Obama Official Says No Snow Ever Again in the Sierra Nevada

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

President Barack Obama announced a series of steps that aim to tackle the effects of climate change on the wellness of Americans. These 150 health-focused deportment to heave climatic change preparedness expand on the Climate Data Initiative launched a year.

"The sooner we act, the more nosotros can do to protect the health of our communities, our kids, and those that are the nearly vulnerable," the White House said in a statement. "As role of the assistants'south overall try to combat climate change and protect the American people, this calendar week, the assistants is announcing a serial of actions that volition permit us to amend sympathize, communicate, and reduce the health impacts of climate change on our communities."

Beyond the list of initiatives—including expanding access to climate and health data, improving air quality data and convening a climate change and health pinnacle—the assistants released a draft study on the observed and time to come impacts of climate change on our health. It focuses on risks such as weather extremes, air quality and h2o-and food-related problems that could affect Americans and is open for public comment. A last draft is expected for release in early 2016.

Another report by the Centers for Illness Command and Prevention, Adaptation in Activity , highlights successful deportment by state leaders in Arizona, California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and New York to reduce the health impacts of climate alter.

Study Forecasts Canadian Glacier Loss; Could Have Wider Implications

A new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience predicts how much glaciers in western Canada will compress—as much every bit lxx percent by 2100—depending on the charge per unit of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere between at present and the end of the century.

"Over the next century, there is going to be a huge loss," said lead author Garry Clarke of the Academy of British Columbia. "The glaciers are telling usa that we're changing the climate."

The study—the offset to model many glaciers in detail at one time—could have implications for predicting glacier loss around the world. New Scientist reports that unlike previous studies—including one past the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—this Nature Geoscience report relies on detailed analysis of how glaciers are probable to movement and change shape as they melt. The earlier studies relied on the deviation between the amount of snow falling on the glacier at higher altitudes and the amount of thawing at lower ones.

Climatic change Triggers Rising Tide of Troubles for California

Last week the Risky Business concern Project released its third written report on the economic impacts of climatic change, a report calling on business leaders to button for policy reform and to factor climate change into their businesses' run a risk models.

From Boom to Bust? Climate Risk in the Golden State describes how extreme heat and shifting atmospheric precipitation patterns from escalating climate alter volition drain California'due south water supply, worsen drought and wildfire, and undermine agriculture. Rising temperatures volition besides lead to decreased labor productivity, increased energy costs, and greater air pollution. Human wellness and belongings will be put at risk: a doubling or tripling of the number of days with temperatures exceeding 95 degrees Fahrenheit could contribute to nearly 7,700 additional heat-related deaths per year by century's end, and ascension body of water levels along the California coast could submerge $10 billion in belongings by 2050.

The study was published the same mean solar day that California Gov. Jerry Brown placed start-always mandatory water restrictions on all Californians, a response to the state'south fourth year of drought, which has already challenged many of the country'due south businesses. The executive club calls for a 25 percent slash in h2o use and comes as the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which Californians rely on heavily for summertime water needs, neared a record low.

The Climate Post  offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday past Duke Academy's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

The latest round of climate talks began Feb. 8 in Geneva, where representatives of 190 or so countries accept their work cut out for them: streamlining a 37-page draft text of an international understanding covering more than 100 issues, each with multiple options and sub-options, then that a total negotiating text is ready past May every bit a basis for farther negotiations in June and ratification at a acme in Paris in Dec. The draft text reflects a rich land-developing land divide and is "blimp with options that reflect conflicting interests and demands on many primal points," reported the Associated Strange Press in the Gulf Times.

With both global World surface and global sea surface temperatures reaching record levels in 2014, pressure to reach a last climate accord is intense.

At the outset of the 6-day conference, the merely negotiation menses scheduled earlier delivery of national emissions reductions plans at the end of May, European Wedlock negotiator Elena Bardram acknowledged that countries' Paris targets are unlikely to go on global temperature rise below the threshold of ii degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change considers the tipping signal for dangerous climate change.

"We are concerned the targets set up in Paris may fall short of what is required past science, that it volition not exist exactly what is required to remain within the two degrees," she said in a Un press conference webcast. "By the Paris conference, we need to accept a very articulate agreement of how well on track nosotros are with keeping global temperature increment inside the two degree centigrade limit," she said. "We have to know how much is on the table and what more needs to exist done, should that be the example."

All major economies must declare their emissions targets past the terminate of March, and the European Union is wasting no time in its efforts to make its members fall into line. Reuters reported that it will exert "maximum force per unit area" to extract pledges "by June at the latest."

