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September 7, 2015
From August 31 to September 2, President Obama visited Alaska to call attention to the climate change impacts the state is experiencing. While in Alaska, the President took over the White House's Instagram account, signing his posts "-bo." The above picture shows Obama touring Resurrection Bay. Image courtesy of the White House.
From August 31 to September 2, President Obama visited Alaska to call attention to the deleterious climate change impacts the state is already facing, such as crumbling permafrost, rising sea levels and eroding coastlines. "I've been trying to make the rest of the country more aware of a changing climate, but you're already living it," Obama said to an audience of 1,000 in the Inuit town of Kotzebue on Wednesday. During the visit, the President announced several policy initiatives aimed to help Alaskans, including a $2 million commitment to help the Denali Commission (a federal agency that manages government assistance in Alaska) to repair coastal villages or help them relocate. Obama's visit to Alaska is part of an 11-day climate-focused tour, which will take the President across the country.
For more information see:
The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Hill, The New York Times, AP
On August 31, Secretary of State John Kerry addressed an international audience at the ‘Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience’ (GLACIER) in Anchorage, Alaska, warning that climate change is "happening now" and has a "profound impact on habitat everywhere." Kerry said the Arctic is a “harbinger” of the climate changes which will affect the world, stating, “You think migration is a challenge to Europe today because of extremism, wait until you see what happens when there’s an absence of water, an absence of food, or one tribe fighting against another for mere survival." The conference closed with the signing of a declaration calling for urgent action to address Arctic climate change, which was signed by the United States, the European Union, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. China, India and Russia all abstained from signing.
Mashable, RT, The Hill
On August 29, Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman announced Colorado would be joining a legal fight against the Environmental Protection Agency's regulations on carbon emissions from existing power plants, called the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Once the final regulation is published in the Federal Register, Colorado will join 15 other states, led by West Virginia, in a lawsuit to be filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Coffman commented, “The EPA appears unwilling to accept limits set by Congress in the Clean Air Act and instead is pushing its agenda forward through regulatory rewrites that overreach its legal authority.”
In related news on August 31, the Obama Administration filed papers with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, saying the multistate suit was "premature," and "unwarranted," and that states will see no irreparable harm from the Clean Power Plan.
Bloomberg, The Denver Post, and Utility Dive
On September 2, the California Assembly voted 43 to 27 in favor of SB 185 to divest its public pension funds CalPERS and CalSTRS from coal. The two funds together manage close to $500 billion in assets. Kevin de Leon, the bill's sponsor and Senate president pro tempore, said coal stocks have been losing value, and are "inconsistent with our values as a state on the forefront of efforts to address global climate change." Governor Brown has until October 11 to sign the bill. Once law, CalPERS and CalSTRS will have 18 months to divest their thermal coal holdings. CalPERS estimates it has $167 million in coal stocks, and CalSTRS estimates it holds $40 million.
The New York Times, The Guardian
On August 31, United Nations (UN) diplomats from 195 nations gathered in Bonn to work on the draft of a global climate deal that will be inked in Paris this December. With 10 more days of the UN conference to go before the Conference of the Parties in Paris, the pressure is increasing to solidify the draft and iron out disagreements. The draft, which has been cut to 76 pages, still needs significant editing and condensing before December. In addition, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres announced that there is a deficit of $1.2 million in funding for the conference sessions. Figueres asked that "parties in a position to do so, to please contribute."
New Delhi Television, The Straits Times, The Economic Times
On September 3, Indonesia's environment and forestry minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said the government will increase its emissions reduction goal from a target of 26 percent by 2020 to 29 percent by 2030. Speaking at a forestry event in Jakarta, Bakar added that the government has not yet decided what the baseline year will be. Bakar also noted that the government will work to develop renewable energy projects, especially geothermal energy, and avoid developing new infrastructure and coal mines in forests. Indonesia is one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, predominantly due to deforestation and forest fires.
The Guardian
On August 31, General Mills announced a new goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 28 percent by 2025 across its entire supply chain. The company will invest $100 million in energy efficiency and clean energy measures, and work with suppliers throughout the supply chain to incorporate environmentally sustainable measures into its products. General Mills will also include an additional 250,000 acres of organic farms in its supply chain, and make efforts to ensure its grain and produce is produced using sustainable agricultural practices. CEO Ken Powell said, "We think that human-caused greenhouse gas causes climate change and climate volatility, and that's going to stress the agricultural supply chain, which is very important to us."
Associated Press, Huffington Post, The Hill
On August 31, a study suggesting the warming Arctic has played a central role in the recent unusually cold winters in North America and East Asia was published in Nature Geoscience. Using climate models, the authors found that severe winters in East Asia are linked to unusually warm periods in the Arctic Barents-Kara Sea, while severe winters in North America are linked to warm periods in the Arctic East Siberian-Chukchi Sea. The warm Arctic sea conditions change wind patterns, causing a cold northern wind to blow over North America and East Asia, leading to more severe winter conditions.
Nature Geoscience, Bloomberg Business
On August 31, a study by two scientists from UC Irvine was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finding that in recent decades individual heatwaves have overlapped more frequently with droughts, and are more likely to coincide as the severity of the heatwave increases. The study used a specific statistical approach to compare heatwaves and meteorological droughts between 1960 and 1980 to heatwaves and droughts between 1990 and 2010. “Despite an apparent hiatus in rising temperature and no significant trend in droughts, we show a substantial increase in concurrent droughts and heatwaves across most parts of the United States,” wrote the authors.
Study, Los Angeles Times, USA Today
On August 31, a study published in Nature Climate Change found the likelihood of extremely devastating hurricane events, unlike any seen in history, will increase throughout the twenty-first century due to climate change. The risk is especially large in Cairns, Australia, where super hurricanes could generate a 20 foot storm surge; Tampa, Florida, with a potential 19 foot storm surge; and Dubai, where there have never before been hurricanes, could see a 13 foot storm surge. The study states that sea level rise and global warming associated with climate change will bump up the likelihood of these hurricanes, from 1/10,000 years now, to 1/2,500-1/700 toward the end of the century. Study author Kerry Emanuel commented, "Physics says you can have one [of these super hurricanes]. It's not likely, but it's not impossible."
Nature Climate Change, Reuters, The Washington Post
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