Johanna Peace's Climate Chronicles

The international climate talks have repeatedly bogged down in disputes over transparency and verification, but on one issue, technology is offering a solution.

New forest monitoring technology from tech giants Google and Cisco is starting to come online, allowing detailed tracking of land-use changes, particularly deforestation. The technology combines satellite images, maps and current and historical data for analysis. One system is being designed as a "planetary skin" with a network of sensors across the region and scientists on the ground to raise alerts in time to take action.

The almost real-time monitoring these systems offer may be what world leaders need to lock down a deal on a key component of an international climate treaty: REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.

As federal cap-and-trade legislation stalls in the U.S. Senate and comes under international scrutiny in Copenhagen, California policymakers are moving forward with their own design for a carbon-capping strategy.

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) mandated that the state cut its emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, and then decrease emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

To reach those targets, policymakers plan to launch California's own state-based carbon-trading scheme in 2012, but some important details are still being worked out.

The first question is one that has also tied up policymakers in Washington: What is the most effective way to distribute the emission allowances that will eventually make up the state carbon trading market?

The answer recommended by a committee studying the allocations issue is very different than Washington’s. Rather than give away the majority of permits to polluters for free — the path Congress is using to win over votes from fossil fuel-heavy states — the committee recommends the permits be auctioned.

The increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the world's oceans is shifting fragile balances within marine ecosystems, and it could cause unpredictable changes for sea life ranging from corals to oysters to whales, scientists say.

One threat is from acidification — a chemical process that occurs when carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is absorbed into sea water, causing the water's pH level to drop.

As acidification increases, scientists now worry its effects on marine life may be more wide-ranging than previously predicted. In recent months, new threats to species and signs of shifting populations have raised alarm within the scientific community.

A wave of interest in tidal and ocean power is building in cities and boardrooms along the West Coast.

Just last week, San Francisco and Australian energy company BioPower Systems announced plans to study the feasibility of an ocean energy project five miles off the city’s coast. Leaders of the proposed Oceanside Wave Energy Project say it could provide as much as 100 MW to the city’s power grid by 2012.

Closer to shore, city officials and energy companies have been exploring potential tidal power sites in San Francisco Bay, hoping to harness the powerful currents that run beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

A preliminary permit for the San Francisco Bay Tidal Energy Project — the largest proposed project of its kind off the California coast, with a potential generating capacity of 10-30 MW — is currently pending before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). If granted, the three-year permit would allow Golden Gate Energy Company first-priority access to conduct feasibility research on the designated site in the Bay.

The two projects are among several dozen proposed to capture tidal and ocean wave energy up and down the West Coast, including sites in Alaska, Washington and Oregon. New hydrokinetic projects have also popped up inland along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, said FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller.

When we envision the solution to climate change, we expect it to come from a negotiating table — not a place of worship. But religion is emerging as an influential force in the climate movement.

It makes sense. The reverence for nature and for creation are basic tenets of almost every major religion, and estimates say over 85% of the world’s population subscribes to some faith.

Activists at the secular Alliance of Religions and Conservation and the United Nations Development Program believe this massive demographic — people of faith with an environmental conscience — has the potential to make a considerable impact in the global effort to curb climate change.

That’s why they’re helping world religions take the reins by designing five- to nine-year plans of action to address climate change.

“The world’s faiths joined together in this cause — if viewed in terms of sheer numbers of people — could become the planet’s largest civil society movement for change,” UNDP Assistant Secretary-General Olav Kjorven said when ARC’s initiative launched.

Read More

Bookmark/Search this post with:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• Add new comment

Colleges and universities have been leading American society on progressive issues for years, and they now must be the vanguard of a movement away from dependence on coal-generated power.

That’s the message university students will spread across campuses coast to coast on Tuesday during a national day of action organized by the Sierra Club Student Coalition's Campuses Beyond Coal campaign. Student organizers plan rallies and demonstrations at schools that run on coal.

Campuses Beyond Coal kicked off this month as a grassroots student movement urging university leaders to eliminate coal power in favor of alternative energy sources.

Ryan Doyle, lead campus organizer at University of Missouri, said students want concrete actions to clean up university power sources — and they want them soon. So far, college activists have held protests, launched media campaigns, and circulated petitions demanding a switch to clean power.

“Ideally, [our actions] would lead to a commitment and plan being made by the University to get off of coal quickly. Then, we would see these universities held accountable for these plans and follow through on them,” Doyle said.

But students are fighting a well-entrenched foe.

Electric vehicles held the spotlight at this week's Frankfort Auto Show, with Volkswagon, Daimler and Renault all announcing new EVs and Mercedes introducing a new plug-in hybrid. Along with Nissan's announcement that it intends to sell 150,000 Leaf electric cars in the United States by 2012, the news is raising high hopes for an electric auto industry on the rise.

But as this transportation technology hits the market in coming years, it will raise an interesting question for consumers: What do we do with that battery pack after it stops holding enough charge to power a car?

The auto industry aims to provide batteries that will last for the lifespan of the car—at least 10 to 15 years. But some experts predict that consumers will opt to replace their EV batteries with newer, better ones as the performance degrades.

“When we see some deterioration—when we’ve lost 20% of the battery’s capability in terms of power and energy content—then the question is, will customers accept that kind of deterioration? That’s pretty much our standard for functional end-of-life,” said Ted Miller, senior manager of energy storage strategy and research for Ford Motors.

So what exactly will happen to “spent” EV battery packs?

For decades, the American dream has been a suburban one: The detached, single-family home; the car (or two) in the driveway; the stereotypical white picket fence.

Now, reversing this pattern might be an important step toward averting climate change, according to a new Congressionally commissioned study by the National Research Council.

A spate of Pentagon reports and intelligence studies made headlines this summer for their common conclusion: Climate change is a real threat to national security.

Sounds like reason to get serious about reducing carbon emissions. But are America’s armed forces heeding their own word on the perils of climate change?

On the surface, yes. The military has set a goal of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2015, after a 2007 executive order by President Bush required federal agencies to reduce their energy intensity. The pressure is also on from an internal aim to get 25 percent of electricity from renewables by 2025.

According to Tad Davis, the Army's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, the military is fast developing a holistic strategy for greening its energy use.

“We’re looking at ways we can reduce consumption, increase accountability, seek more renewable sources of energy, and look at technologies that may give us better use of energy down the road,” he said.

Ashton Carter, the Pentagon’s head buyer of weapons and technology, agreed, telling a Center for Naval Analyses event earlier this year that cutting energy consumption and increasing efficiency are among his top priorities.

But it’s a massive carbon bootprint to shrink.

The UK has sought to position itself as a world leader in fighting climate change with a commitment to push emissions 34% below 1990 levels by 2020, a legally binding goal that's among the world's most ambitious targets. Last week, it unveiled a roadmap for making that happen.

In a July 15 white paper, the Department of Energy and Climate Change rolled out a raft of policies making up the UK's Low Carbon Transition Plan — an economy-wide strategy aiming to slash emissions and help the UK meet its five-year carbon budgets, goals it set in last year's Climate Change Act.

So how does the newest plan from across the pond stack up to the U.S. climate legislation currently before Congress?