Heather Allen's Blog: Curbing Pollution

The Oil Spill Demonstrates National Security Imperative for a Clean Energy Future

2010-05-05T21:02:02Z

As the oil spreads in the Gulf threatening livelihoods, wildlife and coastal ecosystems, political leaders are recognizing that this event will have major implications for America’s energy future. The stark difference between the Cape Wind project and the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are clear symbols of the different energy paths we can choose.

To date, we have chosen to rely primarily on fossil fuels to meet our energy needs, but these fuels have tremendous short-term and long-term consequences, from oil spills to mining disasters to global warming. Yet even beyond environmental and health impacts the national security implications of our energy choices are among the most controversial and political.

Time magazine says:

for the foreseeable future, the U.S. will need offshore oil — certainly from the Gulf of Mexico, which is responsible for about a third of U.S. production, but perhaps eventually from other regions as well. If we don't take that oil from our own waters, we will be buying it from abroad — potentially from countries that have much more lax environmental standards.

The author is correct, if we fail to change course we will either draw more oil from our own waters, risking devastating environmental and economic consequences (As Business Insider notes, average Americans will foot the bill for any damages of the spill beyond 75 million) or we will obtain our oil from other countries. Most of our oil comes from foreign countries now (about 57% in 2008).

Drilling at home versus abroad is a false choice echoed this morning by Senator Landrieu:

“Our choice is to increase our reliance on friends like Venezuela or Cuba and other places, or we learn how to drill it safely here.”

That response is no longer enough. True security requires a new clean energy path.

The only meaningful response to this man-made disaster is a man-made energy bill that would finally put in place an American clean-energy infrastructure that would set our country on a real, long-term path to ending our addiction to oil. (Thomas Friedman May 4, 2010)

The United States has the opportunity to turn away from dirty and dangerous energy sources and embrace a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill that adds ‘2 million clean energy jobs, cuts pollution by 2 billion tons, and saves 2 trillion dollars worth of oil imports.’ Our security depends on it.

The Defense Department knows that oil and other fossil fuels are contributing to the destabilizing force of climate change, and the CIA has established a new program to consider the threat of climate change. But the threat to our national security of dirty and dangerous oil is probably best summarized in this recent article by Sandy Berger, former National Security Advisor to President Clinton.

One essential national security imperative has gone unaddressed too long, its risks unmet: the combined challenge of energy security and global climate change.

We can no longer afford to ignore the consequences of inaction or pass the buck to future generations. It is our responsibility to act now.

It's time for the United States to put in place a coherent national energy policy that limits the severe economic and national security risks of our over-dependence on oil. The American economy today is hostage to volatile oil prices. Four out of the last five U.S. recessions were preceded by an oil price spike. A geopolitical conflict that disrupts the global supply of oil could quickly escalate into a military confrontation and would leave us with few options to alleviate the impact on the U.S. economy. This strategic vulnerability draws us into intractable conflicts in the most volatile regions of the world.

Now is the moment to pass comprehensive climate legislation and protect America from the immediate and growing threats to our health, environment and security from the dirty fuels of the past.

Water Day Writing Contest: Entries Accepted through March 31, 2010

2010-03-19T21:02:31Z

As many NRDC specialists are posting blogs on critical water issues, you may be itching to get your fingers in the mix. Now is the time!

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is partnering with Helium to get your voice heard on the most pressing issues of the day. We want to know your thoughts on questions raised by Pulitzer Center-sponsored reporting projects around the globe – and the winning essays will be showcased on the Pulitzer Center’s website and on Helium. Winning writers will also receive a Pulitzer Center Global Issues/Citizen Voices Award.

When selecting the winner from the top 10 ranked entries on Helium, the Pulitzer Center especially values vivid, well-articulated essays that reflect unusual insight, a clear point of view and, where appropriate, original reporting. Anything fictionalized or not based on the writer’s own observations should be clearly marked as such in the body of the text.

The deadline for the World Water Day Writing Contest is Wednesday March 31. The Pulitzer Center Global Issues/Citizen Voices Award in this contest will be announced on Friday April 9.

Vegetarian in 2010: My New Year's Resolution

2010-01-06T21:35:50Z

Given the environmental challenges we face, my new years resolution to go vegetarian this year is a small endeavor. For me, though, it will be quite a shift. In recent years, I have been acturately described as an omnivore. But I am going to take a break from that approach. I will reduce my environmental footprint by eating a bit lower on the food chain.

