Climate Change Catastrophe?

The word 'catastrophe' is bantered about quite a bit when climate change is debated. Deniers try to demean climate science by calling it 'catastrophic anthropogenic global warming' (CAGW). I've also heard people on the science side of the debate discuss various climate change catastrophes. Is either side even realistic? That depends on how you define 'catastrophe.'

Let's first discuss the deniers. They state claims of the end of civilization are crazy. I have to agree with them on this point. If your definition of 'catastrophe' is the end of civilization or even the end of the species (I have heard both claims in recent weeks), I can't accept that future. Let me illustrate why.

Suppose we had an epically catastrophic heat wave. Let's suppose it lasts a full month and kills a million people. I think most people would agree that would be a catastrophe. Just imagine - a million dead bodies piling up in the heat faster than they can be buried. And yet, more than six million babies would be born during that month. In other words, we could have a heat wave greater than anything ever recorded and the human population would still increase.

Understand, I am not in any way predicting such a heat wave. I am merely making a point with a fictional situation. People simply don't understand what it means to say '7.3 billion people' (the current world population). Put it this way. If we reduced the world population by one million people every single day, it would take over 7300 days to wipe out everyone. That's more than 20 years. That's a whole lot of death and I don't see it happening. Not ever. The human species is the most adaptable, more resilient species of life on the planet. Assuming the climate takes a gigantic turn for the worse, I still don't see it wiping us out.

So, does that mean there is no cause for alarm? Again, it depends on your definition of 'catastrophe.' Studies show climate change is already responsible for more than 400,000 deaths per year. That is not some hypothetical number for a future. That is what is happening right now. If you or someone you love is one of those 400,000 per year, you would probably consider it to be a catastrophe.

The fact is, climate change has already resulted in a lower standard of living for hundreds of millions of people. It is already responsible for the deaths and illnesses of millions. It is already responsible for the massive damage to the environment. The list goes on. This is stuff that is already here. What about the future? How much worse will the weather get? How much more will diseases spread? How much more will sea levels rise? How many more droughts and heat waves will there be? Again, the list goes on.

So, will we see catastrophes caused by climate change?

Define 'catastrophe.'

By my definition, it's already here.

No Surprise: Another Heat Record

NOAA released their global analysis today for November. I'm sure no one who has been following the data is surprised, but November 2015 was the hottest November ever recorded. That makes seven months in a row that a temperature record has been set. November was nearly 1 degree C above the 20th century average. Almost halfway to the 2 degree mark the Paris accord is trying to limit us to.

The litany of records NOAA lists is depressing. I'll limit myself to just these. The September-November period was the hottest such period ever recorded. The first 11 months of 2015 were the hottest first 11 months of any year ever recorded. Nine of those eleven months were record hot months.

Things are not good.

For the last 12 months, the tally is:

November 2015 was the hottest November ever recorded;

October 2015 was the hottest October ever recorded;

September 2015 was the hottest September ever recorded; 

August 2015 was the hottest August ever recorded;

July 2015 was the hottest July (and hottest any month) ever recorded;

June 2015 was the hottest June ever recorded;

May 2015 was the hottest May ever recorded;

April 2015 was tied for the third hottest April ever recorded;

March 2015 was the hottest March ever recorded;

February 2015 was the hottest February ever recorded;

January 2015 was the second hottest January ever recorded;

December 2014 was the hottest December ever recorded.

Adding up the score for the last 12 months gives us: one 3rd hottest month, one 2nd hottest month, and ten hottest months ever.

The Irrelevent Tom Harris: The Future of Denialism

Tom Harris is a well-known paid shill for the fossil fuel and tobacco industries.  He denies this, but he has a long track record that is hard to hide. He was the Executive Director of the now defunct Natural Resources StewardshipProject (NRSP), which was controlled by energy business lobbyists. He was the Director of Operations for High Park Group (HPG), a fossil fuel PR agency, and worked for APCO Worldwide which promoted tobacco interests. He is also affiliated with the anti-science Heartland Institute which promotes tobacco interests and is funded by the fossil fuel industry (FFI) to spread climate change denial misinformation. Possibly his worst reference is his association with the so-called ‘Friends of Science’, even though they are the furthest thing from being friends of science, or society for that matter. This group has been shown to receive its funding from the fossil fuel industry, something they went to great lengths to hide (why is that?).

