David Doniger's Blog: Solving Global Warming

Sectoral Intercourse

2008-08-24T16:53:50Z

A little ray of sunlight peeked through the clouds on Wednesday, the opening day of the latest round of the climate treaty talks, taking place in Accra, Ghana. The meeting began with a workshop on “sectoral approaches.” Country presentations focused on how to reduce heat-trapping emissions from heavy industry sectors in rapidly industrializing countries such as China and India. Both developed and developing countries found themselves talking about the same ideas in the same language. Given the Tower-of-Babel quality of these international negotiations, that is a big deal.

In China, for example, CO2 emissions are dominated by a handful of heavy industries, such as steel and cement, and from the electricity generated to power those industries. Since China does not yet have a large service sector or high levels of personal energy consumption, these industries account for 70 percent of the country’s emissions. By comparison, these industries account for less than 20 percent of emissions in the U.S., where the service sector is huge and personal energy use is high, The dominance of heavy industry emissions in China somewhat simplifies the problem of involving that country in the next climate agreement.

The workshop in Ghana began with clearer presentations than countries have made before. The EU put on the table initial proposals to focus on key industrial heavily-emitting sectors in developing counties, and to use a combination of carbon markets and technology and financial assistance to support developing country actions. South Korea offered a similar approach. Japan dropped several unproductive ideas that distracted discussions earlier this year (the idea of replacing national emissions caps for industrialized countries with goals applying only to key industries, and the idea of imposing uniform worldwide standards on such factories as steel mills). What remained of the Japanese proposal on developing countries bore substantial resemblance to the EU’s and South Korea’s, with the three proposals differing in emphasis on the carbon markets vs. other forms of technological and financial assistance.

China opened the door to further discussing these approaches for its heavy industry sectors, while strongly emphasizing the need for technological and financial assistance to help carry out its increasingly ambitious domestic emission reduction policies. India, though emphasizing the potential complexity of sectoral approaches, left the door to those discussions open. Algeria and others kept a sharp focus on the key questions who will pay and who will provide technology, and by what means.

To be sure, there are still clouds in the sky. As discussion proceeded the next day, professional negotiators indulged in old habits of legalism and proceduralism, making fine distinctions about what parts of the sectoral discussion may take place in which negotiating forum. (The talks are currently divided into two fora, one concerned with the future commitments of the industrial countries – minus the U.S. – who joined the Kyoto Protocol, and one broadly addressing the future actions of all countries.) Even in these darker speeches, however, countries were careful to leave room to continue the constructive sectoral approaches conversation.

All in all, this may be the start of real engagement between developed and developing countries on key elements of the next climate treaty.

Mark of the Beast

2008-08-20T17:04:00Z

Nine members of Congress, led by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, have introduced a malicious little bill – curiously numbered H.R. 6666 – to block the regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, and any other action under that law to curb climate change. The bill promptly drew support from the far-sighted folks at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The two-page bill would accomplish what the Bush administration could not. On White House orders, the Bush EPA declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could not be limited under the Clean Air Act. But the Supreme Court, in the landmark 2007 case of Massachusetts v. EPA, delivered the White House a sharp rebuke by holding that these heat-trapping chemicals are indeed “air pollutants.” The Court ordered the EPA administrator to determine, based on the science alone, whether they endanger public health or welfare, and if so, to issue emission-curbing standards under the Clean Air Act.

It’s a virtual certainty that the present EPA head, Stephen Johnson, will do no such thing. On White House orders, he’s stonewalling until the Bush administration runs out its term next January. But die-hard opponents of addressing global warming are worried about what comes next, since both presidential candidates are pledged to act on global warming.

The bill has no chance of passage, but the Chamber’s support for it speaks volumes. Coincidentally, I ran across this passage today in my summer reading: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s classic portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, The Age of Roosevelt. Schlesinger records in the third volume, The Politics of Upheaval (Houghton Mifflin, 1960, p. 273), a letter that President Roosevelt wrote to Thomas J. Watson, head of IBM:

It makes me very sad to think that because of the action of a few Associations the county as a whole has it pretty well in mind that businessmen are “agin” every improvement and have been consistently for more than a generation. An actual inspection of the record will show, for example, that our own Chamber of Commerce in New York has a one hundred per cent record of opposition to things like factory inspection, excessive hours, elimination of child labor, old age pensions, unemployment insurance – year after year the same old story. They may have been right in opposing some of the measures but certainly not the great majority of them. Furthermore, in all this time, during my own experience of twenty-five years in public life, the same Chamber has never yet initiated and pressed one single item of social betterment.

Lots of businesses – both large and small – have accepted the need to solve global warming. They are working with us to find solutions – whether by implementing existing laws or enacting a new one. Roosevelt’s pessimistic assessment aside, it’s not too late for the Chamber to drop little charades like this one and start helping.

Look, Hu's Talking

2008-07-09T04:17:16Z

I just returned from a week of talks with Chinese experts and officials in Beijing on global warming. They are intensely interested in how American climate policy may change under a new president next year. And they are ready to tell visitors a lot about the direction of climate policy in China.

