Worldchanging News and Views

With Copenhagen Pact Stalled, Leaders Look for Climate Treaty in 2010

Yale Environment 360 — 2009-11-18T11:44:47-08:00

With the announcement by President Obama and other world leaders this weekend that no binding climate agreement will be reached in Copenhagen next month, numerous officials expressed hopes that a treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions could be signed by mid- to late-2010. Meeting in Singapore, Obama and other leaders agreed that lack of accord on setting precise emissions reductions targets would prevent the signing of a binding climate treaty in Copenhagen. But in a process that Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen labeled as “one agreement, two steps,” climate negotiators are hopeful that the 192 nations meeting in Copenhagen will sign a non-binding political agreement calling for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and for aid to developing nations to help them adapt to a warming world. Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said he hoped a final agreement could then be reached by mid-2010 at a meeting in Bonn. The host of the Copenhagen meeting, Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard, said officials should set a clear deadline for signing a climate treaty, possibly in time for a December 2010 meeting scheduled for Mexico City. Some environmentalists criticized Obama for the treaty delay, but others said he could not commit to firm greenhouse gas reductions until Congress acts on a pending climate change bill.

This piece originally appeared on Yale Environment 360.

Photo Credit: net_efekt via Flickr, Creative Commons License.

(Posted in Politics at 11:44 AM)

Tragedy of the Commons, R.I.P.

Jay Walljasper — 2009-10-16T10:58:59-08:00

Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize for Economics Disarms Those Who Say a Common-based Society is Impossible.

The biggest roadblock standing in the way of many people’s recognition of the importance of the commons-- the things we share together like the environment and the internet-- came tumbling down this week when Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for economics.

Over many decades Ostrom has documented how various communities manage
common resources – grazing lands, forests, irrigation waters, fisheries— equitably and sustainably over the long term. The Nobel Committee’s recognition of her work effectively debunks popular theories about the Tragedy of the Commons, which hold that private property is the only effective method to prevent finite resources from
being ruined or depleted.

Awarding the world’s most prestigious economics prize to a scholar who champions cooperative behavior greatly boosts the legitimacy of the commons as a framework for solving our social and environmental problems. Ostrom’s work also challenges the current economic orthodoxy that there are few, if any, alternatives to privatization
and markets in generating wealth and human well being.

The Tragedy of the Commons refers to a scenario in which commonly held land is inevitably degraded because everyone in a community is allowed to graze livestock there. This parable was popularized by wildlife biologist Garrett Hardin in the late 1960s, and was embraced as a principle by the emerging environmental movement. But Ostrom’s research refutes this abstract concept once-and-for-all with the real
life experience from places like Nepal, Kenya and Guatemala.

“When local users of a forest have a long-term perspective, they are more likely to monitor each other’s use of the land, developing rules for behavior,” she cites as an example. “It is an area that standard market theory does not touch.”

(Garrett Hardin himself later revised his own view, noting that what he described was actually the Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons.)

Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz, also winner of a Nobel prize, comments, “Conservatives used the Tragedy of the Commons to argue for property rights, and efficiency was achieved as people were thrown off the commons….What Ostrom has demonstrated is the existence of social control mechanisms that regulate the use of the commons without having to resort to property rights.”

The Nobel Committee’s choice of Ostrom is significant considering that many winners of the prize since it was initiated in 1968 have been zealous advocates of unrestricted markets, such as Milton Friedman, whose selection helped fuel the rise of market theory as the be-all end-all of economics since the 1980s. Policies based upon this narrow worldview sparked the rise of corporate power and the diminishment of
government’s role in protecting the commons.

While right-wing thinkers scoffed at the possibility of resources being shared in a way that maintains the common good, arguing that private property is the only practical strategy to prevent this tragedy, Ostrom’s scholarship shows otherwise.

“What we have ignored is what citizens can do and the importance of real involvement of the people involved,” she explains.

A classic example of this are the acequias, a centuries-old tradition of cooperative irrigation systems in New Mexico and Colorado where the small flow of water available for agriculture is allocated by the community as a whole through a democratic process.

Ostrom is the first woman to be awarded the Economics prize, which some observers say helps explain her emphasis on the role of people’s relationships in our economic arrangements rather than the focus on individualized market choices expounded by many male winners of the Nobel.

Equally noteworthy is the fact that Ostrom was not trained as an economist, but as a political scientist—a factor that may be even more useful in explaining her outside-the-box approach to economics.

Yale economist Robert Schiller, quoted in the New York Times, welcomed the merging of the two fields. “Economics has become too isolated and stuck on the view that markets are efficient and self-regulating. It has derailed our thinking.”