But developed land targets are not the but issue. Other sticking points are whether developing countries should make their own carbon-reduction pledges, whether industrial superpowers should compensate these countries for climatic change-related losses and damage, and how pledges of fiscal support to developing countries should be made proficient.

Days earlier the latest talks got under way, a grouping of CEOs called for the Paris deal to include a goal to reduce global emissions to net nothing—no more Globe tin can absorb—past 2050.

Final Keystone Legislation Headed to President's Desk-bound

By a 270–152 vote, the U.S. Firm of Representatives has passed last legislation approving the Keystone XL pipeline, the project that during seven years of administrative review overseen by the State Department has morphed into a fight about climate alter. The president has 10 days once the beak reaches his deck to issue a promised veto.

Republican Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, the architect of the Keystone Forty bill, acknowledged that Republicans lack the votes to overcome a veto but said that Keystone measures could be added to other legislation that take bipartisan support.

The nib endorsed changes made by the Senate—that climate change was not a hoax and that oil sands should no longer be exempt from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

The President has said he would approve the pipeline but if it does not significantly increase the rate of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked the State Section to revisit its conclusion that the project'due south impact on those emissions was negligible—a decision that the EPA says may no longer hold given the implications of lowered oil prices for oil sands development.

National Security Strategy Report Highlights Threat of Climate change

Amongst the eight summit strategic risks to the The states identified in President Obama'southward National Security Strategy written report to Congress is climate change. The report, issued Feb. half-dozen, singles out the phenomenon as "an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources like food and water" with "present day" effects being felt "from the Arctic to the Midwest."

The report echoes many of the Pentagon'south warnings that climate change poses a national security risk, and it alludes to the economic costs of climate change, suggesting that delaying emissions reductions is more expensive than transitioning to low-carbon energy sources.

Although the assistants's last national security strategy, released in 2010, recognized the threat of climate modify to U.South. interests, the new written report puts global warming "front end and eye," according to the National Journal.

The strategy draws attention to the U.Southward. commitment to reducing emissions 26–28 per centum beneath 2005 levels by 2025 and to developing "an ambitious new global climatic change understanding."

A White House fact sheet on the written report says that the U.s.a. will advance its own security and that of allies and partners in part by "confronting the urgent crunch of climate modify, including through national emissions reductions, international affairs, and our commitment to the Greenish Climate Fund."

The Climate Post  offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University'southward Nicholas Institute for Ecology Policy Solutions .

The Nicholas Plant for Environmental Policy Solutions at Knuckles University

In an try to increment energy security and resilience to climatic change, President Obama'southward financial 2016 budget proposes a 7 percent increase in funding for clean energy and a new $4 billion Clean Power State Initiative Fund aimed at encouraging U.S. states to make faster and deeper cuts in ability plant emissions.

The proposed $4 billion fund, which would help states pay for infrastructure improvements and renewable and clean-free energy initiatives equally well as prepare for more extreme weather, signals that the Clean Ability Programme's individual state targets are "minimums, not maximums," according to U.South. News and Earth Written report.

The proposed fund would be paid for by offsetting reductions from other programs—which congressional Republicans are probable to oppose, reports the Associated Press, given their aversion to the EPA'southward climate efforts.

The budget called attention to the costs of delaying carbon-cutting measures, including $300 billion over 10 years for responses to extreme atmospheric condition events. According to the Obama administration, unabated climatic change could cost the Usa $120 billion a twelvemonth.

"The failure to invest in climate solutions and climate preparedness does not simply fly in the face of the overwhelming judgment of scientific discipline—it is fiscally unwise," states the upkeep plan released by the White House.

The president's proposed budget likewise calls for investments aimed at climate change adaptation. Several hundred million dollars are earmarked for initiatives such as protecting communities at risk from wildfires and assessing and addressing coastal flooding threats.

Also in the budget proposal: a $500 one thousand thousand contribution to the United Nation's Global Climate Fund to aid developing countries combat global warming and accommodate to climate alter.

Senate Pushes Ahead on Keystone, EPA Pushes Back

In a 62-to-36 vote on January. 29, the Senate canonical a bill mandating completion of the Keystone XL pipeline, which President Obama has vowed to veto pending federal environmental reviews.

The Senate measure out in effect transfers decision-making dominance for Keystone from the administration to Congress. Considering the measure out differs from the House measure blessing the proposed pipeline, the Business firm could concur another vote on the projection or a conference with Senate leaders. In either case, Congressional supporters of the project currently lack the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.

