Climate 411

Clean Cars Are Safer and Cheaper to Drive

By EDF Blogs / Published: August 1, 2018

This post was written by EDF consultant Chester France, who served as a Senior Executive at EPA and led the development of vehicle standards at the agency

 

Very soon, the Trump administration is expected to propose dramatically weakening America’s Clean Car Standards under the Orwellian title “The Safer and More Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule.”

Actually, a decade-long record shows lower-polluting cars are safe and can contribute to a continuing reduction in traffic deaths. Strong Clean Car Standards also save Americans money at the gas pump.

The misleading title of the expected proposal — and the findings it insinuates — is just the latest example of the Trump administration manipulating analyses to achieve its desired result. A February 2017 email from Trump transition team member and professional climate denier David Schnare describes a White House order to set these rollbacks into motion, underscoring that this decision was preordained and not based on any analysis of facts or law.

Here are some facts you should know about clean cars, savings, and safety.

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Posted in Cars and Pollution, Clean Air Act, Economics, News, Policy / Comments are closed

Four ways the Trump administration’s Clean Cars rollback would harm Americans

By Martha Roberts / Published: July 31, 2018

U.S. Air Force photo/Don Branum

The Trump administration’s proposed rollback of America’s Clean Car Standards is bad news — for your pocketbook, climate security and clean air, auto sector jobs, and state leadership.

A leaked draft of the administration’s proposal recommends gutting the existing Clean Car Standards — even though they’re already in place, delivering pollution reductions and saving Americans’ hard-earned money.

The draft recommends flatlining the standards at 2020 levels through 2026, and also includes an attack on states’ long-standing authority to enforce more protective clean car standards.

This proposed rollback is the wrong move for America. Here are four reasons why: Read More »

Posted in Cars and Pollution, Clean Air Act, Economics, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Policy / Read 1 Response

Americans save hard-earned money with Clean Car Standards that Trump may soon roll back

By Martha Roberts / Published: July 24, 2018

The latest rumblings indicate the Trump administration is poised to advance a proposal that would dramatically roll back America’s Clean Car Standards, one of our biggest climate success stories.

Thanks to the Clean Car Standards, we’ve made major strides in reducing climate pollution while at the same time spurring fuel efficiency gains that save Americans money at the gas pump. But the Trump administration’s proposal reportedly would recommend flatlining the standards at 2020 levels through 2026, and would also include an attack on states’ long-standing authority to enforce more protective clean car standards.

A new analysis shows that this proposal would cost Americans in every state. With the anticipated rollback, an average family will spend $200 more per year, and could spend as much as $500 more every year if gas prices continue to rise — with low-income and long-commuting Americans particularly hard hit.

Here’s what you need to know about this reckless attack:

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Posted in Cars and Pollution, Clean Air Act, Economics, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Policy / Comments are closed

Hansen was right: Marking an anniversary by misleading the public

By Ilissa Ocko / Published: July 18, 2018

Dr. James Hansen testifying before Congress in 1988

With the thirtieth anniversary of former NASA scientist Jim Hansen’s landmark testimony to Congress on the urgent need to address climate change, numerous articles marked the occasion by demonstrating that his 1988 predictions have proven to be accurate.

Inevitably, some writers seized the opportunity to revive long-debunked arguments in an attempt to cast doubt and confusion on the threat.

Perhaps the most misleading – and certainly the highest profile – was a June 21st op-ed in the Wall Street Journal written by Pat Michaels and Ryan Maue. Michaels is director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, a think tank financially linked to the fossil fuel industry. And Michaels has been found to have previously misled Congress by presenting a doctored graph of Hansen’s projections during public testimony before the House Small Business Committee.

Four decades of climate model projections have fared well

Their latest effort implies that U.S. climate policy is based on Hansen’s forecasts in 1988, and therefore we must “reconsider environmental policy” according to an evaluation of “how well his forecasts have done.”

In reality, climate policy is based on hundreds of years of collective research and an overwhelming amount of observational evidence gathered from all over the world.

Climate model development began as early as the 1950s, and projections from 1973 to 2013 (including Hansen’s 1988 paper) have been compared to observed temperatures by multiple institutions. All showed reasonably accurate surface temperature increases between 1970 and 2016, Hansen’s 1988 study included.

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Posted in Basic Science of Global Warming, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Science, Setting the Facts Straight / Comments are closed

The path forward for net-zero emissions climate policy

By Nat Keohane / Published: July 16, 2018

By Nat Keohane and Susanne Brooks

This post originally appeared in The Hill

Climate change is a defining threat of our generation. But the way forward has never been clearer. Electric power generation is being transformed by the rapid deployment of wind, solar and utility-scale storage. Technological innovation is reshaping transportation and industry. New means of capturing and storing carbon are on the horizon.

Even so, the challenge is monumental. To have a reasonable chance of avoiding the worst effects of climate change, the world must achieve “net-zero emissions” — taking as much carbon out of the atmosphere as we put into it — in this century. Here in the United States, we are currently emitting carbon pollution at seven times the rate that we are soaking it up. We must take advantage of every cost-effective opportunity to cut climate pollution now, while investing in the innovations that will put us on course for net-zero emissions as soon as possible.