Elinor Ostrom has always been explicit in recognizing the importance of the commons—she helped found the International Association for the Study of the Commons, also based at Indiana University—and her selection as a Nobel Laureate marks an early milestone in the emergence of a commons-based society. Her works shows that our social, environmental and personal advancement depends on the vitality of the commons as well as the market in our lives.

This piece originally appeared in On the Commons.

(Posted in News and Views at 10:58 AM)

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize In Part Because "The USA Is Now Playing A More Constructive Role In Meeting The Great Climatic Challenges The World Is Confronting."

Joe Romm — 2009-10-09T16:45:27-08:00

In a stunning announcement (full text below), “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
Obama won, in part, for reversing the immoral efforts of the Cheney-Bush administration to block and subvert international climate negotiations:

Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.

We already knew that “Obama was willing to attend Copenhagen climate talks,” if he were invited. In an exclusive interview, Andrew Light, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow and an expert on international climate talks, explained to CP that now, effectively, he has been:

Barack Obama is now the third sitting president to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is an enormous honor. The timing on this for those following the future of a new international climate treaty could not be more critical. The Peace Prize is presented in Oslo on December 10th. The UN climate talks, where the agenda will feature decisions on replacing the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012, start in Copenhagen on December 7th. The expectation that President Obama will now go for at least part of the UN climate talks is enormous as he’ll already be in Scandinavia.

Light coordinates CAP’s participation in the Global Climate Network, focusing on international climate change policy and the future of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. He is also director of the Center for Global Ethics at George Mason University. He adds some historical perspective:

Remember that Al Gore went immediately to the UN climate meeting in Bali after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Gore’s speech at the Bali meeting, and closed door sessions with climate negotiators for two days following, is credited by some as having saved those talks from failure. Before Gore arrived the EU was about to walk out over protests that the US was holding up progress on the “Bali Action Plan,” the document that set the parameters for what success at Copenhagen is supposed to look like this December. It’s hard to imagine a more directed appeal for President Obama to come to Copenhagen and achieve a similar success.

While some may argue that this award is premature, I disagree. This is a clear statement by the Nobel Committee not merely of the importance of US multilateralism to genuine progress toward global peace, but also of their understanding that climate change has become a critical international issue.

Unrestricted emissions of GHGs represent perhaps the gravest, preventable threat to future world peace — a growing source of future strife, refugees, conflict, and wars (see “Memorial Day, 2029“). Al Gore and the IPCC won in 2007 “for their work to alert the world to the threat of global warming.” Alerting the world was and is vital. Taking action is even more crucial.
Obama and his international negotiating team led by Secretary of State Clinton have helped create the first genuine chance that the entire world will come together and agree to sharply diverge from the catastrophic business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions path. This award simultaneously acknowledges what they have achieved and pushes them and the world toward delivering on Obama’s promise. It is well deserved.
Here is the Nobel committee’s full statement:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”

Kudos to President Obama for inspiring the world and for starting to deliver on his unprecedented agenda of change. Kudos to the American public for rejecting the narrow, unilateralist, climate-destroying policies of his predecessor.
Article originally appeared on Climate Progress.
Image Credit: art_es_anna via Flickr, Creative Commons

(Posted in Politics at 4:45 PM)

Energy And Global Warming News For October 9: Granhom Brings 160,000 Clean Energy Jobs To Hard-Hit Michigan

Joe Romm — 2009-10-09T16:27:04-08:00

The WashPost of course didn’t use my headline, since for them, every silver lining has a cloud. Obviously Michigan has had massive job losses in the auto industry, but how exactly does that translate into a “yellow light” for green jobs, except as a too-cute play on words at the expense of the real story: Granholm has done her best to embrace the fastest growing source of new jobs in the nation and the world — clean energy jobs. It’s hard to hold her responsible for the incompetence and shortsightedness of the US auto industry, whose collapse has been decades in the making, but she clearly deserves a lot of the credit for making Michigan hospitable to clean energy industries.

In Michigan, A Yellow Light For Green Jobs

If the future of American manufacturing lies in green industries, the Michigan governor’s pursuit of jobs offers a cautionary tale.

Four years ago, Jennifer M. Granholm set out to remake her state, which took an exceptional walloping with the decline of the auto industry, as a pioneer in creating environmentally friendly jobs. Today, however, jobs are still disappearing much faster than she can create them, raising questions about how long it will take Michigan and other hard-hit states to find new industries to employ their workers.

