[TheClimate.Vote] June 16, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest..

[Richard Pauli]

/June 16, 2019/

[It's still early]
*Federal officials: 2019 wildfire season could be worse than last year*
By Chaffin Mitche, Accuweather.com
As the Southwest is drying out, the threat for wildfires is ramping up 
and will continue to do so through July; however, if the monsoon season 
is weak as AccuWeather meteorologists expect, that threat could last 
into August.

Wildfires have already been sparking across the country in the last week 
alone, with blazes breaking out in California and Alaska, as well as in 
parts of Arizona.

U.S. Forest Service and Interior Department officials recently warned 
senators that the upcoming wildfire season would be worse than last 
year's, which killed hundreds of people and caused billions of dollars 
in damages, CNN reported.

The fire season typically doesn't become a big threat until late summer 
and into fall for the Northwest, but looking at the fire outlook, 
AccuWeather Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said conditions are favorable in 
parts of the Southwest for development now...
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/06/15/Federal-officials-2019-wildfire-season-could-be-worse-than-last-year/4001560602261/



[Pope chimes in http://news.trust.org/item/20190614124558-n22zt]
*Pope backs carbon pricing to stem global warming and appeals to deniers*
Carbon pricing, via taxes or emissions trading schemes, is used by many 
governments to make energy consumers pay for the costs of using the 
fossil fuels that contribute to global warming
*- Pope Francis tells top energy executives to act now**
**- Pontiff urges world to heed scientific findings**
**- Pope says doomsday predictions can no longer be dismissed (Adds big 
oil CEOs in attendance, Notre Dame president)*

By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY, June 14 (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Friday that 
carbon pricing is "essential" to stem global warming - his clearest 
statement yet in support of penalising polluters - and appealed to 
climate change deniers to listen to science.

In an address to energy executives at the end of a two-day meeting, he 
also called for "open, transparent, science-based and standardised" 
reporting of climate risk and a "radical energy transition" away from 
carbon to save the planet.

Carbon pricing, via taxes or emissions trading schemes, is used by many 
governments to make energy consumers pay for the costs of using the 
fossil fuels that contribute to global warming, and to spur investment 
in low-carbon technology.

The Vatican said attendees of the closed-door meeting at its Academy of 
Sciences, a follow-up to one a year ago, included the CEOs of Royal 
Dutch Shell, Eni, BP, Repsol, Conoco Phillips, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and 
executives of investment funds.

"Collectively, these leaders will influence the planet's future, perhaps 
more than any in the world," said Father John Jenkins, president of the 
U.S. University of Notre Dame, which organised the meeting.

A small group of demonstrators gathered outside a Vatican gate. One held 
a sign reading "Dear Oil CEOs - Think of Your Children".

Francis, who has made many calls for environmental protection and has 
clashed over climate change with leaders such as U.S. President Donald 
Trump, said the ecological crisis "threatens the very future of the 
human family".

"WE HAVE FAILED TO LISTEN"
He criticised those who, like Trump, doubt the science that shows human 
activity is causing the earth to heat up.

"For too long we have collectively failed to listen to the fruits of 
scientific analysis, and doomsday predictions can no longer be met with 
irony or disdain," Francis said. Discussion of climate change and energy 
transition must be rooted in "the best scientific research available today".

Trump, asked in an interview if he accepted climate science, said last 
week: "I believe there's a change in weather, and I think it changes 
both ways."

He has said the United States will withdraw from the Paris accord, a 
2016 global agreement to fight climate change.

Francis, who wrote an encyclical - a significant document on Church 
teaching - in 2015 on protection of the environment, and strongly 
supports the Paris accord, said time was running out to meet its goals.

"Faced with a climate emergency, we must take action accordingly, in 
order to avoid perpetrating a brutal act of injustice towards the poor 
and future generations," he said.

"We do not have the luxury of waiting for others to step forward, or of 
prioritising short-term economic benefits."

Oil companies have come under growing pressure from investors and 
activists to meet the Paris goals.

Companies including Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total have laid out plans 
to expand their renewable energy business and reduce emissions. Critics 
say such gestures are minor parts of businesses that overwhelmingly 
depend on an economy that continues to pollute.

BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said after the meeting that "the world 
needs to take urgent action to get us on a more sustainable path and it 
is critical that everyone plays their part - companies and investors, 
governments and individuals". (Additional reporting by Ron Bousso in 
London and Steve Jewkes in Milan; Editing by Catherine Evans, Kevin 
Liffey, Raissa Kasolowsky and Peter Graff)
http://news.trust.org/item/20190614124558-n22zt


[coal still burns]
*Hopes for climate progress falter with coal still king across Asia*
A depressing picture of global power generation has coal still firmly on 
top. And in a vicious cycle, the very heatwaves and winter freezes high 
carbon emissions cause seem to be increasing them
Jillian Ambrose - Sat 15 Jun 2019
The world's largest sovereign wealth fund is preparing to leave fossil 
fuels behind. Last week, Norway's parliament confirmed by unanimous vote 
that its $1tn sovereign wealth fund would dump $13bn of fossil fuel 
investments - and start investing billions in renewables.