The first thing I learned is that on June 28th the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party had held an unusual “group study” – a two-hour seminar for the nation’s top party leaders on climate change science and policy, led by the country’s president and the party’s general secretary, Hu Jintao. These training sessions, I was told, are reserved for issues China’s top leaders believe are really important for the entire party leadership. Two prominent Chinese experts, one on climate science and the other on energy policy, gave presentations. The session was capped by a speech by President Hu. Although I don’t yet have a verbatim translation of Hu’s speech, here are excerpts from a summary provided by Li Yan in Greenpeace’s China office, which I think is worth quoting at some length:

Hu said that China is making key steps towards building a Well-Off Society, and is at an important development stage of accelerated industrialization and urbanization. The burdens of economic growth and living standards improvements are heavy. The task of addressing climate change is tough. However, how China copes with climate change is related to the country's economic development and people's practical benefits. It's in line with the country's basic interests.
Hu emphasized the following five key groups of measures to tackle climate change:
1.        to implement GHG emission controlling measures: sticking to the basic state policy of resource-saving and environment protection, as well as exploration of the new way of industrialization with Chinese Characteristics, speeding up the transition of way of economic development by improving energy saving and efficiency, developing circular economy and low carbon economy; and increasing forest coverage.
2.        to enhance adaptation capacity: improving farmland capital construction; rational exploitation and optimized distribution of water resource, construction of ecological conservation priority projects, integrated climate impacts assessment.
3.        to make use of science and technology improvement and innovation: accelerating R&D and demonstration of key technologies in both climate mitigation and adaptation, strengthening basic science research, enhancing international R&D.
4.        to set up institutional mechanisms to address climate change: improving laws and regulations; pushing forward energy management mechanism and pricing reform, monitoring-early warning emergency mechanism and decision making process with multiple ministries’ involvement, action mechanism to ensure wider participation of the Chinese society, etc. Amongst all, capacity building on integrated monitoring and early warning against extreme weather disasters, on withstanding disasters and on disaster reduction is particularly important.
5.        to enhance awareness and capacity of the society to participate in tackling climate change, and build positive environment of public participation.

And here’s perhaps the key part, again summarized by Li Yan of Greenpeace:

At the end of the speech, Hu urged local governments to recognize that addressing climate change is a key component of achieving sustainable development. They should bring climate consideration into economic and societal development plans, take on appropriate measures, and build up coordinating and implementing capacity. The task to achieve the national binding energy saving and pollutant emission reduction targets of “the eleventh five year plan (2006-2010)” is hard, and time is limited. Party organizations and governments at all levels must give priority to these targets. They need to improve energy saving and emission reduction accounting, monitoring and assessment system, also prioritize key sectors and fields and widely engage the public.

What does this mean? Chinese experts told me it means: “Pay attention, Party officials, you are going to get graded on this.” Your advancement is going to depend in part on whether you deliver on the energy efficiency and pollution reduction targets in the five-year plan.

The five-year plan, it will be recalled, set a target of improving energy intensity – the amount of energy per unit of economic output – 20% by 2010. The Chinese experts and officials I talked with said we should look for stronger energy efficiency improvement targets to be set for succeeding years.

One expert told me there are two things driving Chinese climate policy now. The first driver is domestic concern for energy security and reducing pollution. Chinese concern about global warming impacts has risen significantly due to a series of extreme weather events this year, from last winter’s intense snow storms that shut down internal transport, to this summer’s unusually heavy rains – which are hammering the already devastated earthquake region.

The second driver is concern for China’s place in the world. China wants to be seen as a “responsible big nation,” more than one expert told me. And they are acutely aware that they are now #1 in annual CO2 emissions and that they are under international pressure to take action to reduce their emissions.

These domestic and international drivers have led to a change in the tone and substance of China’s climate policy. Just a few years ago, China’s leaders brushed off any call for their country to reduce emissions, saying that their only priority was development and poverty eradication. But at the Bali climate conference last December, China and other big developing countries showed unprecedented willingness to begin negotiations on emission-reducing commitments and actions to be taken by both developed and developing countries.

Today, China’s President Hu and leaders of other large developing countries – Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa and others – are in Japan for a “major economies” summit on climate change with leaders of the biggest developed nations, on the heels of the G8 summit.

The G8's own climate statement was underwhelming, to say the least -- see the postings here and here by my colleague, Jake Schmidt. The G8 say they want China and the other big developing countries to join in emission reduction efforts.

In their own statement the five developing country leaders say they are ready to do so. If developed countries take the lead in reducing their own emissions in the near-term (between now and 2020), the big developing country leaders say they also will act.

That’s a positive answer to the G8 leaders’ demand for action by all major emitters.

Sounds like the basis of a deal.

See No Email

2008-06-25T18:04:36Z

So today we learned an odd new twist in the White House's refusal to let EPA regulate global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act. Felicity Barringer reports in the New York Times today that last December officials of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) "refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened."

In previous blog entries, I've explained how EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson prepared last year to implement the Supreme Court's landmark decision that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. His agency sent the White House a formal "endangerment" determination -- the step that triggers regulation -- for OMB's review and clearance.

This was no act of bravery by the hapless Administrator. He thought he was doing what President Bush had asked. Momentarily chastened by the Supreme Court's decision, in May 2007 the president directed Johnson to regulate emissions of CO2 and other heat-trapping pollutants from vehicles and fuels.

But the effect of the High Court's decision wore off quickly, and before the fall was out, the White House was back to its old ways. Barringer reports today that when EPA sent the endangerment document over to the White House, OMB officials responded (apparently with a low-tech phone call) that they would not even open the email.

What's this all about? It's about trying not to leave any "paper trail" -- any electronic records -- that EPA's proposals ever reached the White House. It's about maintaining the fiction that the Bush EPA acts with any independence. Even today, Barringer reports, the White House spokeman is still pushing the line that "It's the E.P.A. that determines what analysis it wants to make available."

Ha!

The watered-down EPA document expected to be released soon will not make the endangerment determination. It will only mark time by asking for more comments on something everyone in the real world already knows: that CO2 and the other heat-trapping pollutants are dangerous to our health and welfare and desparately need to be curbed.

The politicos at EPA just do what the puppetmasters demand. But the EPA professionals keep trying to do their job. Fortunately, the "see-no-email" era is coming to an end.

Update: see what John Stewart had to say about the email follies.

Heavens Open on U.S. Capitol While Senate Stalls on Global Warming Bill

2008-06-04T21:11:00Z

It’s Wednesday afternoon at 3:15, and looking out my window in downtown Washington, I am watching a huge thunderstorm buffet the city. The sky grew dark. Lightning, thunder, wind, and rain. Tornado warnings -- very rare here in the nation's capital.