No fish, no red meat, no poultry (or other white meat). I am from Wisconsin, so naturally a friend asked me if wild game was still on the menu. No wild game. My reasons are as complicated as many people’s eating choices are – they are personal, cultural, dynamic and imperfect.

Nevertheless I trust that eating lower on the food chain will ease a tiny portion of the air and water pollution caused by industrial agriculture, reduce my total carbon footprint, and limit my contribution to unsustainable fishing practices. I hope that this small step will make 2010 a more sustainable year for me. Happy New Year!

Adaptation Tools and Technologies: 100 Billion or Just 25 Cents a Day

2009-12-09T16:59:10Z

Its Day Three of the Copenhagen Climate Talks and adaptation is taking center stage. Delegates at the climate talks are calling for investment in technologies to provide early warning systems, predict crop losses, and provide local solutions. A youth group just called for global investment in adaptation at a level of just 25 cents a day from all developed country citizens to support 100 billion dollars a year for adaptation.

Earlier during a rare quiet moment I had the pleasure of chatting with a representative of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) about the tools needed to predict, understand and adapt to climate change.

The WMO, for those who may not be familiar with it, is a scientific organization within the United Nations which built the tools to allow meteorologists from around the world share their data and create interconnected, real-time systems that predict the weather every day. And to provide fullest disclosure, I myself was unaware of the WMO until I spent several years working for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which houses the National Weather Service.

Dr. Avinash Tyagi, the Director of the Climate and Water Department at the WMO, explained that:

We have had over 100 years to improve and refine the best methods for hydrologic science. Naturally, our water management strategies are based on the presumption that whatever happened in the past will happen in the future. But climate change throws all of our old assumptions about natural systems especially water systems into question. We can no longer base our assumptions on the past. There is an immediate need to adapt our management strategies to the changing climate and the new and emerging climate models.

Unfortunately, according to Dr. Tyagi, Time is not on our side.

Scientists and Negotiators Agree

The urgency of climate change is a significant challenge, but luckily the opportunity matches the challenge. More importantly scientists, and negotiators of both the developed and developing states can agree that one key solution lies in utilizing modern geospatial technology to empower communities.

Over the last two days developing countries said that high quality observations (satellite images, rain measurements, stream levels, temperature records and more) are necessary for adaptation. They called for more funding for the Global Climate Observation System. And the WMO is working to encourage countries to prioritize climate research and science in their own national budgets. There is no debate on the value of data and observations to climate adaptation here at the Copenhagen negotiations.

Making Global Climate Models Useful to You and Me

While we agree in principle the challenge lies in implementation. Existing climate data can be used to build global and regional models, but the most valuable data still needed at the local level. And local scientists around the world need to tap into the best tools, knowledge and methods. So how can we build local knowledge and capacity?

Globally

At the WMO’s World Climate Conference September 2009, Ministers agreed to establish a Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) to facilitate collaboration between sectors, nations and scientists. The GFCS will provide standards for measurement, create guidelines for integration and build capacity. Ultimately their work shall support early warning systems, predict crop losses, and bring local solutions.

Climate models require data from many sectors, beyond the WMO’s usual partners, and GFCS will have to tackle that challenge. No small feat since there is a role for data related to fire, weather, soil moisture, water, biodiversity, energy, air quality, storms and more in climate models.

Nationally

At the national level how can we facilitate communication between meteorologists, hydrologists, health specialists, and the coastal managers about the data needed for climate models and adaptation? Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can bring together the scientific data from a variety of government sectors. For example, the United States is slated to establish the National Climate Service as part of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. While many countries won’t establish new climate services, with the right level of global and local investment they will be empowered to bring together many agencies, scientists and specialists from different disciplines to strengthen their own climate models.

Locally

And then you get to the really good news. Lets say the world’s leaders amaze us here in Copenhagen, make commitments to deep emissions reductions, and put significant short term and long-term money toward adaptation, technology, reducing deforestation and capacity building. Monies directed to building climate observation knowledge can empower local people with the tools they need to collect data (lake temperature data) and combine it with data from other sectors (rainfall data and indigenous knowledge) and predict local climate impacts (the fate of a local fish critical to food security). The integrated data can be fed back to the global framework building a more robust model, improving our efforts to adapt to climate change.