Because the State Section gave federal agencies a Feb. second deadline to conclude their assessment of Keystone, the president could announce his decision on the projection soon.

In 2013, Obama said that decision would exist based on whether Keystone's construction would worsen climate alter. This week, the U.S. EPA urged the State Department to "revisit" its 2014 conclusion that the pipeline would not significantly increase the charge per unit of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

The bureau has zeroed in on the "potential implications of lower oil prices on project impacts, especially greenhouse gas emissions." It said that with an oil price range at $65 to $75 a barrel, "construction of the pipeline is projected to change the economics of oil sands development and event in increased oil sands production and the accompanying greenhouse gas emissions."

The White House has non said whether the letter of the alphabet shows that Keystone fails Obama's "climate exam."

Add Blackouts to Climate Change Effects

For major American cities along the Atlantic coast to the Gulf, climate change may mean more blackouts, according to a report published in the journal Climate change.

Using a figurer simulation model, engineers at Johns Hopkins University examined how fluctuations in hurricane intensity and activity could potentially affect the cities' electrical power systems. The cities at highest risk of power outage increases during major storms are New York City, Philadelphia, Jacksonville, Fla., Virginia Embankment, Va., and Hartford, Conn.

"Infrastructure providers and emergency managers demand to plan for hurricanes in a long-term manner and that planning has to take climatic change into business relationship," said report coauthor Seth Guikema.

The Climate Mail  offers a rundown of the week in climate and free energy news. It is produced each Thursday past Duke University's Nicholas Found for Environmental Policy Solutions .

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Editor'southward Note: The Climate Post will not exist circulated next Thursday in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Look for it again on December ane.

The Obama administration delayed deciding whether to corroborate the controversial Keystone Xl pipeline, which has been proposed to carry tar sands from Canada to Texas's Gulf Coast. The administration said information technology should consider alternate routes and wait until early 2013 to decide.

Industry officials in Canada thought the delay may derail the pipeline, and threaten the country's aim of becoming a tiptop oil producer. To maintain high prices for Canadian oil, at that place is an urgent need for new ways of consign, including to Asia, argued the Globe and Post.

Meanwhile Republican lawmakers proposed a bill for speeding upwardly the review procedure, and TransCanada Corp., the visitor proposing the pipeline, argued the approval could come in six to nine months.

In Nebraska, the pipeline has met opposition in part because of fears the pipeline would threaten the vast Ogallala Aquifer that underlies much of the state and the ecologically sensitive Sandhills region.

Nebraska's legislature voted unanimously, earlier this week, for a pecker to re-road the Keystone Twoscore pipeline, equally well as for a separate beak to establish authority for the state to regulate pipeline routes within its borders. In response, TransCanada Corp. has proposed a different route through Nebraska.

Diplomacy and Downsizing

The U.S. Department of State, which has been in charge of reviewing the Keystone Xl application, has opened a new co-operative, the Bureau of Free energy Resources. The new bureau, a result of a review that began in 2009, will aim to strengthen "energy diplomacy."

The Country Department's special envoy and coordinator for international energy diplomacy said the main goal is not free energy independence for the U.Southward., since the country is tightly linked with global markets. The new bureau volition push button for increased utilise of natural gas around the earth as a replacement for burning oil to generate electricity.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) is under fire for its handling of cleantech loans, in particular of solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, and Secretarial assistant of Energy Steven Chu was scheduled to testify. Meanwhile an internal review at the DoE said the section spends too much on overhead and should restructure in grooming for downsizing forced by budget cuts likely to come.

Salvaging the Kyoto Essence

The upcoming climate talks in Durban, Due south Africa, are unlikely to make any huge strides, the Christian Science Monitor argued, merely could brand a crucial contribution by extending the Kyoto Protocol. Salvaging the essence of that understanding is the most of import step, agreed Africa's chief negotiator at the talks, Ethiopian Prime Government minister Meles Zenawi.

Un Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for richer countries to follow through with their pledge for a $100 billion annual climate help, and the Green Climate Fund, both of which G-20 countries said they remain committed to recently. But the deepening economic problems in Europe may mean contributions to climate funds autumn brusque of promises.

The Green Climate Fund has run into problems already, hampered by disagreements over how to structure it. Because of lack of transparency and possible double-counting of funds, it is difficult to say how much additional climate assist has actually been contributed, said Saleemul Huq of the International Institute for Environment and Development.

The Climate Mail service offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday past Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Source: https://sites.nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/climatepost/tag/obama-administration/

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