Climate: public opinion

Yesterday's post ended with the hope that experts’ reports on climate change, together with more and more peoples’ direct experience with its effects though more and more dramatic weather patterns, might finally affect public opinion and so push political decision-makers towards real action.

After writing that, I went looking to see what survey data might show.  I’ll keep looking, but the first stuff I found wasn’t exactly reassuring.  This Gallup poll, published March 18, 2014, reports that fewer people now than in 2001 think human actions are responsible for changes in the environment.  The whole timeline deserves attention, but this is still the basic finding.  Depressing.

Climate: sadness and frustration

Is there anything sadder than the regular news about changes in our climate?  The natural world is no longer natural.  Our actions, especially pumping the atmosphere full of CO2 from cars and power plants, have, to say the least, badly disrupted things.  And recent findings of the National Climate Assessment tell us it will get worse.  More glaciers melting, higher sea levels, more droughts, more torrential rains and flooding.

Is there anything more frustrating and disheartening that the collective failure to stop this?  Certainly, the President is now using regulatory authorities under existing legislation to reduce CO2 emissions.  But there are limits to how much he can accomplish this way and no one expects any new authority from the Congress.  Meanwhile, opponents of climate action cry that these regulations are “a war on coal” and promise opposition in every way possible.

Can we hope that reports like this, along with regular news of climatic disasters (we can’t call them “natural disasters” anymore), will change public views and be translated into political action?
We can only hope — and push wherever we can.

Multinationals and climate change

Washington DC is suffering through the second deep freeze this month.  Nighttime temperatures are in the single digits and teens.  I have the basement shower on constant drip because the pipes are well-enough insulated and could freeze if the water weren't moving, however slowly, through the pipes.  Even so I know the planet is getting warmer.

The New York Times had encouraging news the other day when it reported that this view is now shared by several large multinational companies like Coca-Cola and Nike.  These, and other businesses, are making adjustments on their own and pushing governments to do more.  And several conservative economists, like Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former advisor to Senator John McCain, are supporting a carbon tax.

It's enough to keep me reading the political news. 

Building up protections

Give New York credit for its efforts to learn from last year's Hurricane Sandy.  Less a year after the storm that causing more than $19 billion in damage, New York City, following the State, has now announced proposals aimed at reducing risks of similar damage in future storms. 
 
Last Tuesday, NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg, described plans to protect vulnerable buildings along the city's 520-mile floodplain.  The proposals including modifying new and existing buildings to reinforce foundations, as well as raise the levels of critical equipment.  They also include proposals to build a system of flood walls, levees, and bulkheads at critical points around the city.  The total cost is estimated at $20 billion, although most expect it to go higher as measures would be implemented.

As I noted the other day, New York City currently has nearly 400,000 people living and working within its 100-year flood plain (which these days are often more like 50-year flood plains).  Generally, the mayor's proposals are aimed at protecting those residents, and in addition, allowing for that number to double over the next 30 years or so.

What's more, the proposals include one seemingly head-scratching idea to use new residential and office development as a means of protecting against storm surge.  The report describes a project the mayor referred to as Seaport City, a complex of apartments and office buildings to be built on landfill extending out from the shoreline below the Brooklyn Bridge.  Quite possibly I'm missing something, but it seems that, while the new development might protect existing territory along that part of the East Side, the new developments would themselves become the at-risk, exposed buildings. 

I know New York City is very different from coastal areas on Long Island where Governor Cuomo has proposed paying landowners to give up their houses and permit the coast to return to something like a natural protective system of dunes and marshes.  I suspect that there's little, if any, of the New York City floodplain where anything similar would be possible.  Still, as one researcher observed, you "can't guarantee protection for infrastructure that is in vulnerable locations."  Yet Mayor Bloomberg's proposals seem prepared to try. 

I'm hoping an interesting debate will follow since there's a lot I need to learn.

Waterfront property

What is it about living near water that's so attractive?  In the past it was easier to understand.  Waterways were sources of power for milling and early manufacture.  And oceans and rivers were transportation routes.  People lived near water probably without thinking too much about it.  They were simply living close to their work.  But why now when we have so many alternatives to water power and water-based transportation?  Nearly everywhere it seems developers push to offer more waterfront residences, local governments anxious about tax revenues approve them, and and people buy them, both as first and second homes.

