[TheClimate.Vote] March 14, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

[Richard Pauli]

/March 14, 2019/


[Interactive information display from the World Bank]
*Carbon Pricing Dashboard*
KEY STATISTICS ON REGIONAL, NATIONAL AND SUBNATIONAL CARBON PRICING 
INITIATIVE(S)
Launched in May 2017, the Carbon Pricing Dashboard is an interactive 
online platform that provides up-to-date information on existing and 
emerging carbon pricing initiatives around the world. It builds on the 
data and analyses of the annual State and Trends of Carbon Pricing report.
Here is the latest update as of February 1, 2019:
- 46 national jurisdictions and 28 subnational jurisdictions are putting 
a price on carbon.
- 57 carbon pricing initiatives are implemented or scheduled for 
implementation.
Check out the Dashboard for the details and contact 
carbonpricingdashboard at worldbank.org if you have any questions!
https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/


[Spring into politics]
*Spring is Coming [2019] - Extinction Rebellion*
ExtinctionRebellion
Published on Mar 11, 2019
https://www.SpringUprising.com | https://www.Rebellion.Earth
Music: Cinnamon Chasers
The 10 Working Principles of Extinction Rebellion
https://rebellion.earth/who-we-are/#principles

1. We have a shared vision of change
2. We set our mission on what is necessary
3. We need a re-generative culture
4. We hopefully challenge ourselves, and this toxic system
5. We value reflection and learning
6. We welcome everyone, and every part of everyone into Extinction
Rebellion
7. We actively mitigate for power
8. We avoid blaming and shaming
9. We are a non-violent movement
10. We are based on autonomy and de-centralization

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVLGfl4Xrjc


[NYTimes Opinion for Greta]
*Grown-Ups Get a Scolding on Climate*
Inspired by a Swedish teenager, students around the world on Friday will 
protest political inaction.
By The Editorial Board
The girl in long braids and lavender pants was in striking contrast to 
the rich and powerful adults gathered in Davos in January for the World 
Economic Forum, and her brief address lacked the usual niceties.

"Adults keep saying, 'We owe it to the young people to give them hope,'" 
she said. "But I don't want your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful. I 
want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And 
then I want you to act."

The applause was tepid.

Hers was not a tone grown-ups welcome from a 16-year-old. But Greta 
Thunberg is someone they should listen to. In fact, must listen to.

Not because the catastrophe she sees coming is news: The warnings of 
impending climatic catastrophe are already deafening -- in the 2018 
report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 
which warns that we are less than 12 years away from the point of no 
return; in the findings of 13 United States federal agencies that 
describe the grave threats posed by climate change to the nation; in the 
extremes of weather reported daily; in the vanishing Arctic ice, raging 
wildfires, violent tornadoes and other consequences of an overheating 
planet that appear with ever increasing frequency.
The grown-ups should listen because the alarm is being sounded by kids 
like Greta who, unlike President Trump and other willful deniers of the 
obvious, have realized that they stand to inherit a wounded world their 
elders are failing to protect.

"You are not mature enough to tell it like it is," Greta told COP24, a 
United Nations climate change conference in Poland in December, where 
the United States joined Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in watering 
down a response to the climate change panel's report. "Even that burden 
you leave to us children."

Greta is an unlikely agent of change. She is autistic, diminutive, not 
given to long speeches. But her decision to regularly skip school to sit 
in front of the Swedish Parliament since August to demand action on the 
climate has helped inspire a global movement of young people who share 
her alarm and anger. Tens of thousands of school and university students 
in Australia, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and many other 
countries have followed her lead. A global school boycott to raise 
climate consciousness is scheduled for Friday.

In the United States, young environmental activists of the Sunrise 
Movement created a major stir when more than 150 staged a sit-in at 
Representative Nancy Pelosi's office a week after the midterm elections. 
And a video of a youthful delegation delivering a letter to Dianne 
Feinstein, the veteran Democratic senator from California, in which she 
tries to school them on the realities of politics while they talk of a 
dying earth, went viral in February.

The American students have found a strong ally in Alexandria 
Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old Democratic congresswoman from New York 
who last month introduced a "Green New Deal" resolution in the House. 
The document sets out not only a remarkably ambitious program for a 
rapid transfer to renewable energy, but also a broad set of ideas on how 
society should be fundamentally rebuilt. Not surprisingly, the Green New 
Deal was gleefully pounced on by Republicans as a "Trojan horse for 
socialism" and stands no chance of adoption, but it has become something 
of a litmus test for where Democrats stand on climate change -- and 
something of a manifesto for the rising generation of activists.
Parliamentary maneuvers is not their game. They are saying that time is 
almost up.