The Senate is considering global warming legislation this week. The Boxer-Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would start reducing U.S. global warming pollution and help put the world on a path to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

But since noon, the Senate has been tied up in procedural knots, with opponents of the 492-page bill insisting that the Senate’s clerks read it out loud!

At 2:55 PM, the National Weather Service issued a “severe thunderstorm warming” for the District of Columbia and surrounding area:

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A LINE OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS...AND MOVING EAST AT 58 MPH. * LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE... THE ENTIRE WASHINGTON AND BALTIMORE METRO AREAS... THIS IS A DANGEROUS STORM WITH EXTREME WINDS OVER A LARGE AREA. TAKE COVER NOW! DAMAGING WINDS ARE LIKELY WITH THESE STORMS...MOVE TO A SAFE PLACE NOW. MOBILE HOMES AND VEHICLES ARE ESPECIALLY SUSCEPTIBLE TO HIGH WINDS AND MAY BE OVERTURNED. A TORNADO WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR THE WARNED AREA. TORNADOES CAN DEVELOP SUDDENLY FROM SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS. BE ALERT FOR RAPIDLY CHANGING WEATHER CONDITIONS AS STORMS APPROACH.

The reading of the bill drones on. Draw your own conclusions.

The Phony “Train Wreck”

2008-04-18T17:59:05Z

President Bush’s advisors claimed this week that using the Clean Air Act and other existing laws to fight global warming will cause “a regulatory train wreck.” The only “train wreck” we’ll have is if the president’s own engineers and switchmen get away with deliberately derailing the nation’s clean air laws.

One year ago, the Supreme Court rebuffed the president’s legal strategy for doing nothing on global warming. The High Court rejected the Environmental Protection Agency’s claim that it had no authority to curb the pollution that causes global warming. Instead, the Court ruled that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are “air pollutants” and that EPA has the authority to regulate them under the Clean Air Act.

Last spring, President Bush said he accepted the Supreme Court's decision. He called it “the new law of the land” and he ordered his EPA to implement it. And for a while it looked like the EPA actually would be allowed to act – until the kibosh came down.

Now the president is back to condemning the courts for “stretch[ing]” these laws “beyond their original intent.” And he made it clear that – notwithstanding his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the nation’s laws – he has no intention to comply with the Supreme Court’s landmark clean air decision.

What about the president’s claim that the Clean Air Act wasn’t designed to deal with protecting the climate? Well, the truth is that Congress actually debated global warming way back when it passed the Clean Air Act in 1970. And based on the science available back then, Congress specifically wrote it into the law not only that EPA must curb pollution that threatens our health, but also pollution that affects the “climate” and the “weather.” History was not the president’s best subject.

What about the president’s claim that using the Clean Air Act could “have crippling effects on our entire economy”? The truth is that using the Clean Air Act is a perfectly practical way to reduce global warming pollution from our cars, power plants, and big factories. As I testified to a House committee last week, the law calls upon EPA to set standards for using available technology and for considering costs, lead-time needs, safety, and energy considerations.

Nothing fancy. No economic ruin. Just do what’s technically feasible taking into account costs. Do that and you’ve taken a big bite out of 80 percent of America’s global warming pollution.

What about the president’s claim that he’d have to regulate everything “from schools and stores to hospitals and apartment buildings”? Would you be surprised to learn that no one is asking EPA to do this? In fact, EPA has already figured out ways it could avoid sweeping in small sources of CO2.

Normally the president doesn’t feel too constrained by mere laws. His Justice Department works overtime finding him “inherent powers” to do whatever he pleases. But here it suits him to pretend his hands are tied. Why, because he has no other excuses left for not curbing the carbon pollution from the big boys – the power plants, factories, and car companies – except to hide behind schools and hospitals.

Do we need a new law to comprehensively control global warming pollution? Sure. But there’s a lot the president could do to get started under the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws – if he wanted to do anything.

But for more than seven years, this president has done nothing except try to close the door on the Clean Air Act and other existing laws. All while opposing every new proposal to cap carbon pollution that is advanced in the Congress.

And now he’s announced that after eight years of letting global warming emissions grow, he wants to let them keep growing for 17 more years, ‘til 2025.

Some people say, just wait for the next president. But global warming won’t wait.

That’s why NRDC, together with states and other environmental groups, has gone back to court for an order to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision and force action under the Clean Air Act.

And that’s why we’re working to pass the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which is coming up for a vote on the Senate floor later this spring.

This president has created his own train wreck. And we’ll still be cleaning up the mess long after he’s gone.

A Man for All Seasons

2008-02-29T23:55:02Z

So last night I caught the classic film, “A Man for All Seasons,” about Sir Thomas More’s principled refusal to take orders from King Henry VIII. There was a character in there who reminded me of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson – and it wasn’t Sir Thomas More.

You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

Administrator Johnson today issued his formal reasons for blocking California and 17 other states from enforcing their landmark vehicle emission standards for the pollutants that cause global warming. In December, Johnson told Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that he could fagettaboudit.

His excuse? That California is not suffering “compelling and extraordinary conditions” – the bar the state must clear under the Clean Air Act in order to set its own vehicle emission standards – because global warming is not “unique” to California. As I show in a statement today and in a previous post, that’s both factually and legally wrong.

Johnson says he's just following the law and acting independently, even though documents revealed by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee show that he acted contrary to his professional staff’s advice and under White House direction.

Which brings me back to Sir Thomas More.

Sir Thomas was done in by the testimony of one Richard Rich, who received from the King a lucrative post in Wales as his reward.

Said Sir Thomas: “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?”

Some thought Mr. Johnson would resign rather than do this bidding. But for his service, it seems he will enjoy the title of EPA Administrator for all of another 11 months.