And then come hurricanes and floods.  But somehow these disasters seem to have little effect on the waterfront development machine.  These thoughts come from reading a couple of recent New York Times articles.  One, on high water levels and flooding along the Danube in Austria and Hungary, noted that part of the reason for record high water levels was the reduced ability of river flood plains to absorb it. 

A Budapest neighborhood,  June 9, 2013. © Reuters/Laszlo Balogh

It cited a study from the Hungarian national water authority reporting that "the decreased drainage capacity of the Hungarian flood protection system was due largely to increased building on former floodplains along rivers."

The other was an article today on new warnings of risks posed to New york City from climate change, especially rising sea levels.  The City report noted that already some 398,000 people live within the 100-year flood plain.  But, rather than seeing that number reduced, the report expects it will more than double over the next 35 years or so.  It seems that mermaids' fatal siren songs are now sung by real estate developers.

Venice inundated

I touched on the problem of large cruise ships invading Venice once before.  These floating multi-story hotels, crowding into the Giudecca Canal, bringing thousands of passengers up close to the Doge's Palace and the Campanile in Piazza San Marco, are part of a larger complex of issues connected to how to save the city from tourism and from rising sea waters.  

© Andrea Pattaro/AFP

 Anna Somers Cocks, in a recent issue of The New York Review of Books, discusses all of this.  It's an excellent and unsettling article.

In 1987, Italy sought, and was granted, designation of Venice as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  As part of the designation agreement, Italy promised to develop and implement a management plan for the city and a buffer zone around it.  The French chateaux in the Loire Valley are protected by such a plan.  Only in November of last year did the Venice City Council publish a plan, 25 years after the original World Heritage designation.  Cocks, a former chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund and now the editor of The Art Newspaper, is deeply critical of what they produced for failing to address the critical threats to Venice.  Without significant changes in governance and political will, she fears that the city will be overwhelmed by tourists and rising sea water.

Climate change negotiations

I want to call attention to a paper just published by Marco Grasso and J. Timmons Roberts in which the authors propose a possible way forward for climate change negotiations.  The paper is published in Brookings' policy paper series and is available here.  I would guess that the authors hope the paper will be discussed at this week's meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) in Washington, D.C.

Grasso, who's on the faculty of the University of Milan-Bicocca, and Roberts, who's at Brown University, are not optimistic about the current U.N. process, by which 195 countries are supposed to produce a new agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2015.  Generally, they see an impasse between the U.S. and developed economies on one side and developing economies, especially China and Brazil, on the other.  Each side is unwilling to commit to reducing emissions unless the other side also does so. 

From what I read, this seems entirely accurate.  So Grasso and Roberts are looking for "a fair and feasible way to break the impasse."  The way past, they say, depends on "determining a country's fair share of the required emissions reductions in a way that is politically feasible."  No small matter, obviously.

But they propose an interesting, and for me, new way of assessing a country's emissions.  They argue for a "consumption-based," as opposed to a "production-based," method of measuring emissions.  A consumption-based approach "measures the amount of emissions associated with the final consumption of goods and services, and it is calculated by adding to territorial emissions those generated for producing imported goods and services and subtracting those associated with exported goods and services."  Apparently, recent technical improvements now make it possible to calculate a country's emissions in this way.  A purely production-based accounting method, they maintain, penalizes work-shop countries like China and India that produce goods massively consumed in Europe and the United States.

They favor discussion of this approach within the MEF, as opposed to the U.N., because it's a smaller group (12 countries plus 27 from the E.U.) and yet their green house gas emissions still account for 81 percent of the total emissions during the 1990 - 2010 period.

Climate change: EPA and Energy nominations

In his inaugural speech President Obama promised action to address climate change.  Monday he announced the nominations of two individuals who could take the lead in doing that.  These are Gina McCarthy, named to direct the EPA, and Ernest Moniz to be Secretary of Energy.  The two nominations require Senate confirmation.

