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August 22, 2016
Smog obscures the Mexico City viewshed. This week, the Mexican government announced plans for a national cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Image courtesy of fotoreisebericht.de at flickr.com.
Residents of the remote Alaskan village of Shishmaref voted to relocate from their ancestral home to a new location to be determined in the future. Along with Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana, Shishmaref will be among the first U.S. communities to move due to climate change impacts. Home to 650 residents, the mile-wide island upon which the village rests has seen 3,000 feet of coastline wash away over the past 35 years. Melting permafrost and shrinking sea ice have weakened the island's natural erosion buffers, forcing residents to move buildings further inland. Resident and activist Esau Sinnok stated, “To put this in perspective: I was born in 1997, and since then, Shishmaref has lost about 100 feet. Within the next two decades, the whole island will erode away completely.”
For more information see:
The Telegraph, Associated Press, CNN
On August 16, a senior official indicated that the Japanese government has begun preparations to submit the Paris climate agreement to its legislature for ratification. The Japanese Diet reconvenes in September. A Japanese Foreign Ministry official added "[Japan does not have] to revise any domestic laws for the ratification and [the government is] not expecting any strong opposition," signaling ratification could potentially be achieved before the end of 2016. On August 17, New Zealand's climate minister, Paula Bennett, declared the island nation would ratify the Paris treaty before the United Nations' November climate conference in Morocco. The Paris agreement requires at least 55 countries covering 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions to sign on before the treaty can come into effect. Japan is responsible for about three percent of global emissions, while New Zealand accounts for 0.15 percent.
Japan Today, Climate Change News, New Zealand Announcement
The Mexican government will initiate a pilot cap-and-trade program in November to test plans for a national carbon market slated for 2018. The voluntary pilot will allow up to 60 companies to practice operating under the proposed program, while providing the government with feedback heading into the final implementation. The government will be responsible for setting the emissions cap and managing a registry where companies will submit their emissions data for verification. Private-sector firms would be allowed to trade emissions certificates under the plan. Mexico has committed to reducing its emissions by 22 percent from 2013 levels by 2030 in fulfillment of the Paris climate agreement.
Reuters
A new report by the Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP) found insurance companies are changing their operations too slowly and risk getting left with stranded assets as climate impacts become more prevalent. CEO of the AODP, Julian Poulter, underscores the vulnerability within insurer investments: "They’re going to get hit on the liability side from climate change; they’re going to get hit through the transition on their portfolio side … and they’re unable to manage the risk by going to the companies and urging them to transition early.” A second study by University of Chicago economist Michael Greenstone examined the practice of capping premiums for high-risk coastal policyholders, concluding a cap "effectively prevents the market from sending the signal that people need to adapt to the risks they face" to keep their premiums down.
Marketplace
Public opinion remains split over climate change, more so than other contentious contemporary issues. According to Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, climate is "more politically polarizing than abortion … [and] gay marriage." Recent surveys published by Yale and George Mason University found that 17 percent of Americans were concerned and demand immediate action, whereas 28 percent shared concern but perceived the threat as distant. An additional 27 percent are somewhat cautious, 11 percent expressed doubt, and seven percent were not following the issue at all. The final 10 percent dismissed the science and threat of climate change entirely. Surveys conducted by Stanford University illustrate this divide in political terms, as 90 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of independents view climate change as a serious threat to the United States, while only half of Republicans share this view.
Associated Press
A study published August 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identified the sources of 250 methane leaks in the U.S. Four Corners region. The study builds on previous investigations in the region by using aircraft-mounted near-infrared and thermal infrared spectrometers to identify the location of the methane leaks to within a few feet. The researchers found that just 10 percent of the leaks in the region were responsible for more than 50 percent of the excess methane. Ramón Alvarez, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, said that although this study will be helpful in reducing emissions, “you have to keep looking, because next week or next month there could be a different population of sites that are in this abnormally high-emitting state."
Inside Climate News, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Many climatologists have associated the past week's massive flooding in southern Louisiana with rising global atmospheric temperatures. Warmer temperatures can lead to increasingly higher amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere, resulting in more frequent extreme rainfall events. According to data from the 2014 National Climate Assessment, the frequency of the heaviest rainfall events in the southeastern United States rose by 27 percent from 1958 to 2012. In response to these trends catching communities off-guard, Katherine Hayhoe, a climate researcher at Texas Tech University, explains that “when climate is changing, … relying on the past to predict the future will give us … not just the wrong answer, but a potentially dangerous one."
The Washington Post
A recent stretch of marine heatwaves has had a devastating impact on ecosystems across the Pacific Ocean. Relatively new to science, these ocean phenomena were responsible for raising Western Australia's typical surface water temperatures 5 degrees Celsius during a 10 week period in 2011. The 2011 temperature surge killed off hundreds of kilometers of coastal kelp forests, while a 2016 heatwave caused 22 percent of coral in the Great Barrier Reef to die. Eric Oliver, an oceanographer at the University of Tasmania, commented that “the seas [off Australia's southeastern and southwestern coasts] are warming fast and so we might expect there to be an increased likelihood or increased intensity of the [marine heatwave] events that happen there.” As global climate change continues to warm oceans worldwide, scientists fear that the frequency of these heatwaves may be on the rise, which in turn could trigger further ecological catastrophes.
The Guardian
Studies from the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) report that rare mountain plants are becoming rarer as climate change pushes their habitable range into higher elevations. This is leaving native plants with less available habitat, a situation compounded by the accelerated warming of higher elevations relative to the global average, an intrusion of plant species accustomed to a warmer climate, and warmer spring seasons. Sarah Watts, an ecologist with NTS, reported that snow pearlwort can now be found in only half the places on Ben Lawers Mountain compared to its natural range in 1981. Fellow NTS ecologist Dan Watson said, “The evidence is unequivocal to me that the climate is changing in the mountains.”
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