So when we suffer stronger heat waves and smog in summer, more wildfires and hurricanes in the fall, winters without snow, and species that don’t return in springtime, perhaps we’ll remember Stephen Johnson as “a man for all seasons.”

The Truth Is Chilling

2008-01-24T04:35:33Z

Want a fun read? Check out EPA’s January 18 letter to Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, explaining why Administrator Stephen Johnson doesn’t want the public to see documents showing why his professional and legal staff thought he shouldn’t block California’s clean car standards.

My favorite parts:

“EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if Agency employees believed that their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California’s waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting.”

Oh. Making it public that the staff thinks the Administrator is breaking the law would chill the staff from telling him. Funny, I thought it might chill the Administrator from breaking the law.

“[F]urther disclosure could result in needless public confusion about the Administrator’s decision that EPA will be denying California’s request. That is, many of the documents are pre-decisional and thus do not reflect the Agency’s full and complete thinking on the matter. Indeed, final decision documents have not yet been completed and made available to the public through publication in the Federal Register, so the public, if given access to the pre-decisional documents, would be effectively denied access to the full, complete rationale by the Agency.”

Oh. So, if the public knew more, it would know less. We can’t let you have these documents because we want you to have our “full and complete thinking” and our “full, complete rationale.”

“Finally, the Agency is currently engaged in ongoing litigation over this matter, and future litigation is expected. . . . Further disclosure of this type of confidential information could jeopardize the Agency’s ability to effectively litigate claims related to California’s waiver request.”

Oh. So it might hurt the Administrator’s chances in court if the judges could see his lawyers’ candid reasons why his actions were illegal. I hate it when that happens.

* * *

When someone’s trying to hide something, it’s always satisfying to find out they really had something to hide. Here is what some of the documents say, reproduced right from Senator Boxer’s committee website:

The following are excerpts from the uncensored EPA briefing documents shown to the EPW Committee Staff. EPA has not released these documents to the Committee or to the public, despite ongoing requests.

"COMPELLING AND EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES" (Excerpts from several slides):

· "California continues to have compelling and extraordinary conditions in general (geography, climatic, human and motor vehicle populations - many such conditions are vulnerable to climate change conditions) as confirmed by several recent EPA decisions..."

· "Though GHG once emitted become well mixed in the global atmosphere, the climate change that results from increased concentrations of GHG is not uniform, either spatially or temporally. Resultant impacts on health, society, and the environment can further vary by region."

· "Wildfires are increasing. Wildfires generate particulates that can exacerbate the health impacts from increased smog projected from higher temperatures."

· "California has the greatest variety of ecosystems in the U.S.; and the most threatened and endangered species in the continental U.S."

· "California exhibits the greatest climatic variation in the U.S."

· "IPCC's key conclusions: many of the IPCC's key conclusions about impacts elevated to the executive summary for North America are specific issues in California, and thus California exhibits a greater number of key impact concerns than other regions," including:

o Coastal communities and habitat impacts

o Over-allocated water resources

o Ageing infrastructure, heat islands and air pollution (i.e., ozone) impacts

o Wildfires and insects outbursts

· "Ozone conditions."

o “Legislative history, case law, and past waiver practice acknowledge that California’s ozone problem is ‘compelling and extraordinary’”

SLIDE - "If We Grant . . ."

· "Likely suit by manufacturers"

· "EPA is almost certain to win such a suit"

· "Grant will likely allow CA standards to go into effect . . . "

· "Grant would be generally consistent with federal GHG rule"

SLIDE - "If We Deny . . ."

· "Almost certain lawsuit by California"

· "EPA likely to lose suit" (In a revised version of the presentation, the point about losing the lawsuit was changed to read: "EPA's litigation risks are significantly higher than if a waiver is granted.")

· "A decision to deny may have some consequences for justifying federal GHG rule," including "require[ing] downplaying benefits of GHG rule - we would need to say that expected reduction in ozone precursors and temperature doesn't appreciably help CA problems including ozone."

Facts Are Stupid Things

2008-01-08T17:30:00Z

John Adams, our second president, famously said: "Facts are stubborn things." In a 1988 slip of the tongue, Ronald Reagan said: "Facts are stupid things." For the Bush administration, the slip of the tongue has been going on for seven years.

Here's the latest from the fact-free zone. Last month, when denying California the right to set its own standards for global warming pollution from new cars and SUVs (see my previous post), Bush's EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, claimed California's global warming standards are weaker than the fuel economy standard in the newly enacted energy bill.

In his December 19th get-lost letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Johnson wrote: "I strongly support this national approach to this national challenge which establishes an aggressive standard of 35 miles per gallon for all 50 states, as opposed to 33.8 miles per gallon in California and a patchwork of other states."

Huh? If California's standards are weaker, then why are the car companies so opposed to them?

Well, for starters, Johnson was comparing apples and oranges. He was comparing the federal miles per gallon (mpg) standard for 2020 with the mpg level he attributed to the California emissions standards for 2016.

That might be okay in fantasy baseball. It may be fun to ask if Babe Ruth could have hit 60 home runs against today's pitching. But the EPA administrator shouldn't be playing fantasy carbon regulation.

In fact, lined up year-by-year, the California standards are always stronger. This is true whether you are comparing them on the basis of greenhouse gas reductions or mileage. And it is true whether you are looking at California alone, or the nation as a whole.

As Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, put it: "[The] California standards start earlier, go faster ... and the end points are more stringent."

Let's look more closely at Johnson's math. The EPA administrator supplied no documentation for his calculations. (My high-school son can't get away with that when he turns in his math homework.) In contrast, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) prepared its own fully-documented comparison of the California emission standards and the federal mileage standards.

CARB's analysis compares apples to apples, matching up the California global warming standards and federal mileage standards year for year. No more comparing federal standards for 2020 with state standards for 2016.