Both agencies offer opportunities to reduce carbon emissions by means of existing authority.  With Republican opposition in the House, this may be the Administration's best chance to do something.  Later this year, the EPA is expected to propose emissions standards for new power plants.  It could then give its attention to the much more difficult and politically sensitive matter of standards for existing plants.  At Energy, the Secretary is expected to issue new efficiency standards for household appliances.  More problematic may be his proposals for new nuclear power plants and support for gas production through hydraulic fracturing ("fracking").

Both nominees seem to be highly capable individuals and experienced in administrative politics.  And I wish them well.  But I'm not expecting really dramatic action.  The President himself sent a mixed message at the announcement of the nominations when he talked about "making sure that we're investing in American energy, that we're doing everything we can to combat the threat of climate change, that we're going to be creating jobs and economic opportunity . . ."  As the New York Times pointed out, dealing with climate change and promoting domestic energy independence are not necessarily complementary goals.  Plus, whatever Ms. McCarthy and Mr. Moniz propose, even under statutory authorities, there's the matter of the House Republicans who will look for every means to oppose and block.  Maybe the Democrats will manage to retake the House next year.  But even if they do, I'd be surprised if four years from now we'll be able to say that the U.S. had finally adopted serious policies to cut carbon emissions.  I only hope I'm wrong.

New York proposes buyouts in hurricane zones

Andrew Cuomo is keeping busy.  Right after getting important gun control legislation passed, the New York governor is back with a proposal to protect the state's coastal areas from the next Hurricane Sandy.

Today's New York Times reports on his idea to buy up homes severely damaged or destroyed by the hurricane.  He would also offer financial incentives to homeowners in vulnerable areas to sell, even if they'd suffered little or no damage.  The state would then clear the purchased land, creating dunes, wetlands, or parks as natural barriers against future storms.

Based on estimates of the number who would sell, the state places the cost of the program at about $400 million.  A substantial part of this would come from the $51 billion in the recently-enacted Sandy relief legislation.  Before anything can happen, the program will require approval from federal housing officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  When a Times reporter asked about the governor's ideas, they said it was too soon to respond.

Certainly, there will be other hurdles besides those in Washington DC.  But the governor's idea seem to make enormous sense.  According to the Times, people in affected areas have responded in mixed ways.  Some are enthusiastic and hope the buyout program is implemented.  Others say their ties to the coast are too strong and they'll never leave.

We'll see.  I haven't looked at the results of similar programs in other places, but I'd guess that presented with concrete offers, substantial numbers of homeowners will sell.  And what are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and other Atlantic Coast states coming up with?

Infrastructure

In the early 1980s, when I worked for the National League of Cities,
we heard regularly that too little was being done to replace and modernize urban infrastructure -- roads, bridge, water systems, public transit, etc.  Thirty years later we hear pretty much the same thing.  Is this a continuing theme from the collective infrastructure lobby or is it a real problem that's getting worse?  My guess is that there's at least some truth to the former suspicion.  But my every-day experience with traffic, with electrical power failures, and with breakdowns on the Washington subway system tells me the infrastructure problem is real.

And William Galston, at Brookings, has gathered several recent reports that back this up.  He cites one with comparative country-by-country rankings showing that the U.S. ranks "18th in railroads, 19th in ports, 20th in roads, 30th in airports, and 33rd in the quality of our electrical system."  For a country claiming to be the world's leading economic power this is not good.

I'd like to think that federal, state, and local levels of government, all of them with public support, would be responding.  How can businesses operate efficiently and compete in world markets if things like deteriorating utilities and transportation systems keep raising costs?  Galston cites one report estimating that "in 2010, Americans spent a total of 4.8 billion hours stuck in traffic, wasting 1.9 billion gallons of fuel, at a total cost of $101 billion."   And from what I can tell these reports don't even include the challenges of adapting to changing climatic conditions, the kinds of massive infrastructure projects now being talked about to protect cities along coastal areas.