The move is designed to protect Norway's state-owned investment fund 
from the decline in fossil fuels that will be vital if full-blown 
climate catastrophe is to be averted.

But fossil fuels are by no means in terminal decline, according to a 
recent review of the global energy industry. BP's annual energy review 
revealed only days before the Norwegian vote that carbon emissions rose 
at the fastest rate in almost a decade last year.

The figures revealed that the unexpected spike was caused by a growing 
appetite for energy, that was being met by fossil fuels. And the biggest 
offender in climate terms is coal.

Spencer Dale, BP's chief economist, says the world's surging demand for 
energy - it rose by 2.9% last year - has cemented the defiant growth of 
coal. Consumption had climbed for a second consecutive year following 
three years of decline.

"The peak in global coal consumption, which many thought had occurred in 
2013, now looks less certain," Dale says. "Another couple of years of 
increases close to last year's would take global consumption comfortably 
above 2013 levels."

The creeping growth of coal worldwide has come via the electricity 
generation sector, but in the UK, coal-fired power is to be entirely 
snuffed out by 2025 under government plans.

The process is already under way. Coal-fired electricity was just 5% of 
all power generation in the UK last year, which allowed the National 
Grid to trumpet its greenest-ever winter. Since then, the closure of two 
coal plants has been announced, which will cut number of UK coal plants 
to five from next year.

Britain's battle to wean itself off coal is helped by a rise in 
renewables but also - crucially - by the fact that in a country of 
sluggish growth and rising energy efficiency, demand for power has 
flatlined.

A solar power station in West Bengal, India: renewable enery is not 
increasing anything like fast enough in Asia. Photograph: Alamy
The same cannot be said for fast-developing countries in Asia, for 
example, where the appetite for electricity is growing rapidly, and 
renewable energy is not increasing anything like fast enough to keep 
coal at bay.

Asia's appetite for coal-fired electricity is keeping coal production 
alive too. Indian mining group Adani last week announced plans to start 
work on a A$2bn (1bn [pound sterling]) coal mine in Australia after a 
decade of opposition from climate campaigners.

The Queensland mine is expected to produce coal that, once burned in 
power plants, will emit 700 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year 
for more than 50 years.

Wind and solar renewable power is the world's fastest-growing energy 
source: it grew by 14.5% last year, led by a surge of investment in 
China. But the strides do not go far enough, fast enough. "You have to 
run very fast just to stand still," Dale says.

The global power generation picture is "depressingly" unchanged from 20 
years ago, he says. Three flat lines show an unwavering breakdown of the 
global electricity mix: last year coal made up 38%, non-fossil fuels 
reached 36% and the rest of the world's power was generated by gas and 
oil. This is the same as in 1998.

"If rising demand was to be met by renewable energy, renewable 
generation would need to have grown more than twice as quickly over the 
past three years than it actually did," Dale says. "Alternatively, the 
same reduction in carbon emissions could have been achieved by replacing 
around 10% of coal in the power sector with natural gas."

BP's backing for gas is unsurprising and self-serving: the company owns 
a vast portfolio of gas fields, and it plans to expand this within the 
business as oil falls from favour. It also makes sense: gas generation 
emits around half the carbon of coal, and avoids much of the air 
pollution which has become a major concern in Asia's growing cities.

However, gas is still a hydrocarbon and its use cannot grow unchecked 
within the energy system without driving carbon emissions higher.

The demand for gas increased by 5.3% in 2018, one of its strongest 
growth rates for over 30 years. Its use accounted for 45% of the 
increase in global energy consumption last year.

The gas "bonanza" was led by the US shale boom, says Dale. The US shale 
heartlands in the Marcellus, Haynesville and Permian basins produced an 
extra 78 billion cubic metres of gas last year. This is the same growth 
in one year as the previous 12 combined.

The surge in US gas production was used mainly to meet its own booming 
domestic demand. The US recorded the third-highest growth for energy 
consumption last year: it is the only G7 nation at the top of the energy 
growth league table; the rest of the top 10 are developing economies.

Dale points to a worrying vicious climate cycle to explain part of the 
US boom. Research suggests that wider swings in temperature are nudging 
homes and businesses to turn up either heating systems or air 
conditioners more often. Last year, the number of particularly hot or 
cold days in the US was the highest for 50 years. And temperature swings 
in the first months of 2019 are proving to be just as wide of seasonal 
norms.

This may reflect "random variation" in weather patterns, says Dale. Or 
it may signal a worrying climate feedback loop which will make it harder 
to tackle the climate crisis.

"If there is a link between the growing levels of carbon in the 
atmosphere and the weather patterns observed in 2018," he says, "this 
would raise the possibility of a vicious cycle: increasing levels of 
carbon leading to more extreme weather patterns, which in turn trigger 
stronger growth in energy usage - and emissions."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/15/climate-crisis-coal-asia-power-generation-fossil-fuels



*This Day in Climate History - June 16, - from D.R. Tucker*
June 16, 2009: The 2009 National Climate Assessment Report is released.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wze6RMK90vw
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2009/06/24/global-climate-change-impacts-in-the-united-states-%E2%80%93-report-overview-part-1-of-a-series/ 


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