Canadian and U.S. officials are respectively discussing impending regulation to cut down carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Businesses in both nations are slowly getting the message and working together to prepare for – and perhaps help mold – the change.

The Canadian Council of Chief Executives reached an “unprecedented consensus” last week when they officially called for action that included “absolute” emissions cuts. A national strategy is needed, they argue, rather than the patchwork of provincial regulations that have cropped up. Furthermore, they acknowledged that government regulation may be needed to raise fossil fuel costs, drive efficiency measures, and instigate greater cuts.

Being open to regulation and the need to fight global warming also opens the door for the business community to be involved in the policy planning. The Globe and Mail explained that a “key goal” in the group’s declaration is to stop any measure that would hurt the economy or penalize certain sectors.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his administration are still piecing together a national global warming strategy. In addition to government regulation, the business group recognized its customers and consumers for also driving the message that the private sector needs to change for the greener in order to slow global warming.

In the States, large businesses have made similar declarations as the Canadian coalition, and small businesses are also taking the lead. With 26 million small businesses in the U.S., they make up half of the economy and about half of all energy used for commercial and industrial purposes. This means that huge strides could be made in efficiency and emissions cuts if they work together.

A recent example is the National Automobile Dealers Association’s (NADA) Energy Stewardship Initiative: About 500 auto dealers have pledged to cut energy use by 10 percent, thereby saving about $193 million and cutting more than a million tons of global warming pollution every year. The National Small Business Association is working with the Energy Star Small Business program and has issued a similar efficiency challenge to its members.

Businesses large and small will be needed to fight global warming, and they’ve begun doing just that. Now, with pressure from voters and the business community, it’s time for Canadian and U.S. policymakers to take decisive steps and implement national policies to curb CO2.

Globe and Mail
CNN

Every year, Gustavus Adolphus College in tiny St. Peter, MN holds a Nobel Conference, authorized by the Nobel Foundation of Stolkhom, Sweden. The conference brings together renowned experts to discuss timely issues, like aging or globalization. This year, it was “Heating Up: The Energy Debate.”

I attended the two-day event, which delivered in its round-up of impressive energy and global warming experts: Nobel Laureate in Physics Dr. Stephen Chu, biofuels expert Dr. Lee Rybeck Lynd, peak oil expert Ken Deffeyes, economist Paul L. Joskow, polar explorer Will Steger, hydrogen expert Joan M. Ogden, and James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

While at times the science got a bit thick, the message from all of the lecturers was clear: Global warming is urgent, we need to do something NOW, and many different solutions will get us there.

I was most interested to hear from Paul L. Joskow, an MIT economist who discussed the best methods for regulating carbon dioxide (CO2), a major contributor to global warming. Many politicians favor a cap-and-trade policy, in which a limit on CO2 is determined and then tradable/sellable permits to pollute are issued to utilities and industry. Economists, on the other hand, generally prefer a carbon tax that simply taxes CO2 at a certain rate.

Although an economist himself, Joskow argued that a cap-and-trade policy is the best way to create a market for CO2 and drive down emissions. First of all, a cap-and-trade policy is politically feasible, and making sure it actually has a chance of passing Congress in our lifetime is the most important thing to slowing global warming. Secondly, a cap-and-trade plan links the U.S. with other nations (and other states) that have already started down this path, thus creating a global solution to a global problem.

While economists favor a carbon tax that the feds could ideally use to cut taxes in another area, like income, Joskow said “perfect the enemy of good.” Sure, in a perfect world we would tax bad stuff and never tax good stuff (like working). But the urgency of global warming calls for a good system that is feasible now and gets us in sync with the rest of the planet. And the best system for that is a cap-and-trade policy.

Joan M. Ogden lectured on a hydrogen economy, although her fellow panel discussion presenters were skeptical of using hydrogen as a fuel source, at least in terms of it being ready fast enough to fight global warming. Although no option should be taken off the table, hydrogen could play a more important role in bettering existing technologies (like ethanol production) rather than creating an entirely new infrastructure.