Now the new energy law says the mileage standard must reach at least 35 miles per gallon by 2020, but doesn't spell out the mileage standards for the intervening years. The federal Department of Transportation (DOT) still has to write the miles per gallon standards for 2011 through 2019. So to fill this gap, CARB assumes that the federal DOT will increase the mileage standards proportionally each year. In that case, CARB calculates that the federal standard will be only 29.6 mpg in 2016.

Last time I checked, 33.8 was bigger than 29.6.

Ka-ching!

(CARB actually found a small difference between its estimate of the mpg value of its 2016 standards (33.1 mpg) and the number ascribed to the California standards in EPA administrator Johnson's letter (33.8 mpg). As I said earlier, because Johnson didn't "show his work," no one knows how he got his number. But whether equivalent to 33.1 or 33.8, the California global warming standards beat 29.6.)

CARB then translated the federal mileage standards into reductions in global warming pollution and compared them in the years through 2016. CARB did this first for California's vehicle fleet.

CARB found that in California, the state's standards reduce global warming pollution more than twice as much as the federal standards in 2016. Looking at cumulative reductions from 2009 through 2016, California's standards cut heat-trapping gases three times as much as the federal standards.

Ka-ching!

That's for the fleet mix in California, which has more cars than SUVs and other light trucks (70 percent cars, 30 percent light trucks). You get the same result for the national fleet mix (50 percent cars, 50 percent light trucks). If applied across the country, in 2016 the California standards would cut heat-trapping gases 75 percent more than the federal mileage standards.

Ka-ching!

California doesn't stop in 2016. CARB has announced plans to strengthen its standards through 2020 (here, p.45). CARB's current analysis shows that California's 2020 standards will vastly outperform the federal mpg standard in 2020 as well, reducing global warming pollution nearly 75 percent more based on the California fleet mix, and nearly 60 percent more if applied nationally.

Ka-ching!

For good measure, CARB converted its own global warming standards into miles per gallon. California comes out way ahead this way too:

Ka-ching!

Well, let's go back to EPA administrator Johnson's fuzzy math.

Slips of the tongue happen (even in a written letter). But even after being called on his mistakes, Johnson didn't take the opportunity to correct himself. Instead, Johnson had his spokesman repeat his bogus 2020-vs.-2016, 35-vs.-33.8 comparison when the state and environmental coalition took him to court on January 2nd.

Once is a slip. Twice is deliberate.

EPA administrator Steven Johnson is a trained scientist. Scientists are supposed to be able to count. Scientists are supposed to have a respect for facts. Facts are not supposed to be stupid things.

The Great Galvanizer

2008-01-02T18:00:00Z

Seven years ago, incoming President Bush brashly withdrew America from the international effort to stop global warming. Then national security advisor Condaleeza Rice told European diplomats that the Kyoto treaty was dead. That only galvanized the rest of the world to see the treaty through. By the end of Bush’s first year in office, some 180 nations overcame their differences and agreed on the final touches of Kyoto without us.

The great galvanizer is busy again, this time uniting America’s governors in common cause to defend California’s landmark clean car standards. Seventeen other states have joined California in its bid to cut the heat-trapping emissions of new cars, SUVs, and pick-ups 30 percent by 2016, making these standards the most effective step yet taken to curb U.S. global warming pollution. But just a few days before Christmas, Bush’s EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that his clean car standards were dead. Hell hath no fury like governors and attorneys-general scorned.

So today, an unprecedented alliance of red and blue states, joined by NRDC and others environmental partners, is going to court to get the feds out of their way. In suits filed in San Francisco, the state and environmental coalition is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn the Bush administration’s attempt to veto the California standards. (In addition to California, the states are: Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. In addition to NRDC, the environmental partners are: Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Conservation Law Foundation, and the International Center for Technology Assessment.)

Blocking California’s global warming standards is a desperate final act of denial from an administration with just one year left to live. Ironically, the Bush team’s greatest legacy is to unify other leaders, at home and abroad, on the need for real action to cut global warming pollution.

So here’s the background:

After extensive testimony, the California legislature determined in 2002 that global warming is causing “compelling and extraordinary impacts” on the Golden State – melting the snowpack which serves as the state’s water supply, raising health-endangering smog levels, increasing the chances for catastrophic wildfires, and causing other serious harms. The legislature passed a landmark law directing the California Air Resources Board to set the “maximum feasible and cost-effective” standards for emissions of carbon dioxide and three other heat-trapping pollutants from new motor vehicles.

California acted under special authority it has had since 1967 as the only state allowed by the federal Clean Air Act to set its own vehicle emission standards. All California needs from the U.S. EPA is a normally-routine waiver that has been granted more than 50 times over the past four decades, and has never before been denied.

In 2004 the California Air Resources Board adopted standards that take effect in model year 2009 and ramp up to a 30 percent reduction in global warming pollution by model year 2016. California asked EPA for its waiver in 2005.

In 2006 and 2007, 17 other states adopted or set the wheels in motion to adopt the California standards. To date, 12 states are fully onboard: Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Oregon, Vermont, Washington. In five others states, the governors have directed their environmental agencies to adopt the same standards: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, and Utah. Together with California, these states represent nearly half of all new vehicle sales. (Even more states are considering joining up.)

NRDC experts testified on behalf of California’s waiver request, and NRDC’s members and activists submitted more than 70,000 comments in support of the waiver to EPA.

California and its allies waited for two years while the Bush EPA stalled on giving the state its answer. But things did not stand still in the meantime.

EPA’s first excuse for delay was to wait for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in a case called Massachusetts v. EPA. On April 2, 2007, the justices ruled that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are “air pollutants” subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s claim that Clean Air Act authority conflicted with the nation’s fuel economy law. Rather, the Court said the Clean Air Act and the CAFE law are “wholly independent” mandates.