"We have not come here to beg world leaders to care," Greta told COP24. 
"You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again. We have 
run out of excuses and we are running out of time. We have come here to 
let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not." Out of 
the mouth of babes …
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/opinion/climate-change-children-greta-thunberg.html


[a syndemic is a synergy of epidemics]
*The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The 
Lancet Commission report*
Published: January 27, 2019

Executive Summary
Obesity is still increasing in prevalence in almost all countries
and is an important risk factor for poor health and mortality. The
current approach to obesity prevention is failing despite many
piecemeal efforts, recommendations, and calls to action.  This
Commission following on from two Lancet Series on obesity looks at
obesity in a much wider context of common underlying societal and
political drivers for malnutrition in all its forms­ and climate
change. The Commission urges a radical rethink of business models,
food systems, civil society involvement, and national and
international governance to address The Global Syndemic of Obesity,
Undernutrition, and Climate Change. A holistic effort to reorient
human systems to achieve better human and planetary health is our
most important and urgent challenge.

The Global Syndemic Commission is one of a series of initiatives on 
nutrition, including the EAT–Lancet Commission , led by The Lancet in 
2019. Find out more in our Editorial.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32822-8/fulltext


[Carbon Capture = Geoengineering]
*Carbon Capture: Will It Save the Climate, or the Fossil Fuel Industry?*
By Marco Poggio
Climate scientists have for decades researched ways to extract carbon 
dioxide from the atmosphere as a way to slow climate change, but while 
their work has progressed from a handful of fringe theories to promising 
technologies, they remain controversial. That's partly because they have 
drawn an unlikely backer: the fossil fuel industry.

Since at least the 1980s, researchers have devised and tested 
technologies aimed at capturing CO2 from the air--a field broadly 
referred to as carbon dioxide removal or negative emissions technologies.

Governments and private investors have begun to hail those technologies 
as a viable path toward slowing global warming and a report by the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mentions them as 
necessary to meet the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement. They have 
drawn significant investment from oil, gas and coal companies looking 
for ways to continue developing fossil fuels as the world moves toward 
cleaner energy.

But some scientists and policy makers are alarmed that a reliance on 
these technologies will continue our dependence on fossil fuels and will 
impede the transition to renewable energy sources.

A recently published study by the Center for International Environmental 
Law warned that some technologies, in particular carbon capture, 
utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies, could slow the transition 
to renewables.

"CCUS is valuable to the fossil fuel industry in three key ways: it 
expands oil production, provides a lifeline to a declining coal 
industry, and further entrenches the overall fossil fuel economy," the 
report says. "Incentivizing CCUS through policy and relying on it in 
planning will likely slow the transition away from fossil fuel 
investments and undermine broader efforts to mitigate climate change."

The debate comes with few black-and-white solutions. Touting technology 
and innovation has become a talking point in dealing with climate change 
by Republicans who feel they can no longer run from the issue 
altogether, but climate activists argue it is little more than their 
latest cover for pushing climate action indefinitely into the future. 
And none of the technologies are close to being developed at a scale 
large enough to have a true impact on global warming, a process that 
would have to be coordinated among many countries on a vast global scale.

At the same time, many climate scientists argue negative emissions 
technologies are absolutely necessary to fend off the worst impacts of 
global warming.

For the fossil fuel industry, which sees the cost of renewables falling 
rapidly, negative emissions technologies provide a scenario in which 
fossil fuels--in particular coal, by far the largest contributor to the 
world's CO2 emissions--can survive the transition to cleaner energy.

*An Array of Ideas*
Negative emissions technologies differ widely in terms of techniques and 
results. Some involve natural ways to extract CO2 from the air, such as 
planting more trees, restoring wetlands or modifying the soil to make it 
absorb more CO2.

Others require elaborate feats of engineering. Carbon dioxide can be 
captured from the smokestacks of power plants, refineries, iron, steel, 
or cement plants; or it can be extracted directly from the air, where 
it's more rarefied, by way of giant fans, with a process called direct 
air capture.

