Provincial Climate Summitry: Day One
Governor Schwarzenegger kicked off his second Global Climate Summit Wednesday in Los Angeles–and "global" is certainly the emphasis. The three-day conference features panelists from more than 70 states, provinces and countries who are discussing "subnational" strategies to cut carbon emissions. (That's the policy wonk term for regional, state and provincial governments).
Events like these are at risk of being feel-good political meet-and-greets, but I spoke with Louis Blumberg of The Nature Conservancy, who believes that the partnerships created at the last climate summit have borne fruit in the past year. Blumberg is part of a deforestation working group made up of five Brazilian states, two provinces in Indonesia and three states in the U.S. They're working on carbon accounting techniques for forestry projects–or in carbon parlance, REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation).
Expect more partnership announcements from the rest of the summit. The first signed this week came from California and Mexico, who announced a partnership to protect Monarch Butterfly habitat in Mexico through reforestation. California forests are also getting some attention. The Governor also announced a deal with the largest private forest owner in California, Sierra Pacific Industries, to produce carbon credits from its forestry projects.
Still, for all the state-level dialogue, national climate news stole the show. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson appeared just after the Governor to announce a proposed rule to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from large power plants and refineries. And in Washington, Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry released a national climate bill in the Senate (see Craig Miller's post for more on that).
The Governor took it all in stride, reminding the audience that California piloted many of the policies the national government is now considering. "That's how powerful states and regions are," said Schwarzenegger. "We really are the laboratories for the national governments. That's where the action is."
Japan's Climate Plan: Too Ambitious?
KQED's Los Angeles Bureau Chief and frequent Climate Watch contributor Rob Schmitz is spending six weeks in Japan, as part of the Abe Fellowship for Journalists. In the weeks to come he'll file a series of special reports on Japan's extraordinary strides in energy efficiency–and what we might learn from them.
Saturday night, on my way home from an interview, I witnessed one of the more interesting orchestrated movements of humanity the world has to offer. I shot this video when I was changing trains at Shibuya station, one of Tokyo's busiest. The intersection shows how well Japan engineers pedestrian movement–but how well will it engineer its residents' greenhouse gas emissions?
On Monday, I attended the Asahi World Environment Forum, where all the bigwigs on climate change were in attendance (including Yvo de Boer and Rajendra Pachauri, among others). The surprise visitor was Japan's Prime Minister-elect Yukio Hatoyama.
Hatoyama makes his climate change pledge. Photos: Rob Schmitz
He told a packed house that Japan will aim to reduce its greenhouse gases by 25% from 1990 levels by 2020.
"In my personal opinion, that's impossible," Hidetoshi Nakagami told me last week. Nakagami is President of the Jyukankyo Research Institute and holds a coveted seat on the advisory committee to Japan's powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, or METI. "Hatoyama's pledge is pure politics," he said. "It's not practical, it's not possible, and there's not enough time."
Nakagami is not a pessimist. He played a large role in creating Japan's very successful Top Runner program, a 1997 policy that searches for the most efficient model of any given electrical appliance and then makes that model the industry standard, requiring other companies to adhere to it when making new models of the same appliance. The program was one of Japan's most ambitious energy efficiency measures, and Nakagami had to fight against Japan's largest companies in order to help craft the policy into law.
While Nakagami would like to see a one-quarter reduction in greenhouse gases from 1990 levels in the next decade, he says it'll cost the average Japanese dearly. When former Prime Minister Taro Aso pledged to cut Japan's greenhouse gases by 15% of 2005 levels, Nakagami's institute estimated that the effort would cost each Japanese household, on average, 70,000 yen–a little over USD $700–a year. Even that, says Nakagami, would be a tall order in this economy.
In the end, Hatoyama may not fill this order. His historic pledge, which during his campaign, seemed to have no strings attached to it, now has an important caveat. At Monday's forum, he told the audience that Japan will embark on this journey as long as other major countries also set similar ambitious targets.
Japan's future hanging in the balance.
After the forum concluded, I walked outside into Tokyo's rush hour: pedestrians everywhere, taxis speeding by me. I stopped at a Shinto shrine built among enormous glass skyscrapers. In front stood an Omikuji shrine, where believers tie a paper copy of their fortune, with hopes that it'll come true. Hundreds of paper fortunes rattled in the hot, summer wind. I wondered if one of them was Hatoyama's.
Can There Be This Much Climate News?