In September and December, two other federal courts in Vermont and California rejected auto industry lawsuits against the states’ standards, holding that they too are not preempted by the fuel economy law.

For good measure, in November the federal appeals court in San Francisco – the same court we are appealing to today – overturned the Bush administration’s tiny increase in CAFE standards for SUVs and other light-trucks because the administration had put zero value on the effects of global warming.

And in December, Congress passed new energy legislation that raises fuel economy standards to “at least 35 miles per gallon” by 2020. In writing this law, Congress rejected auto industry and Bush administration demands for language that would have blocked California’s standards. Quite the opposite, the new law – signed by the president on December 19th – specifically protects the California’s power under the Clean Air Act to regulate vehicles’ global warming emissions.

But these messages from the courts and Congress meant nothing to the great galvanizer. Less than 12 hours after President Bush signed the new energy law protecting California’s standards, EPA administrator Johnson rejected the California waiver in a brief letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger. In so doing, Johnson overruled his career staff’s advice that a waiver denial would be overturned as illegal.

It seems the fix was in. Two congressional committees are now investigating indications that Johnson acted under orders from Vice-President Cheney’s office, who had met with auto executives several weeks earlier.

In their lawsuits, the states and their environmental allies will ask the Ninth Circuit to overturn Johnson’s decision for three basic reasons:

First, Johnson claimed California is not suffering “compelling and extraordinary conditions” – conditions the state must have under the Clean Air Act in order to set its own motor vehicle emission standards. EPA has never before denied California a waiver on this basis. His excuse, that California’s plight is not “exclusive” or “unique” is both factually and legally wrong.

He is factually wrong because no other state can claim the same wide range of severe impacts that California faces – from the threat to our water supply, to the billions of dollars in damage from horrendous wildfires, to the adverse health effects of enhanced smog levels.

He is legally wrong because, as his predecessor William Ruckelshaus found more than 20 years ago in 1984, the Clean Air Act does not require California’s plight to be “unique” in order to be “compelling and extraordinary.”

Second, Johnson echoed the auto industry’s refrain that the California standards will lead to a “patchwork” of inconsistent standards. In fact, there is no “patchwork.” Congress long ago gave other states only two choices: to stick with federal standards or adopt California’s standards “identically.”

The decision Congress made last December confirms the one made 40 years ago: California has the right to set its own pollution standards. The automakers made their case against California’s leadership role, and they lost.

Third, Johnson claimed that it would be “better policy” to have a single mileage standard under the new national energy legislation, even though Congress rejected that view in the new energy law. The new law sets a floor, not a ceiling. It requires standards of “at least 35 miles per gallon,” giving the administration the power to go farther. It also protected existing environmental laws. It preserved California’s authority to set, and other states’ authority to adopt, more stringent emission standards to fight global warming.

This is just one more example of the Bush administration’s disrespect for law. The assertion that they know better than the law of the land is exactly the sort of behavior that the Supreme Court struck down in its landmark global warming decision last year. That is why EPA will lose again, and why the states’ leadership in the fight against global warming will prevail.

The Start of the World’s Last Chance

2007-12-15T15:32:05Z

UPDATE: I participated in a round-table discussion of the Bali talks on the NewsHour on PBS on Dec. 17th -- please see the video and transcript.

Late Saturday in Bali, after overcoming last-minute U.S. objections, more than 180 countries agreed to negotiate, over the next two years, a new global deal to curb global warming.

The Bali agreement marks the start of the world’s last chance to reach a treaty that will stave off catastrophic climate impacts.

Scientists tell us that we have only another 10 years to turn worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide downwards if we want to avoid the worst effects of global warming. The good news is that we have the technology and solutions to dramatically cut heat-trapping pollution while continuing strong economic growth.

Here in Bali, countries have set a two-year agenda for negotiating what comes after the Kyoto Protocol. That treaty sets caps on emissions only through 2012 and only for developed countries. And because President Bush pulled out in 2001, it puts no limits on U.S. emissions.

For too long, the Bush administration has blamed China and done nothing at home. But here in Bali, China, Brazil, South Africa and other big developing countries showed unprecedented willingness to start negotiating real actions to slow and reverse their own growing emissions.

What was so odd on Saturday is that the Bush officials in charge of the U.S. delegation could not take yes for an answer. In the final public session, web-casted around the world (here, click on "part 3, original"), Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky objected to a cosmetic change in language on developing countries to which she'd earlier agreed. Developing countries, she said, hadn't sufficiently committed to curb their emissions, and the U.S. wouldn't go along.

The blowback was like nothing I have ever seen in normally polite international talks. Country after country pounded the U.S. position, some angry, some imploring Dobriansky to back up. "Lead, follow, or get out of the way," said Papua New Guinea in a new version of the mouse that roared.

It was a rout. Less than an hour later, the U.S. gave up and joined the consensus,

Other countries, both developed and developing, are ready to move forward. But they need to see real progress from the U.S., which has been the world’s biggest emitter for more than half a century. Now we need to do our part.

Fortunately, the politics of global warming have dramatically changed in America over the past year. States and cities are acting, and a broad coalition of business and environmental leaders are looking for national legislation.

Congress is on the verge of passing a new energy bill raising fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, increasing renewable fuels, and setting new efficiency standards. And a key Senate committee has passed the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which will cut total U.S. global warming pollution up to 25 percent by 2020 and up to two thirds by 2050.

The next presidential election takes place at the halfway point in these treaty talks. So the U.S. will field a new team in the second half. And there are good odds that the next president will get serious on global warming.

That’s the world’s best hope to pull this off.

America’s New Direction

2007-12-10T17:12:27Z

As an American citizen attending climate treaty talks on behalf of NRDC, for too many years I’ve had to endure watching my country’s government play the role of “Dr. No.” Just wait, I’d tell people from other countries, things are going to change in the U.S. You can’t blame them for having been skeptical.