Since taking office in 2003, Granholm has created 163,300 positions, her office says. She expects that a recent infusion of more than $1 billion from the Obama administration aimed at nurturing car battery and electric-vehicle projects will generate 40,000 more positions by 2020….

In her effort to attract employers, the governor has taken up the latest arms in the economic arsenal — tax credits, loans, Super Bowl tickets and a willingness to travel as far as Japan for a weekend to try to persuade an auto parts company to bring more jobs to Michigan. She has won solar and wind energy, electric car batteries, and movie production jobs. About 10,800 of the new positions came from overseas companies, according to her office, the fruits of visits to seven countries.

Religious Groups Lobby for Climate Bill

Religious groups are stepping up their lobbying efforts in support of climate change legislation, focusing on a goal all of their flock can agree on: helping the poor and vulnerable impacted by global warming.

A number of Jewish and Christian groups are choosing to bypass climate issues that are contentious within the faith community, such as whether global warming is man-made, and are instead zeroing in on proposals in Congress to provide international aid for people impacted by the negative effects of climate change.

The push for “international adaptation aid” is also part of a broader awareness effort launching today called “Day Six,” which aims to make the public and members of Congress more conscious of the moral imperative to pass legislation regulating carbon emissions.

“On the sixth day God created us, and he made us stewards of his creation,” Katie Paris, the communications director for the group Faith in Public Life, said Thursday on a conference call with reporters. She also explained why religious groups are focused on international adaptation aid: “Those who are hurt most and worst should not be helped the least and last,” she said.

Groups involved in the “Day Six” campaign are directly reaching out to hundreds of thousands of people in the faith community today with tools to build grassroots support for climate change legislation.

The campaign features a Web site with a 60-second video pressing the issue, social networking tools and an online petition to Senators, urging support for climate legislation with adequate funding for international adaptation programs.

Web Site Tracks Europe’s Clean Energy Growth

The European Commission this week introduced an open-access online tool to monitor the development of about a dozen low-carbon technologies in the trade bloc.

The commission said its Strategic Energy Technology Plan Information System, offered ways for citizens, researchers, investors and policy makers to map funding for projects in areas including hydropower, wind, photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, wave, geothermal, bioenergy, carbon capture and storage, smart grids, nuclear fission and fusion, hydrogen and fuel cells.

A so-called bubble graph maps the current status and the potential of energy technologies between 2010 and 2050, if funding is forthcoming.

Another tool, an energy cost calculator, allows users to choose different energy and cost situations to compare the performance of various technologies.

The initiative was begun as part of efforts by the commission to raise 50 billion euros of additional investment in crucial low-carbon technologies over the next 10 years.

The initiative also is part of efforts by Janez Potocnik, the union’s commissioner for science and research, to overcome the tendency of European governments to finance domestic projects rather than pool their resources and to ensure the bloc remains competitive with Japan, China and the United States in the development of low-carbon technologies.

Kingsnorth: A Blow Against Coal, or A Move For Clean Coal?

German utility E.On’s decision to temporarily shelve plans for a big coal-fired power plant in the U.K. is clearly big news. The fun part is trying to figure out just why it matters so much.

For starters, the proposed Kingsnorth project is more than just another power plant. The 1,600 megawatt station would have been the U.K.’s first new coal plant since Margaret Thatcher was in office, and became a huge lightning rod for environmental opposition. Greenpeace centered anti-coal protests on Kingsnorth. Climate researcher James Hansen targeted Kingsnorth when he equated coal power with “death trains.” That’s why environmental groups are cheering E.On’s retreat—many see the decision as a green victory over coal, akin to the Sierra Club’s relentless campaign against coal in the U.S.

Officially, E.On says the decision to delay Kingsnorth for at least 2-3 years is due to the recession, which has kneecapped the demand for electricity. “This is based on the global recession, which has pushed back the need for new plant in the UK to around 2016 because of the reduction in demand for electricity,” the power company said.

While the slowdown has led to an “unprecedented” decline in U.K. electricity demand, it seems somewhat of a stretch to expect another seven years of famine just as the global economy is turning the corner. Especially when the U.K. government itself expects energy demand to grow relentlessly, and whose biggest worry is how to keep the lights on over the next decade.

More likely, E.On’s decision to park the yet-to-built power plant is about a yet-to-be-developed technology: clean coal. The U.K. desperately wants to make clean coal technically and economically viable; its other energy alternatives are basically imported natural gas or nuclear plants that have yet to be built either. E.On wants clean coal to work, too—it’s one of a handful of European utilities jockeying for British government funds for clean-coal development.