But at every levels of government here there's a political party dug in and insisting forever that the public sector should be shrinking, not getting larger; that taxes and public spending should be always lower.  I can only hope that some of the progressive winds apparently bringing changes in other policy areas can have an effect here, too.

A few details on Obama's climate agenda

My impression as I watched the President's inaugural speech yesterday was confirmed today by the newspaper of record: Although he touched on several policy issues, the one he stressed most was climate change and environmental protection.  The New York Times article also suggests that the White House must have given reporters some background after the speech on what the President is intending.

The article reports he’ll work through executive powers rather than propose any new legislation.  Republicans, who generally deny any human responsibility for climate change, effectively make any legislative action impossible.  So far, according to the Times, the administration's climate action will have three components.
 
1. New EPA regulations to reduce emissions from existing coal-fired power plants.  The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that effective regulations could reduce these emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
 
2. New regulations to improve energy efficiency in household appliances, prosaic items like refrigerators, dishwashers, washers and dryers.  It will be interesting to see how this develops.  Apparently, during the previous administration, the Department of Energy was not meeting statutory requirements for updating standards.  The DOE was finally forced to act after a court settlement in 2006.  By early last year, the department had issued 17 new or revised standards; it was due to have another 11 completed by now.  We’ll have to see if the administration's plans in this sector refer to these 11 sets of standards, or whether they’ll be going further.
 
3. Department of Defense energy efficiency and use of renewables.  The DOD is among the largest energy consumers in the country.  Greater energy efficiency, of course, means financial savings.  Potentially, the department could also become a model for other federal agencies and the private sector.

This would seem a pretty modest agenda.  There is, for example, no talk of something like a carbon tax.  But even these measures are virtually certain to get congressional Republicans worked up.  They can be expected to look for ways to block the regulations and will probably make it as difficult as they can to name a new EPA director.  And the power plant regulations will probably be challenged in court.

Obama action on climate change?

I liked the President's inaugural speech.  More than liked, I was moved at several points.  It was a relatively brief speech and took force from that I think.  He spoke of equity and equality, of the need for collective effort to solve collective problems, of the country's commitment to provide security and dignity.

Different people certainly will remember this or that reference or phrase.  But what especially struck me were his references to climate change and environmental protection.

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

Did he finally commit to action on this front?  It would appear so.  Now the question is what form that commitment takes.  Preparation for the next round of climate negotiations?  A carbon tax?  Federal support for infrastructure adaptation to future Hurricane Sandys?  New support for renewable energy technologies?  I'm hoping, whatever they are, the proposals will be significant -- measures that put the administration out there in a forward position.  He'll likely not get everything, but the proposals can be part of saying this is what Democrats are for the future.

Panamax ports and hurricanes

We're now talking about what to do to protect U.S. coasts from the next Hurricane Sandy.  At the same time, all along the East Coast and the Gulf, port cities are, or will soon be, investing millions of dollars to dredge harbors and enlarge cargo handling capacity.  All of this is to get ready to handle so-called Panamax ships after the Panama Canal enlargement is completed in about two years.

Norfolk, Virginia, is one of the East Coast ports said ahead of the other and already prepared to handle the new generation of super-sized ships.  But what do we make of the fact that Norfolk has also been identified as one of the five cities most vulnerable to hurricane damage.  How will one of the new 14-story high cargo-handling cranes stand up (literally) in a Sandy-sized hurricane?

I'm not necessarily against large transportation infrastructure projects.  I always like to read about new rail and mass transit projects, for example.  But here, is seems, is a case of immense public and private investment in places that may face serious environmental risks.  New York, Norfolk, Miami, New Orleans, and others ports are exposed to ocean storms that are predicted to be even more serious as sea levels rise and storm surges push farther inland.  There might be some attention to local environmental impacts -- the effect of dredging on local habitats, for example.  But so far I haven't seen evidence that changed weather conditions are part of the planning for these bigger ports. 

