Weekly Climate: July 6-10, 2009
by Stacy Feldman - Jul 11th, 2009
This week on SolveClimate, we looked at the start of climate change talks in the U.S. Senate and a hearing that suggested nuclear power could play a greater role in climate legislation, to the dismay of some clean energy advocacy groups.
We asked how the proposed federal Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), severely weakened by the U.S. House before it passed the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill, might get strengthened in the Senate.
But would an improved RES be enough to give the bill real teeth? Not according to NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who explained why the ACES bill was "no more fit to rescue our climate than a V-2 rocket was to land a man on the moon."
The hurdles to any climate bill passing the Senate remain huge. At least 15 Democrats from coal-reliant states are on the fence and likely to demand serious concessions for their votes, just as their counterparts did in the House. With that in mind, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pushed back the deadline for committee votes to Sept. 28 to allow more time to negotiate deals.
We analyzed how planet-cooking hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) have become one of the most important sleeper issues in the international climate arena and asked why White House policy on the issue is shrouded in secrecy (see also here, here and here).
With the G8 summit under way in Italy, Greenpeace activists were out in force. Dozens of activists occupied four coal-fired power plants in Italy, while another group draped a climate-action banner next to Lincoln's face on Mount Rushmore.
In other news, the Sierra Club celebrated its 100th victory in the fight to stop construction of new dirty coal plants in the United States. A number of green groups sued the federal government over Bush-approved plans for new transmission line corridors in the West that the groups say were drawn to carry power from coal plants rather than renewable energy. And insurance CEOs began calling on the industry to get proactive in preventing the destructive effects of climate change.
We tackled America's coming transition to a "smart" electrical grid. Question is, can competing smart grid models complement one another, or will infighting over standards, regulations and dollars waste more opportunity and time?
On the solar energy front, a new study showed how "Project Desertec" in the Sahara could deliver 240,000 jobs to cloudy Germany. Lux Research revealed that widespread "grid parity" for solar is probably a decade away, but it noted that some markets are already there. The key to solar reaching grid parity: sustained government subsidies.
We spotlighted a seldom-discussed global warming solution: climate-friendly land use, which includes drawing CO2 back into the soil where it belongs.
We also profiled Terry Tamminen, the world's one-man climate fixer.
Mike Tidwell, executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, delivered a stark message to President Obama about the president's focused on health care reform: Climate change is the ultimate public health issue.
And Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, had his own words of wisdom for the president. He called on the administration's farm team, headed to the Midwest on a summer listening tour, to engage rural America in an exchange of ideas about its role in a clean energy economy. "In his climate and energy policies, Obama is sowing the seeds for that new era of rural prosperity," he writes, "but it will be up to rural America to bring in the harvest."
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Hansen and Romm
I think Jim Hansen is one of the most important Americans of all time.
Unfortunately, his most recent article on ACES doesn't clearly demarcate his basic, very well-founded, criticism of the bill from his citing of questionable talking points.
Unfortunately (again), this conflation is strangely perpetuated by Joe Romm at Climate Progress in his criticism of Hansen, rendering the criticism much less helpful than it might have been.
Romm repeatedly attacks straw-Hansens.
Below, I've listed a few of my concerns with Romm's criticism.
1. That the EPA would have difficulty enacting a CO2 cap and trade without Congress is a red herring. Hansen did not suggest it wouldn’t have difficulty doing that. In fact, he didn't say anything on THAT topic, at all.
2. The EPA complaint is NOT "pointless" for someone who believes we need a moratorium on new coal now, irrespective of what that person believes about the timeframe for phasing out existing coal. Even with all its provisions, ACES is less of a moratorium on new coal than EPA action under the CAA or the threat of such action. So, this is NOT a “pretty pointless complaint” for Hansen.
3. I don’t believe Romm knows how much old coal the Obama EPA may or may not, would or would not, phase out, but to claim that it would never have phased out all over the next two decades, is a red herring. Hansen was not claiming it would, and his complaint is not pointless simply because he believes this phase-out must happen.
4. There is no “this” myth as in “This ‘EPA can solve the problem on its own’ myth,” in Hansen’s article, so even though such a myth may figure elsewhere, listing it as a myth here, i.e., as one of the myths in the sense of “Hansen’s attack is filled with myths” seems to muddy the waters. Hansen did not suggest that the EPA "can solve the problem on its own” (whatever that means here).
5. Romm "certainly agree[s] with NRDC that the bill should be changed to allow EPA to retain its CAA authority"? To be clearer and more courteous, Romm could have written, “I certainly agree with HANSEN that the bill should be changed to allow EPA to retain its CAA authority.” The NRDC toss-in seems odd. Frankly, it does not seem helpful for Romm to inflate the number of points on which he and Hansen disagree.
6. Hansen claims the bill sets meager targets. Romm agrees. He then points out that the targets were, thanks to Bush, never gonna be what they should be. That does not explain why they are SO meager, which is what Hansen is on about. So complaining about how Hansen is complaining about Obama/Waxman/Markey when he should be complaining about Bush is to obscure what Hansen is on about right there. Hansen is not complaining about the targets not being what they should be, which is indeed, in part, Bush's fault; he's complaining about the targets being what they are, which is very far from where they should be. Bush is a very smelly herring when the question is, "Why are the targets SO weak?"
7. Hansen does not “pretend” that Congress was going to pass a carbon fee that would phase out coal emissions over the next two decades. To the extent that his article implies that any policies mentioned would actually accomplish this essential step, surely it only implies that the COMBINATION of all the policies mentioned would do it, not one of them, alone. I’m afraid Romm may be right that we will not phase out coal in a couple of decades, but he can’t show that Hansen is wrong--supposing Hansen believes this combination could do the trick--by convincingly claiming that each of the measures Hansen advocates, when taken IN ISOLATION, will not do the job. The rhetoric about Hansen “pretending” is unhelpful.
8. A carbon tax would “lack the targets needed to move the international negotiations forward”? How is it that no one is complaining about Europe’s targets, proposed and otherwise, on the basis of 60% of the emissions NOT being covered by the cap? Somehow Europe manages to engage in international negotiations just fine with TARGETS separate from a CAP. This point goes as criticism for the Krugman passage, too!! What’s with the false dichotomy between carbon tax and targets? Caps and targets are not the same thing!
9. Hansen believes fossil interests are driving the legislative process. Romm claims industry analysis suggests higher projected allowance price than does his own analysis. The 2020 targets are too weak. The Bush factor only explains why they are not as strong as they need to be, not why they are so weak. Hansen certainly seems right that industry is driving the specific weakness of the 2020 targets. And that weak US 2020 targets are, in part, driving/allowing-for, for instance, weak Japanese 2020 targets. And, obviously, industry is driving the take-away-EPA-CAA-authority part of the legislation.
10. I have no comment about Hansen reporting on Shapiro's claims.
Romm performs an invaluable service. But so does Jim Hansen, and Romm owes Hansen and us and himself fewer fallacies in this criticism, just as Hansen owes it to Romm and us and himself not to mix basic well-founded criticisms with (citing of) speculative points, without much clearer demarcation.
Thank you.
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