According to ExxonSecrets.org, ICSC is linked to the following fossil fuel supported organizations (organizations with an * after their names are known to receive funding from ExxonMobil):

The Heartland Institute*;
CFACT;
Science and Public Policy Institute;
American Council on Science and Health*;
International Policy Network - North America*;
Cooler Heads Coalition;
Tech Central Science Foundation*;
Australian Science Coalition;
Institute for Public Affairs;
Competitive Enterprise Institute*;
George C. Marshall Institute*;
New Zealand Climate Science Coalition;
and the Fraser Institute*

All of these organizations are known to receive funding from the fossil fuel industry, many times via Donors Trust or the Heartland Institute. In other words, the organizations paying ICSC are all paid by the fossil fuel industry.

In his role as executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), Mr. Harris is paid to put editorials in as many media sources as he can with the goal of providing false information with the express purpose of deceiving the public into not supporting any actions that may impact the profits of his employers in the fossil fuel industry. At first glance, it would seem the FFI is getting their money's worth. By my count, Tom Harris has written or co-written articles that have appeared in over 20 news outlets since the beginning of October. They even hosted an alternative meeting in Paris during the COP21 conference.

But, let's take a closer look. These articles have appeared in important news outlets such as the North Korean Times (yes, THAT North Korea), the Uzbekistan Newsnet, Pagosa Daily Post, Your Houston News, the Malay Mail, the Lethbridge Herald, Daily Inter Lake, and Mothers Against Wind Turbines. I don't view any of these as being relevant sources of outreach.

And, when we actually read his articles (a really unpleasant exercise of wading through lies, false arguments, and deception), we find increasingly shrill claims and statements. Along the way, he made gems of statements such as "I have never worked as a PR rep for any company or sector (see his resume above) (Munroe News Star),  "...the idea that we control tropical cyclones is nonsense." (Yes, it is and no one is making any such claim. So, why is Mr. Harris claiming someone is?) (Westmoreland County Times), and "Coal sector workers ... must demand that their leaders defend them properly."  (The coal industry probably has the worst record of any industry since the slave days of abusing its employees. Why would coal workers turn to the industry leaders?" (Daily Inter Lake).  

And, how about that Paris meeting? I saw only one report in the news media (yes, only one). That article stated there was  an audience of "about 35 mostly greying, white, middle-aged men, and a handful of women." Seriously? COP21 had representatives from 195 different countries, and the deniers can get only 35 individuals? I'm going to guess that most of them were the people hosting the conference.

Now, he may be facing criminal charges in Canada as a result of his actions.

Mr. Harris is taking on the appearance of someone who has fallen to the wayside and knows it. But, he shouldn't feel lonely. All of the other FFI lobbyists are right there with him.

The message is clear. No one is interested and no one is listening.

Maybe ExxonMobile should ask for it's money back.

the idea that we control tropical cyclones is nonsense. - See more at: http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/17304/30/opinion-hurricane-patricia-records-not-real/#sthash.sZOEdllD.dpuf

the idea that we control tropical cyclones is nonsense. - See more at: http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/17304/30/opinion-hurricane-patricia-records-not-real/#sthash.sZOEdllD.dpuf

the idea that we control tropical cyclones is nonsense. - See more at: http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/17304/30/opinion-hurricane-patricia-records-not-real/#sthash.sZOEdllD.dpuf

Sources and Content of Contrarian Communications about Climate Science

A rigorous computer-driven analysis of organizations producing documents and speeches deemed to express contrarian views on climate change, the texts of these documents, and energy companies providing funding to those organizations has been carried out.  Entities receiving funding are more closely connected to one another than are those not supported.  The entities most active in generating communication are highly influential in the contrarian movement.  Several contrarian topics, from energy industry-funded entities, were the subjects of communications that increased in number strongly in the years since about 2007 compared to those from nonsupported entities.  Entities receiving funding were more likely to have produced contrarian writings.  These findings provide some understanding of why public opinion in the U. S. is more dismissive of the findings of climate science than it is in other industrialized countries.

 

The United States Congress in recent times has opted against enacting national policies that would lower the annual rate of emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially carbon dioxide (CO₂).  We in the U. S.have already suffered significant damages and harms brought on by the effects of global warming.  These include fair weather ocean flooding and heat-driven droughts in the Midwest and Southwest.  Damage from extreme events has high costs for recovery which ultimately end up being paid by individuals directly, or indirectly due to higher taxes needed for the extra, unforeseen government services.  On the other hand, federal legislation to combat warming and its harms would recognize, and counteract, the increasingly significant role of human activities in the energy economy that result in higher GHG emissions. 

In a democratic republic such as the U. S. we idealize that our representatives are responsive to the positions taken by their constituents.  In reality, however, the American political system has long been accused of being in the thrall of powerful economic interests who contribute to the election campaigns of our Congresspersons.  Campaign support from the fossil fuel industry is a prime focus in such discussions.  This undercurrent, while widespread among the electorate, is difficult to prove.

