World Bank Confident Funding to Back Climate-Change Deal Will Be Secured
MACTAN, Philippines—The World Bank’s special envoy on climate change on Friday expressed confidence that industrialized countries will open their wallets when they gather in Paris later this year to bankroll a global strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “There will be a finance package and it will be a generous one,” World Bank Vice President Rachel Kyte told The Wall Street Journal at the sidelines of the meeting of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation ministers in this central Philippine island. Ms. Kyte said talks on the financing package are continuing but she declined to quote the potential size of the financing package. Multilateral financial institutions, including the World Bank, already provide annually a combined $28 billion for projects intended to help developing countries mitigate the impact of and adapt to climate change, she noted. French President François Hollande last month anchored a final deal on climate change during the November-December […]
Fossil-Fuel License Limits Seen Viable Option to Emissions Cap
Limiting fossil-fuel supplies to combat climate change may be more attractive for governments than trying to negotiate a global emissions cap, according to Andy Howard, an adviser to Critical Resource Strategy & Analysis Ltd. Nations producing coal, oil and natural gas could protect revenue by applying “supply-side discipline” such as handing out fewer drilling licenses, Howard said by phone Wednesday. London-based commodities consultant Critical Resource last month set up a panel headed by former BP Plc chief executive officer John Browne to advise the fossil-fuel industry on United Nations climate talks. Even as nations and the energy industry produce less fossil fuel, “they can still make more money out of it” and help protect the climate as prices rise, said Howard, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. managing director. “If the industry could act in a disciplined way, it could operate profitably at a lower volume.” Andy Howard — […]
Heitkamp Reacts to Methane Ruling
Global Warming Debate Rages North Dakota senator, Heidi Heitkamp, pushes back against the latest federal mandate to reduce methane emissions. President Obama revealed a plan last month that would require oil and gas companies to cut methane pollution from drilling sites, distribution systems and in other areas of operation. This ruling is part of the President’s broad and aggressive plan to fight climate change, and many believe it would literally transform the energy industry. The EPA said the proposed standards will reduce 340,000 to 400,000 short tons of methane in 2025, the equivalent of reducing 7.7 to 9 million metric tons of CO2. The agency estimates the rule will yield net climate benefits of $120-150 million in 2025. Senator Henkamp is proposing bipartisan, “commonsense solutions” to reduce methane emissions including speeding up the permit approval process for gas-gathering lines and pipeline projects to reduce flaring. Heitkamp commented, “Energy production […]
Melting Ice Isn’t Opening Arctic to Oil Bonanza
Photo An Orthodox cross in Teriberka, Russia, a poor village on the Barents Sea that the Kremlin had hoped would be a hub for the expanded operations of its energy giant, Gazprom. But despite the melting ice, getting oil and gas out of the Arctic remains a daunting challenge. Credit James Hill for The New York Times TERIBERKA, Russia — The warming Arctic should already have transformed this impoverished fishing village on the coast of the Barents Sea. The Kremlin spent billions in the last decade in hopes of turning it into a northern hub of its global energy powerhouse, Gazprom. It was once the most ambitious project planned in the Arctic Ocean, but now there is little to show for it aside from a shuttered headquarters and an enormous gravel road carved out of the windblown coastline like a scar. “There are plans,” said Viktor A. Turchaninov, the […]
Earth’s trees number ‘three trillion’
Image copyright David Zeleny The new estimate includes "ground truth" density data from 400,000 forest plots There are just over three trillion trees on Earth, according to a new assessment. The figure is eight times as big as the previous best estimate, which counted perhaps 400 billion at most. It has been produced by Thomas Crowther from Yale University, and colleagues, who combined a mass of ground survey data with satellite pictures. The team tells the journal Nature that the new total represents upwards of 420 trees for every person on the planet. The more refined number will now form a baseline for a wide range of research applications – everything from studies that consider animal and plant habitats for biodiversity reasons, to new models of the climate, because it is trees of course that play an important role in removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. […]
Obama Makes Urgent Appeal in Alaska for Climate Change Action
Photo Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott of Alaska hugged Gov. Bill Walker, back to camera, after President Obama arrived Monday in Anchorage. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times ANCHORAGE — President Obama on Monday issued a global call for urgent action to address climate change , declaring that the United States was partly to blame for what he called the defining challenge of the century and would rally the world to counter it. “Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now,” Mr. Obama said here at an international conference on the Arctic. “We’re not acting fast enough. I have come here today, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and its second-largest emitter, to say that the United States recognizes our role in creating the problem, and we embrace our responsibility to help solve it.” In remarks that bordered on the […]
Washington governor calls wildfires ‘slow-motion disaster’
AP Photo/Elaine Thompson CHELAN, Wash. (AP) — Rising temperatures and increased winds Thursday could cause the largest wildfire in Washington state history to grow even bigger. The National Weather Service issued a red-flag warning for the Okanogan Complex of fires, saying the weather conditions had the potential to spread the flames Thursday afternoon. "The heat coming back on us early is going to be a problem," said Rick Isaacson, spokesman for the fire that grew to 450 square miles on Thursday. The blazes killed three firefighters last week, and have burned at least 40 homes and 40 outbuildings. Heavy smoke that had grounded aircraft this week lifted a bit Thursday morning and helicopters were able to drop water on the flames, Isaacson said. Aircraft were expected to drop retardant in the afternoon. More than 1,150 square miles of Washington are on fire, nearly the size of Rhode Island, the […]
Countries Slow to Pledge Emissions Cuts Ahead of Paris Climate Talks
Less than a third of governments seeking a global climate agreement have submitted plans for reducing emissions, raising concerns over developing countries’ commitment to a deal just months before talks are meant to culminate in Paris. As part of the latest international effort to stave off warming, nearly 200 countries agreed to present their own plans for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions to the United Nations body overseeing the talks. The national plans are meant to be folded into a broader accord aimed at putting the world on track to cap global average temperatures at no more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels—a goal that U.N. officials now concede is unlikely in this year’s agreement. While the European Union, China, the U.S. and other big carbon emitters have submitted their reduction targets, many major economies haven’t—including Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and India, the fourth-biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions. The […]
NOAA: July Was Hottest Month Ever Worldwide
July was a scorcher, globally speaking. Last month was the warmest on record worldwide with many countries and the world’s oceans experiencing intense heat waves, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said today in a report . The report found that “the July average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.46°F above the 20th century average.” And since July is “climatologically the warmest month for the year, this was also the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880–2015 record, at 61.86°F, surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by 0.14°F.” It comes as no surprise that Arctic sea ice hasn’t fared well with all this warmth. The average Arctic sea ice extent was the eighth smallest since records began in 1979. Click on chart for larger view. Graphic credit: NOAA Click on chart for larger view. Graphic credit: NOAA The report also found that it’s been […]