Dr. James Hansen – you may remember him from his accusations that NASA officials edited his global warming reports – said that if someone is seriously concerned about climate change, any elected official they vote for should agree on three principals:

1) A moratorium on traditional coal-fired power plants (until we can sequester the CO2, building more plants moves us backwards)

2) Policies that encourage more renewable energy

3) Incentives for energy efficiency.

With the clean technology here but the leadership lacking, the issue of urgency was paramount throughout the lectures. In fact, I thought the statistics and scenarios put forth more dire than those I normally read in the media. More than one expert prefaced a recommendation with something like, ‘A year ago I would’ve been laughed out of the room for saying this, but now I can say that what we need to do is…’ The extensive media attention on global warming, along with some serious dialogue and action by the business sector and politicians, have made it “safer” to talk about the true consequences and costs of global warming without immediately being labeled a nutcase.

For example, MIT economist Paul L. Joskow said that any sort of carbon regulation is going to raise our utility bills “and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.” With a cap-and-trade policy that sets CO2 at $50 per ton (a price he thinks is likely), it could drive up utility bills 40-50%. But this would not happen over night: Any measure passed by Congress would give utilities several years to implement efficiency programs to soften the landing. But the message was still clear: This isn’t going to be easy, but we can do it.

Polar explorer Will Steger, who has been traveling and studying the arctic and Antarctic regions for 40 years, gave an eyewitness account of global warming’s effects at the poles (in May I interviewed him about his most recent trip). I’d heard his talk several times, but there was a big difference this time: He showed a slide of polar bear and then said in his quiet-but no-BS –sort-of-way, “This is our friend the polar bear. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do for them – they will go extinct. I couldn’t say that 18 months ago to people, but now I am.”

Despite the wake up calls – no use in sugarcoating at this point – it was still uplifting to know that some of the planet’s smartest people are working on this and elected leaders are slowly getting the message.

Now, it’s time for the rest of us to get to work. For starters, check out Will Steger’s “Template for Action,” Lighter Footstep’s “10 First Steps,” or the Union of Concerned Scientist’s “How You Can be Involved.”

Former President Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative has been all over the news lately, working with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and big business to move the ball forward with clean energy solutions to global warming. Whatever you think of the guy, it’s hard to deny that his partnerships are impressive and the results could be revolutionary.

Besides the agreement by utilities to invest in energy efficiency, and besides Florida Power & Light’s major new commitment to solar energy, the Clinton Global Initiative is also partnering with the Joint U.S.-China Cooperation on Clean Energy (JUUCCCE) on efficiency efforts in China.

The China Lighting Conversion program will distribute 10 million free energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) to customers. CFLs use one-third the energy of traditional bulbs, but are still cost-prohibitive to many Chinese. According to JUUCCCE, the CFLs would save about 3.7 million tons of CO2 over 4 ½ years — enough to avoid having to build one typical U.S.-size coal plant. While I tell myself it’s encouraging to see the start of another clean energy commitment in China, I’m still disheartened by the multiple coal plants they’re building each week. But change has to start somewhere.

The other JUUCCCE program is the Energy Efficient Urban Design Tools for Mayors. This is an interactive, multimedia curriculum to train hundreds of Chinese mayors on technology and best practices that can make their cities more energy efficient. Mayors will learn about green building programs, for example, and will connect with vendors, service providers and financial advisors to help them implement what they learn. The key with this program will be rigorous follow-up and support to ensure that the information learned isn’t forgotten or lost in the bureaucracy one the mayor returns to the city.

The first phase will begin with the CFL program in April 2008, with the training for mayors to start in October of next year.

Joint U.S.-China Cooperation on Clean Energy

There’s big news for solar power coming out of Florida. Florida Power & Light (FPL) – one of the nation’s largest utilities and the largest producer of wind power – announced at the Clinton Global Initiative conference that it will spend $1.5 billion to build solar thermal energy in Florida, California, and other states. In addition, the utility plans on investing nearly another billion dollars nationwide to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a big contributor to global warming.

Solar thermal power makes electricity by converting solar energy to heat that drives a thermal power plant.

