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July 9, 2018
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned on July 5. He was replaced on an interim-basis by Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler. Photo courtesy of wikipedia.org.
On July 5, Scott Pruitt resigned as EPA administrator following a tumultuous term plagued with scandals and numerous on-going ethics investigations. Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler was promoted to acting administrator. Wheeler was confirmed to his former deputy post in April 2018 by the Senate on a 53-45 vote. He would have to be nominated and confirmed again to become a full-fledged cabinet secretary. Although environmentalists cheered Pruitt’s departure, Wheeler is expected to pursue a very similar policy agenda. Wheeler previously worked as a senior staffer for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a climate-denier with close ties to Pruitt. In 2010, Wheeler stated the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “functioned more as a political body than a scientific body” and that EPA should reconsider its 2009 classification of CO2 as a public health threat. Wheeler also lobbied the EPA on behalf of the fossil fuel industry for a decade, including the coal-mining company Murray Energy. His experience working at EPA for four years during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton may allow him to pursue regulatory rollbacks more smoothly than Pruitt.
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Washington Post
The Trump administration has written a proposal for regulating carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired power plants. The proposal is meant to replace the Clean Power Plan (CPP) and is being drawn up by EPA staff. Industry officials who worked with the agency on the replacement rule say it will be sent to the White House for approval soon, but that it is much weaker than the 2015 version. Despite its opposition to the CPP, the Trump administration has been legally obligated to implement a replacement carbon emission reduction plan. The proposal would reportedly require modest upgrades to individual power plants in the form of efficiency improvements and fuel substitutions. Utility companies pushed the administration to install a weaker replacement after tearing down the CPP so that it would be more difficult to challenge the action in court. The original CPP targeted emission reductions 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, but the closure of hundreds of coal-fired power plants and the growth of renewable energy has put many states on track to achieve those goals despite the absence of federal regulations.
New York Times
Poland’s parliament has passed a bill enabling expansive surveillance measures and checks on protests in advance of the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) in Katowice, Poland. The city is expecting 40,000 people to attend the United Nations climate conference in December. While the bill primarily deals with government matters related to hosting and financing COP24, one provision has raised alarm among United Nations agencies and international NGOs. The provision would allow Polish authorities to “collect, obtain, gather, verify, process and use information, including personal data about persons posing a threat to public safety and order.” The bill also allows authorities to solicit police and intelligence records from other countries on individuals without the knowledge or consent of those affected. “Spontaneous” protests would be banned within Katowice city limits under the bill. In April, five U.N. special rapporteurs sent a joint letter to the Polish government stating “implementation of the law may lead to human rights violations that may be considered as acts of reprisals against individuals for their cooperation with the United Nations.”
The Intercept
Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit vowed to help his country become more resilient to natural disasters after it was wiped out by Hurricane Maria in September 2017. Acknowledging there were few options available to avoid severe damage from future storms, Skerrit said, “Time isn’t on our side. We’re an island. There’s nowhere to run.” The island’s population of 75,000 relied primarily on agricultural exports and tourism. Hurricane Maria destroyed or severely damaged nearly half of Dominica’s buildings and has seen a third of its residents evacuate. Plans to improve the country’s storm resilience include using better building standards, installing seawalls, reinforcing harbors and riverbanks, planting more storm-hardy crops, investing in geothermal power, burying power lines, and relocating vulnerable communities. The cost of rebuilding could reach $600 million, but would not be comprehensive. While some foreign government and philanthropic aid has come through, project implementation has proven challenging for Dominica’s over-stretched government. Tensions have also arisen between the desire to restore services and housing as quickly as possible, while spending extra time and money to build back stronger.
Bloomberg
Central India’s Bundelkhand region has been seized by drought, forcing residents to leave. Farmers have been unable to sow their crops due to a lack of rain. Some villagers have traveled to New Delhi to seek work as laborers. Khuba Chand, a local farmer, said, "There are very few people left in the village. Many have moved with their families. They sold their cattle at cut-rate prices. There is a severe shortage of fodder and water for cattle.” Bundelkhand used to receive about 31 inches of rain a year (800-900 mm), but that total has fallen by half over the last seven years. Meanwhile, the number of seasonal monsoon rain days has dropped from 52 to 24, causing massive crop failures. About half of the region’s four million farmers have left, either temporarily or permanently, over the past year. The farmers who stayed have depleted their financial resources trying to adapt, but now have no money to purchase seed or fertilizer. Government relief programs meant to provide employment and other aid to rural residents have been overwhelmed.
Reuters
Advocates for a state-wide carbon fee in Washington delivered 370,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office in an attempt to have the measure placed on the November 2018 electoral ballot, pending verification of the signatures. The number of signatures collected is a third more than the minimum threshold required to put an initiative up for a vote. The coalition in support of the measure consists of environment, labor, tribal, and social-justice interest groups. The Western States Petroleum Association has formed its own political-action committee to push back, with pledges of support from BP, Shell, Chevron, and others. The measure would establish an escalating carbon fee on most types of fossil-fuel emissions, while re-investing the subsequent revenue into environmental and climate change projects. The fee would begin at $15 per metric ton of carbon (around a 14 cent increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline) and would increase annually by $2 per ton, plus the rate of inflation.
Seattle Times
A new study argues that real estate located at higher elevations in cities threatened by sea-level rise appreciates at a higher rate. The study asserts that this trend could lead to “climate gentrification,” meaning the volatile real estate prices are “a primary or a partial driver of the patterns of urban development that lead to displacement (and sometimes entrenchment) of existing populations.” The authors focused on Miami-Dade County. An assessment of the difference in values for properties at various elevations and degrees of sea-level rise risk from 1971 and 2017 revealed properties at lower elevations have declined in value, while those at higher elevations increased in value. Elevation had a positive effect on price appreciation in more than three-quarters of the properties studied. The authors described three pathways to climate gentrification: a shift of capital to elevated properties, an increase in the cost of living due to climate factors, and the displacement of low-income households due to the rising cost burden of staying.
City Lab
A new study appearing in the journal Nature found methane emissions for the U.S. oil and gas industry are 60 percent higher than what the U.S. EPA had previously estimated. The conclusion is at odds with the energy industry’s effort to portray natural gas as a relatively benign energy source compared to coal-fired electricity. Prior to combustion, methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas and is capable of trapping 80 times more heat than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Rogue methane emissions can occur from leaks in natural gas wellheads, compressor stations, and chemical plants and result in $2 billion worth of fuel being lost each year. The United States is currently the largest producer of natural gas in the world, driven by a significant spike in production and exports due to advances in drilling technologies. Mark Brownstein of the Environmental Defense Fund said, “Man-made methane emissions are responsible for 25 percent of the warming our planet is experiencing right now.”
A study in the journal Nature Geoscience states that temperature increases due to global warming could turn out to be twice as much as what climate models are currently projecting. In addition, sea levels could rise by six meters (19.6 feet) or more, even if the two degree threshold for average global temperature increase outlined in the Paris Agreement is achieved. The international team of scientists analyzed past climatic changes to better understand how a warmer earth may look. They found that periods where temperatures rose by one to two degrees saw significant reductions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, resulting in sea level rise much higher than what current models predict for the year 2100. Of the three documented warm periods the study examined, two were caused by changes in the earth’s orbit, but the third was due to atmospheric CO2 concentrations comparable to today’s. Author Katrin Meissner of the University of South Wales said, “Two degrees can seem very benign when you see it on paper, but the consequences are quite bad and ecosystems change dramatically.”
Guardian
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