Lead Senior Social Scientist for EDF.

Flying shame has gone mainstream—just ask the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. But are travelers who won’t face the wrath of the tabloids for flying willing to chip in to offset the cost of flying on the environment? A new study from the University of British Columbia and EDF suggests they are. It all depends on how it’s labeled and who is viewed as paying for the environmental impact of the flight.

We wanted to see if it was possible to introduce policy instruments designed to price carbon, without triggering an aversion to taxes, a common challenge in the United States. So, we tested two aspects of the fee: one, both how it was labeled (a carbon offset or a carbon tax), and two, if it was important to see who got the bill (the company that imports or processes fossil fuel or the consumers who use their products and services).

In an upcoming issue of the Journal of Environmental Psychology, my co-authors and I detail the results of three studies focused primarily on the airline industry, because its emissions are slated to triple in the coming decades, absent policy change, making it one of the fastest sources of carbon pollution worldwide. The good news: consumers are willing to pay more for flying responsibly, just as long as it’s the airlines they’re flying that are stepping up and shouldering that responsibility.

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Posted in Aviation, Carbon Markets, Science / Read 2 Responses

The Getting to Zero Coalition: a step further towards decarbonization

By Guest Author / Published: September 23, 2019

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This post was authored by Aoife O’Leary, Natacha Crete and Marie Hubatova from Environmental Defense Fund Europe

Today at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, the youth movement with Greta Thunberg at its helm, called out the world leaders in attendance for a lack of action in the climate emergency. Greta’s impassioned plea again makes clear that the time for action is now. Action from all sectors. In the absence of real transformative action, we have no hope of meeting the temperature goals established by science and enshrined in the Paris agreement.

The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres convened the climate action summit asking that countries and sectors come forward with scalable action. The summit is supposed to clarify the “how” in our path to avoiding catastrophic climate change. These provide the necessary catalyst for countries to take more ambitious commitments at the international climate negotiations in Glasgow in 2020. While much of what was announced today at the summit was pretty underwhelming, major players in the shipping sector have made significant effort to answer Guterres’ call.

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Posted in International, Paris Agreement, United Nations / Comments are closed

Trump’s ACE Rule May Especially Harm Vulnerable Communities

By Rama Zakaria / Published: September 16, 2019

(This post was co-authored by EDF intern Laura Supple)

The Trump administration’s latest attack on clean air protections may cause the greatest harm to the most vulnerable communities – according to EPA’s own projections.

In June, the Trump administration repealed the Clean Power Plan – America’s first and only nationwide limit on carbon pollution from existing power plants – and replaced it with a pollution-enabling rule that, by EPA’s own numbers, would increase climate pollution in many states compared to no policy at all.

Experts have warned that under the Trump replacement, called the ACE rule, many parts of the country would also see increases in health-harming sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides pollution that lead to soot and smog. While the Administration has tried to downplay the public health consequences of the new rule, EPA’s projections show that vulnerable communities around the nation will likely suffer the most from these dangerous pollution increases.

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

Summer smog review: new analysis shows continued challenges to air quality

By Mandy Warner / Published: September 12, 2019

(This post was co-authored by EDF intern Jayne Stevenson)

Summer brings sunshine, fun, and outdoor adventures – but unfortunately, it also brings smog that causes serious health problems for many American families.

We have made significant progress delivering healthier summer air, but many families still find themselves sidelined by ground-level ozone pollution – commonly called smog. That pollution will be made even worse by climate change.

New EDF analysis shows that so far in 2019 we’ve seen more than 2,500 smog exceedances – meaning ground-level ozone pollution monitoring stations recorded levels higher than allowed under the 2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone. (That limit is a maximum eight-hour concentration greater than 70 parts per billion).

Approximately 185 million people across America were exposed to at least one of those exceedances, which spanned 248 counties in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

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Posted in Cities and states, Clean Air Act, Health, Policy, Smog / Comments are closed