UN talks to end without deal on crucial issues

U.N. climate talks in Bangkok will end Friday without progress on the pressing issues of emission targets for rich countries and financing for poor nations, who insist they will not sign a global warming deal unless those matters are resolved.

For months, negotiations have been deadlocked and delegates have begun raising doubts whether a new climate pact to rein in greenhouse gases can be reached by the time world leaders gather in Copenhagen in December. The pact would replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

Rather than addressing the tough issues, U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said late Thursday that the failure by rich countries to agree on ambitious emission cuts and billions of dollars in financing to help poor countries adapt to climate change has increased the distrust between the two sides.

“People in this negotiating process mainly developing countries say we have been engaging constructively over the past two weeks to put meat on the bones of an agreed outcome in Copenhagen,” de Boer said.

“But we are not seeing an advance on the key political issues,” he said. “The stark reality out there is that unless we see an advance on the key political issues, it is very difficult for negotiators in this process to continue their work in good faith.”

Even before the talks ended Friday afternoon, environmentalists including the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace were already criticizing governments for leaving the fundamental issues to future meetings in Barcelona next month.

States not meeting renewable energy goals

Across the USA, states are falling short of their goals to increase the use of renewable energy as Congress weighs a national renewable-energy standard.

Thirty-five states have set goals to use more electricity from solar panels, windmills and other renewable forms of energy, according to a database funded by the Energy Department. There is no central clearinghouse of states’ compliance records, but USA TODAY research and interviews with state and power company officials found nine states that have failed or expect to fail to meet their energy goals.

The states offer a lesson for the federal government, says Charles Benjamin of Western Resource Advocates, an environmental group. The House of Representatives passed a bill in June that called for 15% of the nation’s electricity to come from alternative sources in 2020 — up from 9% last year. A Senate bill with a similar goal is likely to be combined with a climate-change bill introduced last month. “Just because you want renewable energy doesn’t mean it will happen.”

In their quest to draw more renewable power, states have come up against obstacles such as the recession, red tape and an outdated transmission system that makes it difficult to move solar or wind power from where it’s made to where it’s needed.

Article originally appeared on Climate Progress.

(Posted in Climate Change at 4:27 PM)

Energy and Global Warming News for May 13

Joe Romm — 2009-05-14T15:31:22-08:00

Solar Hot Water for Toronto Homeowners

Solar Thermal comes to Canada (!), and guess who’s selling them the solar panels: not us.

In an innovative joint venture, Canadian natural gas giant Enbridge Gas Distribution has teamed up with green electricity marketer Bullfrog Power and the City of Toronto to promote solar thermal systems that promise to slash residential hot water heating costs by as much as 60 percent, or about $260 per year.

Under the program, announced Tuesday, London-based EnerWorks will supply the panels, which are certified for year-round use.

Homeowners can qualify for federal and provincial rebates to offset half of the $7,000-$10,000 capital outlay. Enbridge has anted up a $400,000 grant to further reduce costs for some residents.

Moderate Rise in Utility Bills Projected in Study of Cap-and-Trade Law

A Texas study projects that the average household would pay $17 to $27 more a month by 2013 if the U.S. Congress passes carbon cap-and-trade legislation. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the state’s power grid, projected that utility bills could rise by $27 if electricity use remains the same, and by as little as $17 if higher energy prices created by cap-and-trade legislation encourage consumers to use less energy.

In March, the average utility bill in Texas ranged from $110 to $160. Analysts said the ERCOT study did not consider a major long-term benefit of cap-and-trade legislation: The accelerated development of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies brought about by rising prices for fossil fuels.

Whitehouse: Senate Is Corrupted By Carbon Pollution Cash

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in a Senate hearing on the EPA budget this morning, decried the extraordinary amount of spending by corporate global warming polluters to lobby Congress. Reading from a report on new lobbying disclosures, Whitehouse noted that carbon polluters such as electric utilities and oil and gas companies have spent nearly $80 million on lobbying just in the first quarter of 2009.

Climate Pollution Cash Shaping Fate Of Waxman-Markey Clean Energy Legislation

In a moment of candor, ACES co-sponsor Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), the chair of the subcommittee in question, explained that fellow Democrats acting as representatives for climate polluters were holding up the bill:

“If we can reach agreement with the coal sector, with the steel, with the auto sector, with the refining sector on our committee, which is very representative of the Congress as a whole, then we believe that’ll be a template for passage in the Senate, as well. Because the agreements we’ll reach will be the very same agreements that those industry leaders … will be able to represent to senators are the basis for passage of legislation that they can support.”

