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November 9, 2015
On November 6, President Obama announced the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, which proposed to carry 800,000 barrels of petroleum daily from Canada's tar sands oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast. This decision ends a seven-year waiting period during which the pipeline became an increasing symbol in the movement for action on climate change. Image courtesy of the White House.
On November 2, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies published findings that 61 percent of the public in states whose attorney generals are filing to stop the Clean Power Plan actually support the policy. Of the 26 states which have filed suit against the Clean Power Plan on October 23, only in three states -- North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming – do less than 50 percent of the population support the policy. “America’s history of controversy over climate change and the legal and political challenges to the Clean Power Plan might suggest that the nation is divided over regulating carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. Our research finds the opposite: a large majority of Americans overall support the approach,” the researchers said.
For more information see:
Yale, Huffington Post
On November 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit announced its schedule for ruling on motions to stay the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP). The court will accept motions to stay the CPP up until November 5th, then the EPA will have until December 3rd to formulate replies, and finally the Court will then take reply briefs up to December 23rd, after which it will hear oral arguments and make a ruling. This schedule puts the Court's decision squarely after the early December international climate negotiations in Paris.
Utility Dive
On November 5, at the 27th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Dubai, nations agreed to phase down a group of highly potent greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by amending the Montreal Protocol in a series of meetings throughout 2016. HFCs, a group of greenhouse gases which are commonly used as refrigerants, can warm the atmosphere up to 12,000 times more than a comparable amount of carbon dioxide, making them a critical target to reduce climate change. Some countries, including the United States and Canada, wanted to begin to hash out details at this meeting, but India and the Gulf countries asked for a delay until after United Nations negotiations on climate in Paris this December. The Montreal Protocol, the only United Nations treaty to be signed by all 197 United Nations countries, was originally written to phase out the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which depleted the stratospheric ozone layer.
The Huffington Post, Responding to Climate Change, Climate Change News
On November 6 at 4:30 am during a meeting in Zambia, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a multilateral financing entity which serves the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), received approval from its board to fund its first projects. The Fund will provide $168 million in funding to eight projects to help developing nations adapt to climate change. The eight projects, selected from 37 proposed since July, will receive additional funding from private investors and UN agencies for a total cost of $624 million, although they may generate as much as $1.3 billion in investments over the next five years. The projects receiving funding range from wetland preservation to energy efficiency green bond systems. Close to 100 NGOs signed a letter condemning the funding of HSBC and Credit Agricole projects, saying the companies have been accused of money laundering and financial mismanagement, and citing their connections to the coal industry.
Bloomberg BNA, Climate Change News, Climate Change News, UK Reuters
On November 5, Pew Research Center released a new poll which found that globally there is a consensus that climate change is happening, and a majority of people in every country surveyed (except for Pakistan) support international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a United Nations agreement. Over half the population in 39 of 40 countries surveyed think climate change will directly affect them within their lifetime, and a global median of 51 percent think they are already being harmed by it. African and Latin American countries are more concerned about climate change than other regions, while China and the United States worry the least about it. A large proportion of people think they will have to change their lifestyles to mediate climate change, including in the United States, where 66 percent of people think they will need to "significantly alter their lifestyles."
Pew Global
On November 2, the University of Michigan released the results from its National Survey on Energy and Environment, finding that 70 percent of Americans accepted that global warming was happening, the highest level observed since 2008. Fifteen percent of those polled said they were more convinced that climate change is happening and that action is needed because of the Pope’s encyclical. The largest increase was observed in evangelical Christians, whose rates rose 16 points over the last six months to 65 percent. The study says a “majority (63 percent) of Americans — and majorities of Americans of each religious affiliation — agree that the free market alone is ill-equipped to address climate change, a theme highlighted in the Papal encyclical . . . majorities of both Republican (55 percent) and Democratic (70 percent) respondents agree that there are limitations of the free market in addressing global warming.”