2012 was the hottest

It's not awful, tragic news like the murder of children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut.  But it should have the same mobilizing effect.  I'm referring to the news in today's New York Times, and I'm certain in lots of other papers, that 2012 was the hottest year in U.S. history.  The Times reports that the average temperature for all of last year was 55.3 degrees; it was up over the previous record, not just by a little bit, but by a full degree.  This is scary.  And, meanwhile, the temperatures in Washington, D.C. this week are in the 50s, with 60s and even 70 degrees predicted for the weekend.  It will be a good chance to get out for a long bike ride.  But I really would rather not be doing that in January.  It's weird.

Are we likely to hear anything from the Administration?  Will the President, or anyone else, take this report as a teaching moment to start talking about climate change?  Not clear.  Admittedly, Obama has been busy lately and is lining up for multiple confrontations with Republicans (and possibly some members of his own party).  But he's talked about putting climate change on the Administration's action agenda and this news, while it has peoples' attention would seem like a good time to do that.  The Guardian has a story up reporting that Obama could be considering some kind of "climate summit."  Here's hoping.

Carbon taxes in Ireland

Friday’s New York Times includes an excellent reminder of the benefits of carbon taxes.  Elisabeth Rosenthal’s article reports on Ireland’s experience since it adopted such a tax in 2008.  As she describes it, the tax on each type of fossil fuel varies according to its carbon dioxide emissions.  Similarly, new cars are taxed according to the vehicle’s emissions.  Also, households are charged for any trash not recycled.

Measuring the law’s effect is a little tricky because Ireland was in recession for part of the time since 2008.  But it appears to be having the intended effect.  In 2011, when the economy grew at least a little, emissions were down by 6.7 percent.  Overall, they are down by 15 percent since 2008.  Financially, there’s no doubt about its positive effects.  In the last three years, including 2012, the tax has generated one billion euros (about $1.3 billion) and been a major factor in reducing the country’s budget deficit.

A single measure that both cuts greenhouse gas emissions and puts lots of money in public accounts; you’d think you’d hear more about it in the U.S., more than the occasional NYT article.  But from what I can tell, apart from discussions among some economists -- left and right it should be noted -- and environmentalists, there’s mostly silence.  Republicans and conservatives are generally trying to ensure that discussion of this, along with anything else related to taxes, is effectively banned.  It’s their own version of political correctness.

The Rosenthal article does point out that the law's success in Ireland didn't do anything to help its original sponsors.  The government enacting the taxes lost power in last year’s elections.  Nonetheless, the tax law remains in place.

I wonder what it will take to open up the possibility for a similar program here?  

Governance for the Arctic?

It's as if two French environmentalists just read the article in the current New Yorker on Arctic Ocean shipping.  In an op-ed piece in today’s Le Monde they argue the need for new international arrangements to protect the Arctic.  The proposal comes from Jérôme Beilin and Nicolas Imbert who are, respectively, program director at Ateliers de la terre executive director of Green Cross France

Beilin and Imbert recognize that the Arctic ice cap is melting and, in the short term, there’s little we can do about it.  What we need to recognize, they argue, is that as the cap melts it’s opening up new shipping routes and new possibilities for mineral exploitation.  The U.S. Geologic Survey, they note, estimates that the newly open Arctic areas could contain a fifth of worldwide reserves of oil and gas.  Also, the newly accessible waters could eventually be handling a similar percentage of international maritime commerce.

Inevitably, this much human activity -- drilling, mining and shipping -- will have an impact on animal habitats and general environmental conditions.

Much of the debate at the moment, they say, is over national “exclusive economic zones,” (EEZ) a zone prescribed under the terms of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which can extend up to 200 nautical miles beyond a country’s coastline.  Certain proposals have advanced the idea that, to compensate for environmental impact, countries extracting resources from an EEZ be required to pay from five to seven percent of the value of these resources into a “green fund.”  Beilin and Imbert think the idea is “seductive,” but that the Arctic oceans need a more concrete structure of governance.  They propose enlarging the responsibilities of the International Seabed Authority and establishing regular scientific monitoring of Arctic conditions and sanctions applied to those violating agreed upon standards.  And they call for citizen mobilization on behalf of Arctic preservation.

Their proposals seem more than reasonable.  Can nations make progress in this area when they can't in the climate negotiations (i.e., Doha)?  I hope so.