Justin Farrell has recently published two reports on potential connections between funding from energy producers and public discourse.  Farrell’s interest is the pronounced polarization in policy discussions of climate change.  He points out that earlier work in this field has been conducted at an individualized level of inquiry.  In contrast, he has taken advantage of the power of contemporary computing power to analyze effects that funding contributions from the energy sector may have had on climate change discussions from 1993 to 2013 (see Details at the end of this post).  

In one article (Farrell (2015) Nature Climate Change, published online)  the author applies computational social science to analyze networks among individuals and organizations producing discourse promoting climate-contrarian points of view, as well as the effect that funding from two fossil fuel corporations have on the networks (see Details).   Organizations receiving funding from the corporations are more closely tied to one another with high significance, in a test of connectivity, than those that are not so funded.  The funded entities thus “have greater influence over flows of resources, communication, and the production of contrarian information.” 

The most important factor in this result is the very fact of being funded.  The funded entities achieve a higher level of similarity in phrasing and expression in news reports, to a very high level of statistical significance.  Power within the organizational network is not evenly distributed, but rather is highly centralized among that smaller group of organizations having ties to private sector entities.  In Farrell’s view, these “findings … help to explain why climate science rejection is so pronounced in the United States compared to other developed nations.”

In his second article (Farrell (2015) Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences, published online) the author examined relationships among the contrarian organizations, their ties to the funders, and the effects of funding on the thematic material produced.  First, to a high degree of statistical significance, the “results suggest that organizations within the movement who made an effort to produce textual discourse about climate change are the most central to the movement itself, providing them more influence over the transfer of information.”  Other analyses yielded the topics prevalent in the document texts, established clustered relationships among the topics, and compared the time-dependent production of topics by funded entities vs. nonfunded entities.  Examples of timelines for the topics “CO₂Is Good” and “Climate Change is a Long-Term Cycle” are shown below.

 

The influence of corporate funding on two topics identified by computational analysis within the climate change contrarian movement.  The horizontal axis spans the years 1993–2013. The vertical axis indicates how much the topic was written about, expressed as a decimal fraction. The redline represents the prevalence of the topic in the texts of contrarian organizations who received money, and the black line represents the prevalence of the topic for contrarian organizations who did not receive money.

Source: Farrell (2015) Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences, published online, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1509433112.

 

Importantly, energy corporate funding is seen to have influenced the extent of polarization in climate change writing over the 20 years ending 2013.  In particular, thematic content on topics such as “CO₂ Is Good” and “Climate Change is a Long-Term Cycle” (left and right panels, respectively, in the graphic above), deemed polarizing and subject to debate, produced by funded organizations was far more prevalent in the last few years of this period, compared to content from nonsupported entities.

Farrell concludes that “corporate funding influences the actual language and

thematic content of polarizing discourse.”  Entities that received funding from the energy companies were more likely to have produced texts characterized as polarizing discourse on climate change than those not so funded.  He also concludes “organizations that received corporate funding were more likely to have written and disseminated contrarian texts”.

The author emphasizes that, because of the computationally large size and objective analytical approach using robust procedures (see Details), these findings are highly significant, confirming earlier but more poorly substantiated concepts on climate change knowledge and politics.

 

Discussion

 

Farrell has analyzed the interrelationships among sources of contrarian discourse that were identified by others, their contrarian writings, and the existence of funding from energy company sources (exemplified here by ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundations).  The period considered is from 1993 to 2013.  He finds statistically strong correlations between funding and the connectedness between sources of discourse, such that funded organizations wield considerable influence in establishing the frames of discussion.  Corporate funding affected the wording and overall themes of discussion on topics considered to be polarizing in the sense that the positions taken are either contrary to, or dubious in the face of, reality.   The author concludes that his characterizations help us understand the basis for the relatively high prevalence of rejection of climate science in the U. S., when compared with other industrialized countries of the world.

The energy companies studied by Farrell are representative of those in the energy industry more generally.  In a time of great ferment worldwide seeking to reduce GHG emissions to near zero, energy companies clearly have an interest in preserving the status quo, so that the demand for their products continues unconstrained.  Farrell’s work shows that in the U. S. the financial support provided by the two energy companies studied here correlates strongly with the written and verbal communications produced by the organizations receiving the funding.  These writings run contrary to the objective findings of the worldwide climate science community and the policies that these findings strongly suggest.