Some negative emissions technologies have failed to produce tangible 
results and others have produced little more than skyrocketing costs: 
one high-profile carbon capture and storage project in Kemper, Miss., 
was supposed to be the vanguard of clean coal technology but ended up 
costing $7.5 billion and the technology was scrapped altogether in favor 
of burning natural gas.

Other technologies, like direct air capture--which works to separate 
carbon dioxide from the air and then store it--are on  the rise, thanks 
to innovations that are making it less expensive and more appealing to 
investors.

Harvard engineer David Keith has estimated the direct air capture system 
he devised could cut the cost of CO2 extraction from $1,000 per metric 
ton to a range between $94 and $232 per metric ton. His company, Carbon 
Engineering, received investments from billionaire Bill Gates, oil 
magnate Murray Edwards, and more recently, oil giants Chevron and 
Occidental.

Captured CO2 with negative emissions technologies is either stored in 
deep underground geological formations in the case of carbon capture and 
storage, or used for production of chemical fuels, biofuels and heating 
system fluids.

The vast majority of captured CO2, however, is currently used to extract 
oil. In a process called enhanced oil recovery, compressed CO2 is 
injected into depleted oil reservoirs, causing oil to expand and flow 
more easily to surface.

The role of CO2 in oil extraction is what makes many critics think 
carbon capture and storage won't help with climate change.

Steven Feit, a lawyer and one of the authors of the Center for 
International Environmental Law report, said the unbreakable 
relationship between fuel combustion and CO2 removal helps sustain a 
vicious circle where fuel is burned, CO2 is produced, then captured, 
then used to produce more fuel.

"We're talking about a system that would be making fossil fuels harder 
to transition away from, while also making it easier for old companies 
to make more oil. There's a kind of perverse relationship between all 
these moving parts," Feit told Climate Liability News.

Feit said he believes the majority of researchers and engineers studying 
negative emissions technologies are well-intentioned, but their 
solutions will not avoid the need for drastic CO2 emissions cuts and the 
boosting of solar and wind energy.

"What is required to effectively deal with climate change is a 
transition from the kinds of systems we have to ones which are 
sustainable and low or zero carbon," he said.

*A Well-Funded Effort *
The U.S. government has long supported negative emissions technologies 
projects, with the Department of Energy having funded research since at 
least 1997. Last month, Secretary Rick Perry awarded $24 million in 
funds to eight companies for research and development of CCUS 
technologies. The funds, which will come from the Office of Fossil 
Energy, will add to the $28.9 million in research fund awarded during 
fiscal year 2018.

"By 2040 the world will still rely on fossil fuels for 77 percent of its 
energy use. Our goal is to produce them in a cleaner way," Perry said in 
a statement.

The federal government also provides tax credits to fossil fuel 
companies that incorporate CO2 capture and storage systems in their 
operations.

All major oil companies have invested in negative emissions 
technologies. Currently, there are 23 large-scale CCUS projects around 
the world that are either operating or under construction.

In its "2019 Energy and Carbon Summary," ExxonMobil reported investments 
of more than $9 billion in the development of lower-emission energy 
solutions that include carbon capture and storage. The company boasts 
having 30-year expertise in storing captured CO2 underground "in a safe 
and secure fashion."

In its "Sky Scenario," Shell projected the deployment of 10,000 
large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities by 2070, in a 
world with net-zero CO2 emissions.

Chevron has invested more than $75 million in CCS research and 
development over the past decade. The company is also part of the CO2 
Capture Project, an industry group of four major companies, which 
include BP, that have joined resources into CCS research.

Those investments, while they may sound large, are tiny compared to the 
overall research and development budgets of the oil companies. Exxon, 
for one, plans to invest $200 billion in the next seven years on 
traditional oil and gas projects around the world.

*It's All About Scale*
While engineers, scientists, governments and industry all look for the 
magic bullet of some kind of carbon capture and storage, the reality is 
none of today's existing technologies are feasible on any kind of 
realistic scale. And even if they were, not all climate engineers are 
convinced that transforming captured CO2 into products would be viable 
on a large enough scale to make a difference.

Massachusett Institute of Technology engineer Howard Herzog believes the 
best way to deal with carbon dioxide is to store it underground. He also 
thinks direct air capture technology is not cost effective, is too 
complicated and has the potential of removing only 1 or 2 percent of 
global emissions.

"I've been very critical of direct air capture in my writings. I think 
the people who are promoting it are under-realistic. I just think it's 
too expensive. Let me just say: I don't believe the cost numbers that 
they've put out," he said.