On the Ground

While writing this blog and chatting with my colleagues, I learned that the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) is already using these geospatial information technology tools. They are using integrated data to map herd movements, predict water shortages and floods and adapt their activities to the changing environmental conditions. So please allow me to finish this blog by amplifying their message to the COP 15 about adaptation

All efforts must be made to improve communication between regional, sub-regional and national meteorological agencies and indigenous peoples and vulnerable local communities;
GEF, UNDP and related funding bodies should support transfer of appropriate geo-spatial information technologies which improve the ability of indigenous peoples and vulnerable local communities to document and promote their knowledge of natural and human adaptation
Strengthen and support the UNDP Small Project funding of Community-based Adaptation in Africa; Best practices of Community-based and Ecosystem-based Adaptation should be shared and promoted widely.

Adapting to Global Warming: $100 Billion Says World Bank (Give or Take a Little Social Change)

2009-10-02T17:42:07Z

The typhoon Ketsana is pouring down on Bangkok this morning as I ready myself for day four of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings. Representatives of countries and hundreds of civil society organizations will continue to meet here for another week to identify solutions for December's critical global warming negotiation in Copenhagen.

As the media has reported, the results of talks here are mixed, but there is hope in the conversation about adaptation. As NRDC noted here efforts to build resilience to climate change impacts in developing nations is critical because climate change is affecting vulnerable people around the world now. And there is a growing recognition that this will create global instability that will impact the US national security (as discussed here). So not only is it the right thing to do, but it is also in the US domestic interest.

Today's typhoon ripped through the Philippines, Samoa, Tonga, Vietnam, Cambodia and other nations before it arrived here in Bangkok but the good news is that the storm has become part of the debate, a terrible tangible impact of climate change.

The threat of worsening storms was reiterated last night at a World Bank event about their new report, Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change (EACC).

The report indicates that the costs of adaptation to a world 2°C warmer would cost between $75 - $100 billion a year between 2010 and 2050. $100 billion is a big number and delegates from the most vulnerable countries are rightfully concerned that monies must be committed now, at sustainable and sufficient levels to help build resiliency.

And if we don't address global warming the price tag would become even larger so we need invest in solving this challenge. It is always cheaper and easier to avoid the mess in the first place than to clean up after the fact.

It is critical that the US and other countries increase their financial contribution towards helping developing countries address this financial gap. There are some efforts to provide a down payment towards this end (as my colleague discussed here) and the US Administration as begun to more clearly signal that it wants this support in the climate bill working its way through the US Senate (as my colleague discussed here). But more needs to be done to support adaptation in developing countries.

But the report from the World Bank approaches adaptation through a traditional development lens. How much will it cost to replace the dams, seawalls and power plants which may suffer from climate impacts?

These adaptation needs are important. We must make our investments more resilient to global warming and we need to ensure that we are simultaneously pulling millions out of poverty.

But it is no longer appropriate to view adaptation through a 'hard' model which largely does not factor in policy shifts and social responses. Soft tools like capacity building, communication, education, research and planning are perhaps the most critical in our efforts to adapt to climate change. Adaption, even in its very name suggests new innovative approaches, flexible tools and models supple enough to respond to the variety of new scenarios the world will experience. Without major shifts in thinking, the World Bank and other groups are likely to continue with adaptation by ribbon cutting, favoring large concrete infrastructure solutions over flexible sustainable mechanisms which can take many forms.

In 2050 the least developed nations should have cutting edge energy sectors which incorporate the best renewable technologies and social and economic models which promote efficiency. In this ideal world, coastal communities will be protected through participatory costal management which capitalizes on the natural world's resilience through investment in wetland and mangrove rehabilitation, rather than seawalls and other 'hard' tools which often shift vulnerabilities and may not withstand the intensified weather events of a +2°C warmer world. A mix of soft tools (enabling communities to adapt and progress) and hard tools (providing the energy, water and food) are both essential to sustainable development.

Here in Bangkok, once the clouds begin to part, lets hope that leaders of both the industrialized and developing world will use the projected costs of adaptation to shape a climate agreement which supports resiliency with flexible tools.