"Reports to the Contrary" by Chester Arnold
Some weeks it seems like KQED could fill up its entire "news hole" with climate-related stories (thank goodness we don't). Last week was a prime example.
Monday: A keynote speaker at U.C. Berkeley's annual Energy Symposium said that we need a "Fed" for energy policy. John Hofmeister, a former executive at Shell Oil and founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, told the lunch crowd that the only way to overcome the current two-year "policy cycle" (the length of a congressional term) is with an autonomous policy group like the Federal Reserve Board, which can take a longer view.
Tuesday: PG&E announced a massive new solar power initiative (it was brought to my attention this week that no news story is complete these days without the word "massive"–at least when there's no opportunity to use "deadly"). If approved by state regulators, the project will provide 500 megawatts of photovoltaic energy by 2015. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the plan is that instead of, say, taking over huge tracts of the Mojave, the project will rely heavily on "solar infill;" making use of property already owned by the company, where they can conveniently access the grid.
Wednesday: Senator Barbara Boxer chaired a hearing of the Energy and Public Works Committee to update members on the latest climate science. They heard testimony from four experts, including Christopher Field of Stanford, who essentially said things are worse than you think. Ranking minority member James Inhofe of Oklahoma seized the moment to decry a $6.7 trillion "climate bailout," a reference to upcoming federal climate legislation and costs associated with an aggressive plan to fight global warming. You can watch the entire two-and-a-half hour webcast for the gory details.
And of course also on Wednesday, the Coen Brothers rolled out their TV ad for The Reality Coalition, assailing the concept of "clean coal."
Thursday: The California Air Resources Control Board rolled out new regulations to control some of the lesser known (but highly potent) greenhouse gases, including sulfur hexaflouride, used in the manufacture of computer chips. CARB says a pound of it has the same atmospheric warming potential as ten metric tons of CO2. The board also unveiled a new drought page on its website.
Friday: The Governor issued the latest in a series of drought declarations, this one proclaiming a state of emergency and called on cities to reduce their water use by 20%.
And this week wasn't all that unusual.
Monday, another week begins with the winter's third survey of the Sierra snowpack. While recent storms will no doubt have raised the water content from last month's 61% of normal, it should be something of an anticlimax, especially given that the Governor didn't wait for the numbers to make his drought declaration last week.
Megadose of Cli-Sci on Public Radio Friday
Just in case you can't get enough climate science these days, public radio outlets doled out double-dose today.
Two recent climate studies were highlighted on KQED's Forum program today. Host Dave Iverson invited me to join him, along with UC Berkeley researcher Inez Fung, author of a new study on seasons shifting from rising temperatures, and Phil Van Mantgem, who led a new USGS study on the alarming rise in tree mortality across the western U.S.
Van Mantgem then popped up on NPR's Science Friday, followed by New York Times correspondent Andrew Revkin, author of the widely followed Dot Earth blog, who responded to recent polling on changing attitudes toward climate change.
Podcasts of both programs are available at their respective websites (linked above).
This coming week, we'll begin our two-part series on methane's contribution to global warming. Part One airs on The California Report on Monday morning, followed by Part Two a week later. Part One examines where methane comes from and why regulators are looking at it with new concern. In Part Two, we'll visit a dairy farm near Modesto, where methane from cow manure is being captured and turned into electric power and steam–but not without considerable expense and frustration with regional air & water quality regulators.
Science Reporting Imperiled?
New York Times writer Andrew Revkin seems to have struck a nerve with his recent post about the apparent demise of science journalism in the mainstream media. The comments are pouring in and from what I'm reading there, the audience for this kind of reporting is devoted, even if it does too often fly under the radar of programmers and editors.
I'm pleased to observe that so far, at least, public broadcasters seem to be bucking the trend. Here at KQED, the science/environmental multimedia initiative Quest is already well established and the funding commitment we have for Climate Watch should keep us afloat for the foreseeable future.
It would appear that the erosion of science coverage in the media is a mirror image of what's happening at the climate policy level. With the world's economy in a tailspin, there's a sense among many policymakers that there are bigger fish to fry than coping with the longer-term effects of climate change. Some would counter that there are few "bigger fish" than the ability of the Earth to support human life but hey, that's not scheduled to end tomorrow and maybe your job is.
Whatever the state of the economy, responsible coverage of science is a crucial element–perhaps more so than ever–in maintaining an informed public, which in turn can set priorities accordingly.
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