The utility’s plan is to build at least 300 megawatts (MW) of solar thermal in Florida; that’s enough electricity to power about 150,000 homes. It will also help the state reach its goal of cutting CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by that same year.

California will get a 200-MW plant that will cover 2 square miles with flat mirrors that track the sun.

FPL’s CEO Lew Hay told Reuters: "The thing we’ve got to make customers understand is that any fossil fuel has a hidden cost that society is paying every day, and that is the cost of carbon. We need to put a price on carbon, by doing so the illusion that coal-produced energy is low-cost will go away."

The project FPL has planned will start out as a 10MW pilot project and eventually grow to be the largest solar plant in Florida. But besides the solar investment, the company is also upgrading all 4.5 million electricity meters used by Florida customers. The replacements will be "smart network" meters that show a digital read-out of electricity consumption, and even give an hour-by-hour record of power use. This will allow customers and businesses to monitor their energy use more closely, and experiment with the most effective methods of efficiency. Other investments will go towards promoting these efforts.

As exciting as this news is, it’s easy to feel down when you learn that FPL’s solar plans for Florida only amount to about 1 percent of the state’s power plant capacity. But clean energy supporters and FPL are still optimistic. Hay pointed out that relatively large commitments to clean energy, like FPLs, will really drive the cost of the technology down.

Already the largest wind power provider, FPL now has its sights on leading the solar market.

Associated Press, via Orlando Sentinel
Reuters, via Planet Ark

Thanks to Erin over at RE-AMP for the heads-up on this great piece of news: Eight major utilities have agreed to implement energy efficiency measures in order to meet the growing demand for electricity. By emphasizing efficiency over coal, they will cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 30 million tons — the equivalent of taking almost 6 million cars off the road — and avoid the need to build 50 500-megawatt peaking power plants.

The utilities involved have more than 20 million customers and cover 22 states: Con Edison (ED), Edison International (EIX), Great Plains Energy (GXP), Duke Energy (DUK), Pepco Holdings (POM), PNM Resources (PNM), Sierra Pacific Resources (SRP), and Xcel Energy (XEL). Up until now, the only utilities that want to grow profits through energy efficiency investments have been in California.

The move by these utilities comes at a time when demand is growing, concerns and lawsuits about emissions abound, and global warming is a hot political and business issue.

Energy efficiency is the cheapest and fastest way to cut global warming emissions, and the utilities agree: ” …we share a common belief that energy efficiency is the greatest untapped resource in addressing global climate change in the near-term.” Here are the major elements of their plan:

• Boost investments in energy efficiency projects to $1.5 billion per year in the next 10 years.

• Create a national institute for electric efficiency. The Energy Efficiency Institute will work on regulatory policy models, notably how utilities can make money when customers use less energy rather than more. It will be formed within the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the nation’s investor-owned utilities.

Innovation and multi-party collaboration will be needed to craft policies that allow companies to profit from investing in efficiency. Utilities could profit from replacing inefficient air conditioners and light bulbs, for instance. Great Plains hopes to get legislation passed in Kansas and Missouri that would allow them to earn a higher return on efficiency investments than what would be made investing in traditional power plants. The utility could install smart electricity meters that tell customers when electricity prices are highest and even allows the utility to adjust the operations of appliances in customer homes. Michael Chesser, Chairman and CEO of Great Plains, said that energy efficiency, “with the right incentives,” could take care of all the growth in electricity demand between 2010 and 2017.

The business community was also interested by the announcement. The Dow Jones Wire commented:

It’s a sign of how quickly energy efficiency has taken center stage in the utility industry’s growth plans. Even in states where rates are low, power companies increasingly see efficiency investments as an inexpensive way to satisfy growing electricity demand and boost revenue without provoking the public opposition that usually dogs proposals for new power plants and transmission lines.

The utilities are working in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative, backed by former President Bill Clinton’s foundation.

Cross posted on Maria Energia

Kansas City Star
Dow Jones Wire
Yahoo Finance

The week began and ended with major international climate change conferences. The first was a United Nations meeting, prepping world leaders for the December talks in Bali that will be the first step to determining emissions goals after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The meeting that closed out this week was held by President Bush in Washington. Sixteen nations, the UN, and the European Union were invited.