The nations of the world are coming to realize the need for a universal effort to limit bring annual emissions to very low levels by mid-century.  They, and their populations, have to resist the flow of contrarian writings and speeches.  The science underlying contemporary climate change is beyond questioning, and has reached the stage requiring concerted, meaningful actions.  Contrarian communication from energy companies seeking to preserve “business as usual” must be resisted.

 

Details

 

In both articles (Farrell (2015) Nature Climate Change, published online; and Farrell (2015) Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences, published online) the author used computational analysis first, of institutional and social network structure among individuals and organizations promoting climate contrarian points of view, and second, of analysis of texts containing climate contrarian viewpoints.  Farrell labeled “contrarian organizations [as] those identified by prior peer-reviewed research as overtly producing and promoting skepticism and doubt about scientific consensus on climate change”. 

The social network comprises 4,556 individuals connected to 164 organizations promoting contrarian viewpoints.  The organizations include think tanks, foundations, public relations firms, trade associations, and ad hoc groups. 

The texts were produced between 1993 and 2013, and include written and verbal content from the organizations identified, as well as from three major news outlets, the U. S. presidents and floor speeches in the Congress (40,785 documents containing over 39 million words).  They were analyzed computationally to produce contextually-driven topics using a process called Structural Topic Modeling, with sets of word stems identified for each topic.  This process was chosen because it permits consideration of document attributes such as the year written, or organizational attributes considered in the article such as corporate funding.  Importantly, the topics are not assigned manually in advance.   Rather, they are identified as a result of the self-learning features incorporated into the analysis.  In addition, Farrell considered whether the individuals or organizations had ties to energy industry entities.

Energy companies were restricted in the end to only ExxonMobil and the three Koch family foundations, the philanthropic organizations established by Koch Industries, because of the greater reliability of the information on contributions available for them.  (Koch Industries is a conglomerate active in the exploration, production, refining and distribution of petroleum and its products, among other endeavors.)

© 2015 Henry Auer 

Sign The Ecojustice Letter

I wrote about how Ecojustice has petitioned the Canadian government to investigate denier organizations for violating Canadian law. If you would like to sign the Ecojustice letter, you may do so here:

Sign the Ecojustice Letter

Spread the word.

Climate Change Deniers May Face Criminal Charges in Canada

The link below is to an article detailing a complaint filed in Canada against climate change denier groups, including The Friends of Science, The International Climate Science Coalition, and the Heartland Institute. The complaint details how these groups have posted false and misleading billboards in an effort to confuse the public on climate change in order to benefit the fossil fuel industry. What I find interesting is how the denier groups had been found in violation of the law before, a finding which was upheld on appeal, and then they went ahead and put up new antiscience billboards. It would seem to me it should be an easy decision on the part of the Canadian government to charge them. If they were told once to stop doing it, then went ahead and did it again, the next thing to do would be to charge them with a crime. I also liked how they will have the grounds to demand a list of their donors if they pursue an investigation. That would be great to see.

We'll need to watch how this one turns out. Hopefully, these groups will have to explain themselves in court.

Update: Here is a link to the entire filing (Thanks to cunuduin).

Ecojustice files complaint with Competition Bureau against climate denial groups

Warming Has Not Stopped

I would like to hear from even one denier who can take a look at this plot and explain to me how they can justify saying global warming has stopped.

Source: Accuweather

Record Heat Continues

It's that bad time of the month for deniers. That's because NOAA released the October Global Analysis today showing this last October to be the hottest October ever recorded. It also had the highest departure from average ever recorded for any month, beating the record set just the previous month. That was the sixth consecutive hottest month in a row. January through October 2015 is the hottest such period ever recorded. And, the bad news continues for the deniers. The deviation from the 20th century average is greater than the statistical uncertainty. The deniers out there will have to find some other justification for rejecting science.

It really makes me wonder, if there has been no warming, why do the months keep getting hotter?

So far, 2015 has eight hottest months ever recorded, one second hottest month, and one third hottest month, not to mention the hottest of all 1630 measured months (July).

For the last 12 months, the tally is:

October 2015 was the hottest October ever recorded;

September 2015 was the hottest September ever recorded; 

August 2015 was the hottest August ever recorded;

July 2015 was the hottest July (and hottest any month) ever recorded;

June 2015 was the hottest June ever recorded;

May 2015 was the hottest May ever recorded;

April 2015 was tied for the third hottest April ever recorded;

March 2015 was the hottest March ever recorded;

February 2015 was the hottest February ever recorded;

January 2015 was the second hottest January ever recorded;

December 2014 was the hottest December ever recorded;

November 2014 was the 7th hottest November ever recorded.