Members of Markey’s energy and environment subcommittee with strong ties to those sectors include Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA: $50,942 from steel), Rep. Baron Hill (D-IN: $113,033 from auto), Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT: $177,946 from coal), and Rep. Gene Green (D-TX: $330,613 from oil).

$3B pledge jump-starts massive offshore wind project

The world’s largest offshore wind farm, the London Array, will begin construction this summer after the British government doubled the incentives for offshore wind energy, the project’s main owner, Denmark’s DONG Energy, said today.

The 1,000-megawatt Thames Estuary behemoth had been in doubt after Royal Dutch Shell PLC pulled out of the scheme last year because of rising costs, leaving DONG with a 50 percent stake, Germany’s E.ON with 30 percent and Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy fund, Masdar, with 20 percent.

Now the three partners have pledged to invest $3 billion for the 630-megawatt first phase of the project, which will be completed in time to deliver wind energy to the London Olympics in 2012.

G.E. Announces New York Battery Factory

General Electric announced today a $100 million investment to build a new factory in upstate New York that will make batteries — a sector with huge potential, according to G.E.’s chairman and chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt.

“We think the business gets to about $500 million in annual revenue by 2015,” Mr. Immelt told Green Inc., referring to the battery business. It could become a “$1 billion business a few years after that,” he added.

The batteries to be built at the new factory are not lithium-ion, the type widely considered to be the future of hybrid and electric cars.

Instead, they are sodium-based batteries — which will help to power G.E.’s hybrid locomotives after those are commercialized in 2010. The rationale, explained Mark Little, the director of global research at G.E., is that the sodium batteries store “a heck of a lot more energy” than lithium-ion ones.

Home Energy Savings Are Made In The Shade

Trees positioned to shade the west and south sides of a house may decrease summertime electric bills by 5 percent on average, according to a recent study of California homes by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Compiled by Carlin Rosengarten

This piece originally appeared in Climate Progress.

Photo credit: Flickr/Alex Barth.

(Posted in News and Views at 3:31 PM)

News and Views -- December 7, 2007

WorldChanging Team — 2007-12-07T07:01:27-08:00

Big Fun with Climate Change (Approved by Al Gore)
Canada Announces $740K for Nova Scotia Biofuels, Ecological Projects
'Travel & Leisure' Celebrates Green Tourism, Ethical Travel
Companies Squeezing Power from Sun, Deserts in Southern California
Measuring the Social and Environmental Impacts of Small and Medium Enterprises

(Posted in News and Views at 7:01 AM)

News and Views -- December 6, 2007

WorldChanging Team — 2007-12-06T07:00:09-08:00

Info Tech’s Drive to Go Lean, Clean & Green
Facebook Beacon: A Cautionary Tale About New Media Monopolies

With Temps Warming, Meteorlogists Shape Fashion Trends
US Fuel Efficiency: Congress Mandates 35 m.p.g. by 2020
$1000 For an Entirely Off-Grid Computer

(Posted in News and Views at 7:00 AM)

News and Views -- December 5, 2007

WorldChanging Team — 2007-12-05T07:00:09-08:00

Pro/Am Online News: Targeted, Democratic Content Moderation

(Posted in News and Views at 7:00 AM)

News and Views -- December 4, 2007

WorldChanging Team — 2007-12-04T06:59:15-08:00

(Posted in News and Views at 6:59 AM)

News and Views -- December 3, 2007

WorldChanging Team — 2007-12-03T06:56:58-08:00

(Posted in News and Views at 6:56 AM)

News and Views -- November 30, 2007

Emily Gertz — 2007-11-30T11:54:15-08:00

(Posted in News and Views at 11:54 AM)

News and Views -- November 29, 2007

Emily Gertz — 2007-11-29T09:58:27-08:00

(Posted in News and Views at 9:58 AM)

News and Views -- November 28, 2007

Emily Gertz — 2007-11-28T06:51:37-08:00

(Posted in News and Views at 6:51 AM)

News and Views -- November 27, 2007

Emily Gertz — 2007-11-27T08:07:03-08:00

Image credit: flickr/nahkahousu

(Posted in News and Views at 8:07 AM)

News and Views -- November 26, 2007

Emily Gertz — 2007-11-26T08:42:38-08:00

Image: Live coral polyps in colonial coral. Credit: Photo Collection of Dr. James P. McVey, NOAA Sea Grant Program

(Posted in News and Views at 8:42 AM)