Herzog, who discloses that he receives funding from Exxon to research 
CCS technologies, said they won't solve the issue of climate change.

"Carbon dioxide removal and negative emissions can be an important part 
of climate change policy. It doesn't replace current efforts or lack of 
current efforts," he said. "The best way to take CO2 out of the 
atmosphere is not put it there in the first place."

A spokesperson from Climeworks, a Europe-based direct air capture 
company, said in an email that even with tight climate regulations in 
place, negative emissions technology are still needed to offset the CO2 
currently in the atmosphere.

"We have already passed the point of an either/or-decision. To reach the 
Paris agreements, all means of promoting renewable energies and emission 
reductions have to be deployed together," the email said.

The Center for International Environmental Law report points out 
Climerwork's partnership with car maker Audi in creating fuels made with 
captured CO2 that can be used alongside regular fuel as an example of a 
lingering influence fossil fuels still have on markets, and a sign of 
the industry opposition to change.

The report also highlights the role of government funding and private 
investments in negative emissions technologies in helping the fossil 
fuel industry build new infrastructure.

A new network of of pipelines will have to be built in order to 
transport the CO2 from the capture facilities to appropriate geological 
formations underground where it will be stored for hundreds of years. 
Those storages will have to be monitored to ensure the carbon dioxide 
doesn't find its way up to the surface. The massive amount of work that 
will be required to maintain a system highly reliant on negative 
emissions technologies will be dangerous step backwards, the report says.

"We need to transition away from reliance on fossil fuels. Anything that 
moves us toward greater reliance will not be a solution," the report says.

Herzog disagreed with the main claim in the Center for International 
Environmental Law report--that negative emissions are helping the fossil 
fuel industry.

"Fossil fuel is 85 percent of our energy economy. There's good and bad. 
With climate change, the point is to keep CO2 out of the atmosphere. So 
if you can use fossil fuels without putting CO2 into the atmosphere, 
what's wrong?" he said.

Herzog said the public has preconceived ideas about climate change.

"On the right, they deny climate change, because they don't want to deal 
with it. On the left, they want to use climate change as reason we just 
do renewables. 'We don't need nuclear, we don't need CCS, we've just got 
renewables' That's not right, either. Renewables can't do it all. It's 
going to be very hard to get to net zero emissions, and you really need 
every technology you can to help you."

Sven Teske, a German engineering and researcher at the University of 
Technology, Sydney, said renewables have the potentials to replace 
fossil fuels sooner than most people think. For over 20 years, Teske 
researched the market potential of solar and wind technologies, and came 
up with scenarios where renewables are able to sustain the world's power 
demand.

"Those will be by far the dominating technologies in the next decade or 
two," he said. "CCS is much more expensive than renewables, because 
renewables are already cheaper than coal, and if you had new equipment 
then it's even more expensive. And also, you have all the structural 
cost to get the CO2 underground and keep it there."

Teske said he understand the fossil fuel industry is feeling cornered by 
the advancing of ever cheaper renewable power technology. However, he 
said, fossil fuel companies have the capital to experiment a pivot to 
renewables. As an example, he mentioned Shell, which invested in 
offshore wind power, including a recently built wind turbine project off 
the coast of Norway.

Teske believes the negative emissions technology has been surpassed and 
the right direction is now in renewables.

"This industry is moving in this direction," he said. "CCS has been 
discussed over the last 20 years. At the end of the day, close to 
nothing has been delivered, while renewables now are the main part of 
newly built power plants. It is actually already happening."
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/03/13/carbon-capture-fossil-fuels-ciel-report/



[Lowering emissions the only priority]
*FUEL TO THE FIRE*
HOW GEOENGINEERING THREATENS TO ENTRENCH FOSSIL FUELS AND
ACCELERATE THE CLIMATE CRISIS
- - -
*Climate policy should:*
-- Focus at the national and global level on the rapid, managed decline 
of fossil fuels and the accelerated transition
to a new energy economy in a timeframe that will keep the world below 
1.5 degrees of warming.
-- Ensure that all public infrastructure investments align with the 
Paris Agreement and the 1.5-degree goal.
-- Avoid policies that promote or subsidize the construction of new 
fossil infrastructure or extend the economic
life of existing fossil infrastructure, including through subsidies for 
carbon capture and storage, direct air capture, or BECCS.
-- Prohibit open-air experiments of solar radiation modification techniques
https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CIEL_FUEL-TO-THE-FIRE_How-Geoengineering-Threatens-to-Entrench-Fossil-Fuels-and-Accelerate-the-Climate-Crisis_February-2019.pdf