Economic and technological trends alone won’t do the trick. Waiting to act only deepens the challenge and increases the cost and pace of reductions needed. To unleash the full potential of breakthrough clean energy technologies, we need well-designed policies that accelerate the low-carbon transition rather than hinder it.Encouragingly, action is already underway: cities, states, and businesses are forging ahead to enact policies and undertake initiatives to reduce pollution, building on momentum from the plummeting costs of clean energy technologies. Those efforts are crucial. But the world won’t solve climate change without American leadership at all levels. To cut climate pollution at the scale and pace that science tells us is necessary requires national action.

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Posted in Basic Science of Global Warming, Climate Change Legislation, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Policy / Comments are closed

Why it matters that California hit its 2020 emissions target four years early

By Jonathan Camuzeaux / Published: July 12, 2018
sacramento california cityscape skyline on sunny day, water, wetland

Sacramento, Calif. cityscape. Photo credit: digidreamgrafix

This post was authored by Jonathan Camuzeaux and Maureen Lackner

California hit its 2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target four years ahead of schedule, according to 2016 emissions data released yesterday by the state. At this rate, the state is well-positioned to formally meet its 2020 target assuming it keeps up the good work.

While the world’s emissions are once again on the rise and the Trump Administration is pulling the U.S. backward on climate progress at the federal level, states and regions continue pushing ahead, and California is at the front of the pack. California’s monumental achievement is worth celebrating – and it’s worth investigating how the state got here, and the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Latest emissions data

Here are some highlights from the annual California Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory published yesterday:

  • California’s 2016 emissions fell to 429 MMt CO2e, beating the 2020 target of 431 MMt CO2e, the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990.
  • This was the fourth year in a row of emissions reductions in California, where emissions dropped by 3% (12 MMt CO2e) between 2015 and 2016. Emissions fell 13% (64 MMt CO2e in 2016) compared against 2004, when emissions in the state peaked.
  • Business is booming as emissions are falling. In the last year, California’s GDP grew 3% while the carbon intensity of the economy dropped 6%. From January 2013 to December 2016, California added over 1.3 million jobs, an 8% increase, outpacing U.S-wide job growth of 6% in the same period.

The report is an annual update of statewide GHG emissions based on state, regional, and federal data sources, as well as facility-specific information from California’s Mandatory GHG Reporting Program (MRR). The GHG Inventory includes both emissions covered by cap and trade and the remaining 20% of emissions outside the program. Although the GHG Inventory report does not distinguish between emissions within and outside cap and trade, the latest MRR report shows that both categories of emissions fell in 2016, suggesting that California’s multi-pronged approach to emissions reductions is working.

The earlier, the better

Global warming is caused by the cumulative emissions that are present in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide can stay in the atmosphere for more than a century, so earlier emissions reductions mean there are fewer years for those tons of carbon to have a warming impact on our climate. So beating the 2020 target is important for the atmosphere, but also gets us off to a good start to meet the even more ambitious 2030 target.

Where California’s reductions are coming from

The electric power sector is responsible for about 16% of the state’s 2016 emissions, and accounts for over 85% of gross reductions. Relative to 2015, total sector emissions fell 18%, while emissions from in-state power generation fell 15% and imported electric power emissions dropped 22%. CARB analysis attributes these reductions to growth in utility-scale renewables, as well as rooftop solar generation.

Hydropower also generated larger amounts of electricity than usual due to heavy rainfall in 2016. Small reductions came from industry (a 2% sector-wide drop) and agriculture (1% sector-wide).
Although not enough to fully counteract power sector decreases, some sectors’ emissions increased in 2016. California’s 2016 transportation emissions—the largest source of GHGs in the state—increased by about 2%, continuing the sector’s trend of slowly rising emissions since 2014. Emissions from commercial and residential activities grew by 4%, but account for less than a tenth of total state emissions.

Looking ahead

Given current emissions reductions, the state can start to look forward to its more ambitious 2030 target of getting emissions 40% below 1990 levels. The state’s 2017 “Scoping Plan,” which EDF supported, lays out a comprehensive plan for how to approach this target. All the signs are positive right now and if additional measures are needed to meet state requirements for 2030, there is still plenty of time to pursue those.

California is clearly demonstrating that smart, market-based policy helps us meet targets faster and more cheaply than originally envisioned. California is growing its GDP and adding jobs faster than the national average, and cutting carbon even faster than we expected. This creates a strong foundation for the even more dramatic transition California needs to reach its next goal in 2030.
In the coming decades, the world must get on track for deep emissions reductions and a dramatic transformation to a cleaner economy. California is helping to blaze the trail to that future by demonstrating once again that meeting ambitious climate targets is possible while maintaining a thriving economy.

Posted in Carbon Markets, Greenhouse Gas Emissions / Comments are closed