[TheClimate.Vote] April 1, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*April 1, 2021*/

[no foolin,]
*Janet Yellen: Climate change poses ‘existential threat’ to financial 
markets*
The FSOC focused on climate for the first time since Congress 
established the body in 2010.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday called climate change “an 
existential threat” and the biggest emerging risk to the health of the 
U.S. financial system, pledging to marshal regulatory forces to guard 
against its harmful effects.

Yellen made the promise during her inaugural appearance as the head of 
the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a panel of top regulators 
tasked with policing Wall Street behavior that has the potential to 
crash the entire economy...
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/31/yellen-climate-change-fsoc-478769
- -
[source material]
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY -- SECRETARY STATEMENTS & REMARKS
*Remarks by Secretary Janet L. Yellen at the Open Session of the meeting 
of the Financial Stability Oversight Council*

    "The three areas that I highlighted—vulnerabilities in nonbank
    financial intermediation, the resiliency of the Treasury market, and
    climate change—are major challenges that will require our collective
    efforts."

more at - https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0092



[pushing money for making change]
*More than 100 climate groups press Kerry on Wall Street's role in 
global warming*
BY TAL AXELROD - 03/31/21
Nearly 150 climate advocacy groups are calling on John Kerry, the 
special presidential envoy for climate, to curtail the amount of money 
Wall Street sends to fossil fuel companies and recognize the role the 
firms play in the planet’s changing temperature.

A combined 145 organizations, including Greenpeace and Friends of the 
Earth, pressed Kerry in a letter to focus on money that flows from banks 
and investors to companies that contribute to climate change, mainly 
those investing in fossil fuel extraction and deforestation.

“Today we write to request your support and leadership in urgently 
addressing one of the most important and overlooked drivers of climate 
change: ending the flow of private finance from Wall Street to the 
industries driving climate change around the world — fossil fuels and 
forest-risk commodities,” the groups wrote.

“We must recognize that Wall Street isn’t yet an ally,” they added. “As 
long as U.S. firms continue to pour more money into the drivers of 
climate change, they are actively undermining President Biden’s climate 
goals.”

The letter singled out a number of banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. 
and Citigroup Inc., for their donations to companies they say are 
exacerbating the temperature changes across the globe.

The groups specifically requested that Kerry press U.S. corporations to 
divest from “pure-play” coal, oil and gas companies and have those 
companies’ discussions “appropriately reflect climate risk.”

They also said he should apply pressure to banks and insurers that have 
already committed themselves to have net-zero fossil fuel emissions to 
expedite their efforts, including “an immediate end to financing for 
fossil fuel expansion” and “a phase-out of all financing for fossil fuel 
projects.”

“Until we can hold Wall Street firms to account, no amount of new 
green-finance commitments can credibly undo the damage that their 
fossil-fuel financing is doing to the climate, to U.S. climate 
leadership, and to our chances of meeting the goals of the Paris 
Agreement,” the groups wrote.

When asked about the letter, the State Department, which houses Kerry's 
office, said the administration would work to balance government action 
on climate change with outreach to the private sector.

"There’s no question the climate crisis requires assertive government 
action.  But given the global funding gap, we can’t look to government 
alone to deliver the resources we need. We also need the full engagement 
of the private sector. So even as we work to pursue the most ambitious 
climate agenda in history, we are focused on mobilizing public and 
private sector financing alike," said a State Department spokesperson.

The letter comes as the Biden administration touts its efforts to tackle 
climate change. Among its efforts were rejoining the Paris climate 
agreement, a key goal of which was pushing financial markets away from 
fossil fuels, and ordering the creation of a climate plan, which Kerry 
said would include “ending international financing of fossil fuel 
projects with public money.”

It is also pushing a massive infrastructure plan that would include a 
number of climate change provisions.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/545719-145-climate-groups-call-on-kerry-to-acknowledge-wall-streets-role


[money demands a following]
*US urged to invest in sun-dimming studies as climate warms*
National academies report is most explicit call yet for a government 
research programme to explore the controversial field of solar 
geoengineering.
29 MARCH 2021
- -
Although scientific agencies in the United States and abroad have funded 
solar-geoengineering research in the past, governments have shied away 
from launching formal programmes in the controversial field. In addition 
to fears that tinkering with Earth’s atmosphere could backfire in 
unpredictable ways, many environmentalists worry that focusing on 
geoengineering could reduce pressure on politicians — and the powerful 
fossil fuel-industry — to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. The report does 
not in any way advocate deploying the technology, but says research is 
needed to understand the options if the climate crisis becomes even more 
serious.