At the start of the two-day “Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told delegates that the U.S. while being a major emitter of global warming pollution, the government is very serious about fighting climate change. In a soundbite gobbled up by the media, she said that global warming, like terrorism, needs the nations of the world to work together to fight it.

Like the meeting earlier in the week, the Washington meeting was billed as a starting point for negotiations beyond Kyoto. But while the U.N. meetings discuss measurable emissions cuts and targets, Bush prefers voluntary measures or “intensity targets,” that call for emission reductions per each unit of economic production.

The problem is that intensity targets don’t mean overall emission cuts, and that makes many at home and abroad suspicious of the real motives behind the Bush meeting.

Besides the expected protestors outside the conference, the delegates inside were wary as well. The EU’s Deputy Environment Minister Humberto Rosa explained:

“We have actually found many, many countries voicing our view that (a) voluntary approach may be useful but will not solve the issue. Voluntary goals so far have not got us to the level of ambition that we need.”

In fact, he went on to say that Europe will insist on a clearer picture of Bush’s emissions plan and how it will interlock with the Bali talks before they agree to any further meetings. Although the U.S.’s participation is welcome, they insist, officials want to ensure that the intentions of the Bali conference aren’t stalled.

Agence France-Presse
CNN
National Post

Photo courtesy of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program office.

I’m a Minnesota Public Radio member, and so I choose to receive a magazine called Minnesota Monthly as my thank you gift (I know I could save them $15 more a year but it’s a really good magazine). This month, I was at first pleased to find an article on global warming, then disturbed to learn about the rapid changes going on in Lake Superior because of the steadily increasing temperatures.

For starters, the lake’s rapidly warming water temperature has baffled scientists. Although they knew it has been slowly heating up, "it went bananas" beginning 30 years ago: about 75 percent of the 6-degree increase in water temperature has happened since 1980.

Scientists at the Large Lakes Observatory in Duluth, MN thought they had made a mistake: How could the lake be warming up twice as fast as the climate around it?

Much like the effect scientists are seeing in the Arctic, the lack of ice coverage has caused the lake to warm up faster than expected. The ice normally reflects sunlight back into space and keeps the water cooler underneath. But as warmer temperatures creep in and the average annual ice cover shrinks, the darker open water absorbs the heat and cranks up the lake temperature even faster. The vicious cycle continues, as warmer water temperatures mean less ice, which means more open water…

The spring turnover is also happening much earlier than normal. The turnover happens when the icy surface water warms up and mixes with the rest of the lake, creating a layer of warm water on top. This has been happening 10-14 days earlier than it was 25 years ago.

Last summer, Lake Superior’s temperature broke a record when it was measured at 75 degrees. Typically, it barely got above 60.

So what does this mean for the rest of us? In the states surrounding Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes, rapidly increasing temperatures mean more invasive plant and animal species from the warmer climes. Lake Michigan has already seen sea lampreys almost wipe out its lake trout. Changes to wildlife would also hurt tourism, causing a major economic blow.

It also means big disruptions to the region’s commerce. Lake Superior is at its lowest water level in 81 years, and while scientists say global warming may not be the sole cause of that decline, it is a factor. Cargo ships — some that carry wind turbine parts over from Europe, ironically — must haul lighter loads so they don’t get stranded in port. That means less efficient shipping and transportation of goods around the world.

While landscapes and habitat have changed over the centuries, the swiftness of this latest change has unsettled scientists. Meanwhile, the rest of us need to prepare to adapt to the inevitable changes have begun and take meaningful action to ensure that it doesn’t get worse.

Minnesota Monthly

Businesses seem to be flocking to appear green, lessen their carbon footprint, and talk about global warming. But scant mention of it was made in most of the reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this year. Should investors be concerned?

A group of state officials, state pension fund managers, investors, and other organizations think so. They are asking the SEC to make all public companies formally address the financial risks their company could face as a result of climate change.

