Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
March 2008
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
The close relationship between the advocacy-oriented Pennsylvania Environmental Council and the Center for Climate Strategies, which has managed global warming commissions (it claims as an “objective consultant”) for governors in several states, has been well established. Statements from their 2006 Form 990 tax return explains that PEC formed Enterprising Environmental Solutions, Inc. (where CCS is housed) to “carry out their non-regulatory agenda.” The tax return also explains, “EESI has its own board of directors and is controlled by PEC, since PEC is the only member of EESI.” Also, EESI/CCS exists to “advance, support and promote the purposes of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council….”
Now here’s the latest revelation uncovered in e-mail correspondence obtained from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which was sent by Kimberlea Konowitch, who is identified as the senior accountant for EESI/CCS. Her email address, like others who handle administrative work for EESI/CCS, is identified by a pecpa.org domain. But here’s the kicker, in your average legal disclaimer (“only intended for the recipient,” blah, blah…) that you find at the end of emails: “The Pennsylvania Environmental Council and any of its subsidiaries each reserve the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks.”
So now EESI/CCS is recognized as an official subsidiary of PEC. And the continued insistence by CCS executive director Tom Peterson that advocates for PEC don’t work on these state projects, and that EESI/CCS does not have an advocacy history, that they are objective, becomes more laughable each time he repeats it. CCS’s only reason for existing is to promote PEC’s agenda.
While we’re talking about Kansas: CCS has been hired by KDHE to do its greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which always precedes the creation of a climate commission in a state and then the hiring of CCS to run the process. In a document that justifies hiring CCS without going through a competitive bidding process, they are praised for having a “proven track record” and are described as “an objective facilitator and expert party.” That’s true if your greatest passion is reducing greenhouse gas emissions without concern for destroying the economy.
France, one of the world's largest producers of atomic energy, must act fast to avoid a shortage of skilled staff to run its reactors and win a role at the heart of a global nuclear revival.
The appointment of former foreign secretary Shyam Saran as the PM’s special envoy on climate change is a signal of a government looking ahead to a new administration in the US that might seek to renegotiate the nuclear deal with India. India is increasingly using the climate change argument to push forward its nuclear deal.
The Toyota hybrid is hailed as an eco-paragon, so how does it fare against a big BMW? To find out our correspondents go on a run to Geneva.
Stephen Power’s “EPA Says Carbon Caps Won’t Harm Economy Much,” in today’s Wall Street Journal, discusses Friday’s EPA report that the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill will not significantly harm the U.S. economy. I guess the truth of this depends on your definition of “significantly.”
I wonder if the EPA would consider the following (from the recent NAM/AACF report on the economic impact of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act) “significant.” Under the Lieberman-Warner bill:
- The U.S. would lose between 1.2 million and 1.8 million jobs by 2020, and as many as 4 million by 2030;
- Additional costs per household of $739 to $2,927 per year by 2020, increasing to $4,022-$6,752 per year by 2030;
- Gasoline price increase of up to 144 percent, electricity price increase of up to 129 percent, and natural gas price increase of up to 146 percent by 2030;
- GDP reduced by $151 billion to $210 billion per year by 2020, and by $631 billion to $669 billion per year by 2030; and
- Reductions in the production of coal and electricity of 35 and 12 percent, respectively.
Is it significant that the CBO reported (Page 8, Table 1) that a 15-percent reduction in CO2 emissions will cost the poorest 20 percent an extra $680 per year, in 2006 dollars? Significant that Lieberman-Warner doesn’t propose merely a 15-percent reduction in emissions by 2020, but 30 percent and 70 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 and 2050, respectively? “Significant” that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama say they will cut emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050?
Try to minimize it all you want, but drastic CO2 emissions reductions will inflict serious harm upon our economy, and we will all foot the bill.
I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't: we may not be able to stop global warming. The Arctic Ocean, which experienced record melting last year, could be ice-free in the summer as soon as 2013, decades ahead of what the earlier models told us. We need to begin curbing global greenhouse emissions right now, but more than a decade after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the world has utterly failed to do so.
Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development Chiba, Japan March 16, 2008
The US Perspective: Remarks on Post 2012 Climate Regime
Among the achievements of the Gleneagles process is a broadened appreciation and understanding that climate change, energy security, and sustainable development are among the greatest challenges that we face.
A US carbon-trade exchange opened up for business today, amidst the financial chaos created by the Fed bail out of Bear Stearns. It is indeed nothing to celebrate, and I hope John Coleman finds some plaintiffs for his lawsuit.
It was a big weekend for the delicate diplomacy of climate change.
In Brussels, EU ministers met to try to figure out how to slash greenhouse gas emissions without concomitantly putting their economies at a serious competitive disadvantage to countries that have not adopted costly emissions controls. Fortunately, French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s “solution,” to start a carbon trade war with the US and China, was quickly discarded as too protectionist.
Ultimately, the conferees backed a plan hashed out by Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that would exempt EU heavy industries from emissions controls, so that they can compete on a level playing field on the global marketplace. Brown supported Merkel’s proposal in exchange for her support of his climate scheme, which entails the manipulation of the tax code to give European businesses an incentive to reduce emissions.
Of course, it is not clear what, if any, good can come from a climate plan that exempts the heaviest emitters.
Meanwhile, over in Japan, diplomats met to discuss climate policy and industry. This was Tony Blair’s first public appearance in his new role, as a roving, international climate ambassador, and he took the opportunity to urge all nations to agree to reduce emissions. This is essentially the US position, and it has proven unpopular, so you have to admire the former Prime Minister’s temerity.
Of course, developing nations were quick to object to Blair’s idea. Chinese representatives agreed to act as soon as the west agreed to pay for it, and by the second day, the two sides—rich and poor—regressed into the sort of finger pointing that always characterizes these international climate confabs. Needless to say, the Japanese conference did not produce anything in the way of tangible results.
As I have noted elsewhere, international climate diplomacy will always end in failure, because sovereign states have never demonstrated the capacity to share privation. There is no reason to expect them to start now, to solve an invisible “problem” that would manifest itself over centuries.
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