“Climate change is a genuine crisis, and we have been way too slow to 
get our act together,” says Christopher Field, an ecologist at Stanford 
University in California and co-chair of the committee that produced the 
report. “That’s part of the reason that we need to have a clear 
understanding of all of our options, including options that we would 
have not been willing to consider all that long ago.”
- -
Still, some scientists worry about the United States going it alone with 
a solar-geoengineering research programme, given the global 
ramifications of any efforts to alter Earth’s atmosphere. The NASEM 
report does call for the United States to promote international 
partnerships, and Keith says the country should do exactly that, if it 
moves forwards with the proposed strategy.

“That’s one of my biggest caveats: it would be unhealthy if this were 
only the United States,” he says. “International coordination is vitally 
important.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00822-5



[brief from the Society of Environmental Journalists]
*Local Water, Sewer Projects May Flow From Infrastructure Funding*
March 31, 2021
Water infrastructure projects are almost certainly coming your way, as 
part of an all-out federal push to fix the infrastructure. And they will 
bring not only more jobs, but more environmental stories.

One of several federal programs affecting water pollution is known as 
WIFIA (for the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014). 
Even Republicans like it. Former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
Administrator Scott Pruitt always put out a proud press release whenever 
he awarded millions of WIFIA dollars to some deserving locality.

Now, as President Joe Biden and a Democrat-controlled Congress get ready 
for the Herculean effort of passing an “infrastructure” bill, we can 
expect WIFIA (and programs like it) to be conduits for larger amounts of 
federal money.

There is a “pipeline” for projects seeking funding and an established 
administrative mechanism for vetting and funding them. Most importantly, 
WIFIA and similar programs are not partisan or politically 
controversial. The prospect of more money could actually increase 
support in Congress.

WIFIA money can go toward both drinking water and sewage treatment 
projects. The money amounts to loan guarantees, which means the federal 
dollars can be highly leveraged. A small federal layout can back a much 
larger local project.
*
**Why it matters*
In short, there are a great many places in the United States where 
wastewater and drinking water systems are inadequate and harming 
people’s health. This may mean pathogens carrying disease, chemical 
pollutants threatening toxic harm or nutrients like nitrogen that 
fertilize fish-killing algae...
more at:
https://www.sej.org/publications/tipsheet/local-water-sewer-projects-may-flow-from-infrastructure-funding


[Podcast collections from Yale University Produced by Yale Broadcast Studio]
*Pricing Carbon*
Pricing Nature, a limited-series podcast from the Center for Business 
and the Environment at Yale and the Yale Carbon Charge. We’ll tell a 
story about the economics, politics, and history of carbon pricing, 
which many argue should play a critical role in any national climate 
policy. Join us to hear from experts about the ins and outs of carbon 
pricing policy.
1. Intro to Carbon Pricing
2. What’s the Right Price for Carbon Emissions?
3. The Road to Paris: 30 Years of Climate Negotiations in Under an Hour
4. Why doesn’t the US have a national price on carbon?..
http://yalepodcasts.blubrry.net/tag/carbon-pricing/


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - April 1, 2009 *
The New York Times reports:

    "The debate on global warming and energy policy accelerated on
    Tuesday as two senior House Democrats unveiled a far-reaching bill
    to cap heat-trapping gases and quicken the country’s move away from
    dependence on coal and oil.

    "But the bill leaves critical questions unanswered and has no
    Republican support. It is thus the beginning, not the end, of the
    debate in Congress on how to deal with two of President Obama’s
    priorities, climate change and energy.

    "The draft measure, written by Representatives Henry A. Waxman of
    California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, sets a slightly
    more ambitious goal for capping heat-trapping gases than Mr. Obama’s
    proposal. The bill requires that emissions be reduced 20 percent
    from 2005 levels by 2020, while Mr. Obama’s plan calls for a 14
    percent reduction by 2020. Both would reduce emissions of carbon
    dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases by roughly 80 percent by
    2050."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/us/politics/01energycnd.html?pagewanted=print

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