[Classic message- current - correct-talk about it]
*Katharine Hayhoe on why we need to talk about climate change to fight it*
CBS This Morning
Published on Feb 27, 2019
In our Ideas That Matter partnership with TED, we highlight individuals 
and ideas shaping our world. This time we're taking a closer look at 
climate change. The latest government climate assessment warns that by 
2050, heavier rainfall in the Midwest could prompt increased flooding 
along major waterways like the Mississippi River. By 2071, temperatures 
in the southwest could climb more than eight degrees, leading to longer 
droughts. Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who co-authored the 
report, joins "CBS This Morning" to discuss why we need to talk about 
climate change to spur action.
https://youtu.be/25ZJWcqf8LE


[down so long, looks like up]
*The Strange Optimism of Climate Alarmist David Wallace-Wells*
The author of The Uninhabitable Earth on having children in a warming 
world, the danger of complacency, and why there is reason for hope (sort of)
For decades, scientists and journalists have been ringing the alarm on 
climate change, but few forced people to sit up and take notice like New 
York Magazine's David Wallace-Wells, whose alarming article  "The 
Uninhabitable Earth" caused a bit of an uproar in climate and 
environmentalist circles when it was published in 2017. But 
Wallace-Wells, 36, was (sadly) validated last autumn when a major report 
from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released that 
more or less argued people had until 2050 to get their shit together -- 
or face trying to forge a life through a man-made hell-on-earth. 
Suddenly, climate alarmism was everywhere. Even thinkers who derided the 
framing of his original piece have since come around, praising his new 
book, which follows up and expands upon the information he compiled in 
the article...
- - -
*Your first child was born during the course of writing this book. There 
have been a few articles by yourself and others about raising a family 
during an era of ecological crisis. How should society approach this 
delicate subject?*
My main feeling about why I considered having kids at all is that it's 
important -- especially in regards to climate -- to try and fight to 
make the world accommodate the sort of life that you want to live, and 
that you want your family and community to have going forward. The 
struggle around climate change is huge -- almost impossible-to-imagine 
obstacles to overcome that stand in our way -- but it is also really 
important to remember that absolutely anything that could happen will 
only happen if we let it. If we get to the climate hellscape that is 
four degrees [warming above pre-industrial temperatures], which is the 
path we are on now if we don't change course, that will be because of 
what happens starting now and heading onward. That story is entirely up 
to us to write.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-strange-optimism-of-climate-alarmist-david-wallace-wells-807028/


[Warren Olney]
*Is nuclear power the answer to climate change?*
NATIONAL
Human civilization is threatened by climate change. But it also needs 
the energy from fossil fuels that now emit
https://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/to-the-point


[SSF = Security and Stability Forum]
*Can Mycelium Reverse Climate Change? - Business Pitch on March 15, 2019*
Fri, Mar 15, 2019 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM PDT
As part of SSFs Going Green Without Going into the Red series we 
highlight new and emerging technologies.  Join us in a one hour feature 
of HiveMind, which is at the beginning stage of commercializing  a 
biological solution through ectomycorrhizal mycelium to capture and 
sequester significant amounts of atmospheric CO2. The firm has two of 
the world's top ten carbon emitters, Cummins Diesel and Shell Oil, as 
clients and Shell has ordered pilots on a series of service stations in 
London before considering us for possible global adoption to 44,000 
service stations worldwide.
The firm is seeking additional working capital to fund these projects, 
so the webinar is both a pitch and an educational session.
The panelists are:
Joseph Kelly is a serial entrepreneur who has worked with the Tibetans 
to bring Tibetan Medicine to the US, the Navajo to clean up radioactive 
sites, and started HiveMind ten years ago based on mycologist Paul 
Stamet's work with mycelium.
Wayne Robarge is an emeritus professor of environmental chemistry and 
soil physical chemistry at North Carolina State University. He is an 
expert in carbon and nitrogen sequestration in soils and has over 500 
peer reviewed articles.
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3405672793231154433


*This Day in Climate History - March **14, 2012 - from D.R. Tucker*
March 14, 2012: "NBC Nightly News" reports on the risk of rising sea levels.
http://youtu.be/DSy2UCNwchM
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