Supporters — led by organizations like Ceres (a network of investors and organizations working on sustainability issues) and the Calvert Group (an assets management firm) — have asked for this disclosure before, and the SEC ignored them. This time, they’re hoping for action by filing a formal petition stating public companies should reveal their total global warming emissions, provide a strategic analysis of the risks and opportunities present by global warming, assess the physical risks to their operations, and analyze any regulatory risks (such as limiting carbon dioxide emissions).

So far, the SEC hasn’t said much except that the requirement for triggering disclosure is that the impact or potential impact has to be material to a company, and therefore material to investors.

The petition argues that the threat and impacts of global warming are financial risks and are material. It’s the SEC’s job to ensure investors have the information they need to make smart decisions, and because climate change will have major impacts on business, those risks need to be disclosed.

While some companies are reporting on global warming already, others find it difficult to do so. Differences in potential regulation — such as a carbon tax versus a cap-and-trade policy — means different outcomes for certain industries and difficulty in assessing the risks. One attorney who advises utilities and energy firms told the Washington Post: "For some of our electric power clients, depending on how allowances are distributed, they lose or gain hundreds of millions of dollars. Some are winners under some schemes and vast losers under other schemes."

Green Wombat
Washington Post

There have been some major wake-up calls in the fight against global warming, starting with the United Nations scolding the U.S. for not doing enough to mitigate its contributions to the problem.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told the Associated Press that it’s "very clear" the U.S. is not on the right track, despite the Bush administration’s recent openness to even discussing the problem and the series of meetings President Bush has scheduled with world leaders.

More U.N. meetings begin today to prepare for the Bali talks in December that will include negotiations of how to proceed after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. On Thursday, President Bush convenes his own two-day meeting with 15 big-emitter nations. Some worry that his smaller, more limited round of negotiations will undercut the Bali discussions.

Our friends across the pond didn’t hear any good news on the climate change front, either. A representative of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told the BBC that it’s unlikely the European Union will achieve their goal of keeping global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Professor Martin Parry is the co-chair of the IPCC, the group that has brought us three reports so far this year on the science, impacts, and solutions of climate change. He told the BBC that the chances of humans keeping the average global temperature increase less than 2 degrees C is "quite little."

He went on to explain that the increase of more than 2 degrees will result in major consequences. Water shortages around the globe may occur (especially in areas with melting glaciers that depend on the freeze and thaw for water), heat waves may increase, and crops may be threatened.

Parry believes it is still possible to contain the rise in temperature to less than 3 degrees Celsius, although, as always, our actions have to be swift. In the meantime, world leaders must discuss "very seriously" plans for significant adaptation measures.

Associated Press, via Kansas City Star
BBC
Terra Daily

Here’s an example of a global warming consequence that wasn’t exactly on my radar, and some strange news from our neighbors to the north.

The Canadian navy has traditionally had a good relationship with the garbage on board its ships: the cold Arctic temperatures have kept the mess frozen, allowing refuse and olfactory senses to live harmoniously.

Then came global warming. The increased temperatures have caused quite the stink on Canadian naval ships, so much so that the navy is relaxing regulations and allowing ships to dump the garbage and even raw sewage at sea. A portion of an internal navy memo was reprinted by The Canadian Press:

The changes ‘help alleviate our COs (commanding officers’) concerns (with regard to) accumulated food remnants stored in garbage bags on decks during ever-increasing global warming summers…These food remnants may decay or putrefy and generate an occupational health and safety issue on board ships (that) our COs can ill afford while striving to enforce Canadian sovereignty in our internal Arctic waters."

The orders – part of the more relaxed provisions in the Arctic Water Pollution Prevention Act – allow for dumping if there are "operational" or safety reasons, or if capacity is exceeded.

These provisions, and the increased number of ships being sent north on sovereignty patrols, have many people arguing that taking the smelly garbage to a port for unloading is the worth the inconvenience, especially when the alternative is dumping it at sea.

However, navy officials say dumping would be worst-case-scenario, and that navy ships are still much more restrictive in their environmental stewardship than the law requires them to be.

The Canadian Press