But what a change this time. I arrived in Bali on the heels of two historic votes in the U.S. Congress. So at a press conference on Friday, and at other meetings, I’ve been able to bring tangible proof that there’s new leadership in the U.S., that the Bush administration does not really speak for us anymore, and that America really is changing course.

I talked about the sweeping new energy bill that House of Representatives passed 235-181. As you can see here, the bill would raise new car fuel economy standards to at least 35 miles per gallon by 2020; expand use of renewable motor fuels, with an emphasis on low-emitting “cellulosic” biofuels and with safeguards for our air, water, and land; require electricity companies to provide at least 15 percent of their power from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2020; set new energy-saving standards for light bulbs and appliances; and take tax breaks away from the oil industry (which hardly needs a helping hand with oil at more than $90 a barrel) and puts the money to faster deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

To be sure, the bill has hit temporary roadblocks in the Senate, where Republicans are determined to defend the oil company tax breaks and oppose renewable electricity standards. While Democratic leaders may have to move those parts separately, it’s likely that before New Year’s eve the full Congress will approve the new fuel economy and renewable fuels standards, and new lighting and appliance energy efficiency standards. These are big changes after years of bad energy bills.

Also last week, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act was approved 11-8 by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. This is the first economy-wide global warming bill to make it through any committee in Congress. The bill sets a cap on sources representing 86 percent of U.S. global warming pollution. The bill cuts emissions of covered sources from 2005 levels by 4 percent by 2012, 19 percent by 2020, and 71 percent by 2050. It also provides for more reductions from sources outside the cap, such as forests and agriculture. This historic vote builds on state and local action, court decisions, and new business-environmental partnerships. What is happening now was unthinkable just one year ago.

What impact do these votes in Congress have on climate talks in Bali?

Diplomats and nongovernmental participants from other countries have been aching for signs of change from the U.S. Now they can see the shape of American policy to come, once President Bush turns out the White House lights at the end of 2008. Now they can see how lame the ducks on the U.S. delegation really are.

Here in Bali, by the end of next week countries are likely to kick off a two-year negotiation to agree on faster cuts in heat-trapping pollution after 2012. The deadline is December 2009. The U.S. presidential election comes in November next year – just about the half-way point in these talks. So in the second half of this football game, we’ll be fielding a different team.

Based on what’s happening back home now, I’m really hopeful the new team will have a very different game plan. Then the United States can resume its rightful role as a leader and a partner in the global effort to avoid climate catastrophe.

And, based on my first few days in Bali, Oh! how welcome that change will be.

Beep-Beep M’ Beep-Beep, Yeah!

2007-12-02T02:02:07Z

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, together with Senators Diane Feinstein and Daniel Inouye and other leading Senators, have pulled off agreement on the first significant increase in fuel economy standards since 1985.

Under the new fuel economy legislation hammered out on Friday, new cars, SUVs, minivans, and other light trucks will have to reach an average of 35 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2020. This is a 40 percent increase over current standards, which have remained flat for more than two decades. Real mileage actually fell over this period with the rise of the SUV.

The new legislation is a huge victory that turns this trend around. In 2020, the new standards will cut America’s oil dependence by 1.2 million barrels day, save consumers more $40 billion a year at the pump, and cut heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions by 200 million tons. And the gains will only grow with each passing year as new cars replace old ones.

Equally important, Speaker Pelosi and the Senate leaders turned back the automakers' attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last April that recognizes the Environmental Protection Agency's – and California’s – power to curb vehicle emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

The auto companies have long thumbed their noses at any increase in mileage standards, smug and secure behind the protection of Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the powerful chairman of the energy and commerce committee. But give Mr. Dingell due credit. Earlier this year, he told the auto makers times were changing. And in the end, Mr. Dingell agreed to support the Senate-passed standard of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

Though Mr. Dingell won several concessions for the automakers, the final language is actually stronger than the version passed by the Senate last summer, because it drops an “off ramp” provision that would have let the Transportation Department weaken the standards below 35 mpg.

The big battle was over EPA’s and California’s power to curb carbon dioxide. In addition to their defeat in the Supreme Court, the car makers lost another big case in September, when a federal judge in Vermont rejected their attempt to stop California from setting standards to cut global warming emissions from new vehicles 30 percent by 2016. Sixteen other states, including Vermont, have adopted or are poised to adopt California’s standards. (In November, a federal appeals court in San Francisco also rejected the administration’s paltry 1.5 mpg increase in SUV mileage standards, and sent them back to the Transportation Department to be strengthened.)

At the last minute, the automakers pushed for an amendment to overturn these court decisions and destroy EPA’s and California’s Clean Air Act authority. Their amendment would have blocked EPA from setting global warming pollution standards any stronger than the Transportation Department’s mileage standards. And since California is not allowed to set standards that are “not consistent” with EPA’s authority, this would have been a death blow to California’s pioneering clean car standards and to the 16 states that are following California’s lead.

The final language avoids this crippling step backwards with a “savings clause” that protects EPA’s and the states’ powers under the Clean Air Act.

The bill still has to clear the full House, where the Speaker has promised to marry it with strong mandates to increase wind, solar, and other renewable electricity, and to move towards the next generation of clean, “cellulosic” biofuels for cars and trucks. Votes are expected in the House next week.

In the Senate, the fuel economy compromise has won over Senator Carl Levin and other auto industry allies. Majority Leader Harry Reid is backing Speaker Pelosi's approach and has promised quick action. But we could be in for a tough fight, because Republican Senator Pete Domenici has declared all-out opposition to the House renewable electricity standard. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, California awaits a final decision from EPA on its clean car standards. The only thing that stands in the way is a normally routine "waiver" that EPA has given California more than 40 times in the past. After long delay, EPA has promised to decide by the end of this year. So, soon we'll see if the White House gets the message that Congress, the states, and the American people are sending about cleaning up our cars, fighting global warming, and cutting our crippling oil dependence. Saying "no" to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the leaders of 16 other red and blue states would seem to have its costs.