Shipping through the Arctic

The Arctic Sea is opening up to shipping.  I’d heard a little about this, and now an article in this week’s New Yorker describes a voyage on this new transportation frontier.  If you don’t have a subscription, it’s worth buying this issue.  Last July, Keith Gessen travelled aboard a Danish ship carrying iron ore from Murmansk, Russia to Huanghua, China.  As he recounts the trip Gessen talks about life on the ship, the melting ice cap, the disruption of the habitat for fish and seals and polar bears, and the terrible new Chinese harbor.  In many ways it’s a relatively routine story of time aboard ship -- which is what makes it scary.

Doha 4

The Doha (Qatar) conference on climate change closed yesterday after negotiators stayed on an extra day trying to produce something that might justify their time and effort.  In the end, according to reports, they didn’t come up with much.  Basically, it seems participants adopted the strategy of second-rate soccer teams deciding to kick the ball down field and hope.

The conference ended with agreement only to maintain the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and to work to have a new agreement in place by 2015, which would take effect in 2020.  There was, however, no agreement at all on any details.  For example, on the issue loss and damage due to extreme weather, participants approved language calling for more financial and technical assistance to poorer countries, but remained silent on any mechanism to marshall and apply such aid.

I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised.  Extreme storms, like Hurricane Sandy in the U.S. and Typhoon Bopha in the Philippines, have killed large number of people and caused billions of dollars of damage.  Drought conditions in the American midlands and other places in the world are destroying crops and disrupting river transport.  More people, it seems, recognize the connection of these conditions to  warmer temperatures in the oceans and atmosphere.  Yet the effects of the 2008 economic crisis still hang over most countries, both industrialized and developing.  In the U.S. and Europe it’s hard for political leaders to talk about cutting fossil fuel use when they’re trying to stimulate economic growth and create new jobs.

Next year's meeting will be in Poland.

Hurricanes in the Mediterranean

As the oceans rise and warm up, Italy, like states and cities along the U.S. East Coast, is becoming aware of the increased threat of ocean-generated storms.  Up to now, the most violent storms it has had to face have been periodic tornados.  One, in fact, hit the unfortunate city of Taranto only a couple of weeks ago.

An article in today's La Repubblica reports that weather scientists in Europe, analyzing conditions in the Mediterranean, now think that warmer water is aggravating the intensity of storms and some of these may now deserve to be termed hurricanes.  With this in mind, Italian weather experts have reinterpreted several earlier storms.  For example, in 2006 one with wind of 145 km/hr (90 mph) did major damage in Salento, near the west coast, south of Salerno.  (A category one hurricane has winds of at least 119 km/h or 74 mph.)
 
The possibility of more such storms raises concerns for areas along the coasts.
For example, a hurricane-strength storm could return low-lying areas along the coasts, like the Agro Pontino south of Rome, to their former condition as marsh lands.  Like their colleagues in the  U.S., Italian analysts and engineers are just beginning to think about protective measures.

Fossil fuel subsidies in Italy

While Italy struggles to bring public revenues and expenditures into some kind of balance, Legambiente, the country's leading environmental organization, is suggesting it look hard at the public subsidies stimulating the use of fossil fuels.  Timed to coincide with the Doha meeting and with pending economic development legislation in Italy, the organization has just released a report on the extent of Italian public subsidies for fossil fuels.

The report refers to International Energy Agency estimates that, worldwide, governments provide a total of $630 billion in subsidies to agriculture, transportation, and the oil industry which in one way or another promote use of fossil fuels.  Just eliminating the subsidies -- without even talking about a carbon tax -- would do much to reduce their use.

In Italy, Legambiente estimates that direct public subsidies amount to 4.62 billion euros.  These go chiefly to trucking, energy utilities, and energy intensive businesses.  The organization estimates that another 4.59 billion euros in subsidies is provided for things like highway construction and oil and gas drilling.  The report notes that Minister of the Environment, Corrado Clini, is no record stating that these subsidies will be reduced.  On the other hand, the Minister of Economic Development, Corrado Passera, hasn't show any support for the idea.