POLITICO, University of Michigan, Vatican
On November 6, President Obama announced the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, which was projected to carry 800,000 barrels of petroleum daily from Canada's tar sands oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast. This decision ends a seven-year waiting period during which the pipeline became an increasing symbol in the movement for action on climate change. Earlier this week on November 2, TransCanada, the company behind Keystone XL, asked the U.S. government to suspend its review of the project; the United States denied its request two days ago. Had the suspension been granted, it is likely that the review would have resumed under the administration of the next president of the United States, potentially allowing Keystone to go forward. President Obama made this announcement as the world gears up for international climate negotiations in Paris this December.
The New York Times, Washington Post, CNBC, The New York Times
On November 5, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman opened an investigation into Exxon Mobil to uncover whether the company misled its investors and the public about its knowledge of climate change, and the links of climate change to the oil business. Schneiderman sent the company a subpoena requesting financial records, emails, and documents going back a decade or more. On November 6, Exxon Mobil vice president for public affairs Kenneth Cohen said they had received the subpoena, and were considering how to respond; Cohen added that they "unequivocally reject the allegations that Exxon Mobil has suppressed climate change research." Schneiderman's investigation follows growing demands from politicians for the Department of Justice to open an investigation into Exxon Mobil.
The New York Times
On October 30, leaders from over 40 environmental and social justice groups signed a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch demanding a federal investigation of ExxonMobil after investigative reporting by InsideClimate News and The Los Angeles Times uncovered that the company may have known about the risks of climate change as early as 1977. “Given the damage that has already occurred from climate change—particularly in the poorest communities of our nation and our planet—and that will certainly occur going forward, these revelations should be viewed with the utmost apprehension,” stated the letter. ExxonMobile denies the claims that it misled the public on climate science. This request echoes earlier letters and comments by Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, as well as Democrats in Congress.
The New York Times, 350
On November 3, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBSCD) published a report stating that independent private industry action could realize up to 65 percent of the emissions reductions necessary to keep global warming to two degrees C or below. Over the last year, more than 140 businesses have met and developed nine sector-specific action plans for emissions cuts, which would entail $5-10 trillion in low-carbon investments by 2030, creating 20-45 million jobs. Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said the potential reductions are "truly game-changing in terms of the support they provide to governments and international aspirations."
BusinessGreen, WBCSD (1, 2)
On November 5, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released findings that climate change and other human activities influenced extreme weather events around the world in 2014, including cyclones in the Pacific and heat waves in Australia, Asia and South America. Thirty-two groups of scientists all around the world studied 28 extreme weather events in 2014, finding that climate change increased the likelihood that many of them would happen. The report notes that when they could not find evidence of a climate link, it was possible that modern day scientific tools were simply inadequate to detect it. Thomas Karl, a director at NOAA, commented, "For the past four years, this report has shown that human activities are influencing specific extreme weather and climate events around the world."
Mashable, Press Release, Report
On October 29, a study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) found that increased snow in Antarctica over the last 10,000 years has added more mass to the East Antarctic and West Antarctic interior ice sheets than has been lost from increased melting due to climate change. The study, published in the Journal of Glaciology, contradicts the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 2013 report, which concluded that Antarctica is overall losing land ice. NASA used satellite data to find an annual net gain of 112 billion tons of mass to the ice sheets between 1992 and 2001 and of 82 billion tons between 2003 and 2008. Lead author Jay Zwallay, a glaciologist with NASA, commented, “We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge . . . Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.” However, Zwallay notes that this may not be the case in the future. “If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase . . . the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years.”
United Press International, NASA Press Release, Journal of Glaciology
Big Oil Staggers Towards Paris Climate Talks
Congressmen Call for Investigation of ExxonMobil
White House Holds Summit on Nuclear Energy as Climate Solution
ExxonMobil CEO Will Leave His Successor a Diminished Company
United States Economy to Benefit Greatly from Global Action on Climate
Authors: Michael Martina, James Richmond, and Gabriela Zayas
Editor: Laura Small
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