Beep-Beep!

Mad (and Hot) as Hell

2007-11-08T04:16:27Z

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is not going to take it any more. He and Attorney-General Jerry Brown are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today, because the federal government is standing in the way of state efforts – led by California – to curb the global warming pollution from new cars and light trucks.

Sixteen other states – both blue and red – have adopted or are adopting California’s landmark global warming emission standards: Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Utah, and Washington. Together, they make up 45 percent of the nation’s new vehicle sales. Nearly a dozen of those states are joining in California’s lawsuit.

Since the 1960s, California has been the nation’s leader in controlling motor vehicle pollution. The Clean Air Act allows the Golden State to set its own vehicle emission standards, and permits other states to adopt California’s standards. All California needs is what should be a routine EPA waiver, granted more than 50 times in the past, but this time delayed for 22 months and counting. Hence the states’ impatience.

Cars, SUVs, minivans, and other light-trucks are the second largest source of global warming pollution (after power plants), responsible for 20% of total U.S. emissions. Vehicles emit four heat-trapping pollutants – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide come out the tailpipe, and hydrochlorofluorcarbons (HFCs) leak from the air conditioning system.

Acting under a landmark law sponsored by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, California set standards in 2005 that will take effect in model year 2009 and ramp up to a 30% reduction in overall global warming emissions by model year 2016. If, that is, EPA grants California the waiver.

The Bush administration first took the position that CO2 and other heat-trapping gases were not air pollutants at all – that they were outside the reach of the Clean Air Act. But in April the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case called Massachusetts v. EPA, set the administration on its ear, holding that that CO2 is an air pollutant and can be curbed under the nation’s clean air laws.

Duh.

The car makers sued the states to block the California standards, but after three years of litigation, they’ve come up empty. A federal judge in Vermont rejected their lawsuit on all counts in September after a 16-day battle-of-the-experts trial (click here for more info). He found that “Plaintiffs have failed to carry their burden to demonstrate that the regulation is not technologically feasible or economically practicable.” His conclusion: “History suggests that the ingenuity of the industry, once put in gear, responds admirably to most technological challenges.”

D’oh!

The only remaining obstacle is the EPA waiver. By historical standards, California has met all the traditional tests for its waiver. There’s nothing holding that up now but White House politics.

If the President’s men are thinking of ordering the EPA administrator Stephen Johnson to stiff California, perhaps they should first read what’s in the government’s Fourth Climate Action Report, submitted to other nations with White House clearance in July. That report sings the praises of the very California standards that the White House is now thinking of burying.

States, the report says, are taking “a variety of steps that contribute to the [Bush administration’s] overall GHG intensity reduction goal.” Among the state actions singled out for commendation? “Vehicle GHG emission standards” adopted (then) by 11 states: California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington (source: Table IV-1 here).

Last month, President Bush acknowledged: “Our understanding of climate change has come a long way. A report issued earlier this year by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded both that global temperatures are rising and that this is caused largely by human activities.” He spoke of “a moment when we turn the tide against greenhouse gas emissions instead of allowing the problem to grow.” He said: “The moment is now”

Getting out of California’s way would be a good way to show it.

Letting 'The Moment' Pass

2007-09-28T18:47:37Z

Speaking at a meeting of the world’s biggest global warming polluters in Washington today, President Bush said “the moment is now” for action. But he let the moment go by without making any change in his dogged refusal to put real limits on America’s global warming pollution.

The President spoke at a meeting of the 17 largest economies and biggest emitters – including the European Union, Japan, China, India, Australia, Canada, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea and the U.S. – that together account for 80 percent of the world’s global warming pollution. He invited those countries to Washington for a two-day conference on what they can “contribute” to international negotiations on curbing carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol comes to an end in 2012.

Wouldn’t this have been a fine moment to change direction and become part of the solution? ... Naaaah!

President Bush’s opposition to capping and reducing our own global warming pollution is the single biggest obstacle to making progress here at home or with other countries. He opposes legislation moving in Congress to cap and cut domestic emissions. He also opposes negotiating any international obligations to cap and cut those emissions together with other countries.

His solution? “Technology.” He touted his administration’s investments in cleaner coal, nuclear power, solar, wind, and hydrogen fuel cells. New technologies will save us, he says… sometime in the distant future.

His big initiative for the day? The President proposed a new international, government-funded technology fund. But he put no money on the table, saying we’d hear from Treasury Secretary Paulson in a few months.

R&D is important. But all by itself, R&D will not get clean technologies into our power plants, factories, cars, and homes.

What is needed is a clear market signal to use the tremendous array of clean technologies that are already available and on the shelf today. That same signal will put the enormous resources of the private sector to work inventing new technologies for the future. The best way to send that signal is to set a cap on our own emissions, and to negotiate reciprocal action from other countries. Then you’ll see the private sector go to town.

Given the President’s refusal to embrace real limits on heat-trapping emissions, his glowing praise for the Montreal Protocol on protecting the ozone layer is all the more remarkable. As I wrote last week, the Montreal Protocol is the model for action on global warming – a binding treaty with real obligations to cut pollution. Developed countries took the lead and developed countries came on board. Follow that model on global warming? ... Naaah!

The President also proposed a meeting of heads of state next summer to negotiate a “long-term goal.” He could have jump-started that process by embracing the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the world’s scientific experts on global warming – that to avert a build-up of heat-trapping gases to levels that most consider very dangerous, the world needs to stop the growth of global warming pollution within the next 10-15 years and cut global emissions in half by 2050. He could have endorsed the European Union’s objective of preventing global average temperatures from increasing by more than another 2 degrees Fahrenheit from today’s levels ... Naaaah!

“The moment” has passed. And now back to our regularly scheduled war on terrorism.