Adding up the score for the last 12 months gives us: one 7th hottest month, one 3rd hottest month, one 2nd hottest month, and nine hottest months ever.

The December 2015 Paris Conference on Global Warming

The U.N. is convening a conference in Paris in December 2015 whose objective is to finalize a new treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  In contrast to the Kyoto Protocol which expired in 2012, the draft treaty under consideration would apply equally to all nations and would achieve reductions in emissions by stated policy objectives developed domestically by each nation.  This new framework is intended to overcome fundamental points of contention among nations that arose from the Kyoto Protocol.

At the time of writing 161 out of the 193 nations participating in the Paris conference have submitted their emission reduction commitments.  Examples from the U.S., China and India are presented and contrasted here.  A recent survey of public opinion from 40 countries indicates wide support for an agreement to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases.  It is hoped that the conference will succeed in agreeing to a final treaty, and that it will be ratified by the U.N.’s member nations.

 

Yes, we docare about global warming!  2015 up through September is the warmest period in the recorded data starting in 1880, as reflected by the worldwide average temperature.  The long-term drought in California differs from earlier ones in that it has been made worse by higher temperatures, in addition to other factors that have reduced rain and snow.  Many extreme weather events around the world during 2014 have been statistically linked to global warming according to a detailed analysis in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, although in other cases “failure to find a human fingerprint could be due to insufficient data or poor models”, not to an actual finding that such events are not linked to warming.  Rising sea levels from melting ice on Greenland  and Antarctica cause continuing coastal flooding around the world.  This trend is projected to get worse in the next few centuries because, averaged over a year, more ice melts than is restored by snowfall.

These examples are significant because they show the worsened conditions of human life and wellbeing around the world.  Extreme events create unscheduled needs for major new infrastructure spending, a burden that ultimately winds up being shared by the taxpaying public.

The global average temperature is directly related to the total of the accumulated greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially carbon dioxide (CO₂), in the atmosphere.  Humans add CO₂ to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels; most of that CO₂ then remains in the atmosphere for centuries, relentlessly building up the accumulated amount.  There are no natural processes that remove the added CO₂ on the (geologically) short time scales needed, i.e., on the time scale over which we are adding it.  Because the CO₂ does not go away, nothing we do now can take us back to lower CO₂ levels prevalent, say, 50 or 100 years ago, and their lower average temperatures.  For this reason we need to decarbonize the world’s energy economy as soon as we can so that we keep the temperature increase as small as we can. 

The Kyoto Protocol.  In 1997 the members of the United Nations agreed to the Kyoto Protocol (Kyoto) to reduce emission rates of greenhouse gases (GHGs).  From the beginning of U.N.-sponsored negotiations on climate change the differing circumstances of developed countries and developing countries have provided a fundamental source of contention between these groups (see the Details section at the end of this post).  Kyoto excused developing countries from its constraints; only the already industrialized nations were to be bound by its terms.  Those countries were to reduce their emissions of GHGs by predetermined, but relatively small, amounts, by 2012.  Because developing countries were exempted, and for other reasons, (see Details) the U. S. Senate in 1997 voted 95-0 not to consider Kyoto, so the U. S.has not been bound by its obligations.  At the time the rates of GHG emissions from developing countries were far below those for industrialized countries, but were projected to exceed them in the coming years in view of intensive industrialization policies of the developing countries.

Kyoto came into force in 2005, binding those countries that ratified it, and expired in 2012.  Kyoto was not a successful framework for curtailing worldwide GHG emissions, even though a major party to it, the nations of the European Union, made credible progress in that direction.  As 2012 approached, Canada formally withdrew from Kyoto.   Negotiations to extend Kyoto in an agreement to include all U. N. members failed in 2009 and made scant progress in subsequent annual meetings through 2012.  Japan and Russia indicated they would not agree to an extension of Kyoto.

International Progress after 2012.  In the past few years scientists and officials have come to realize that greenhouse warming of the planet is proceeding unabated, and that many harmful consequences foreseen in earlier scientific reports are actually coming to pass.  These include intense heat waves, droughts made worse by the higher temperatures, dramatic forest wildfires, storms with intense precipitation and flooding, and rising sea levels.   At the meetings negotiators appreciated more clearly that these effects are significant.  Also, principals recognized the failings of Kyoto, especially that it was unproductive to divide the world’s nations into two groups, and to impose target emission limits from above on a nation-by-nation basis.

The U. N. conference in Paris, December 2015.  The effort currently under way is to agree to a new treaty during the worldwide U. N. conference meeting in Paris in December 2015, and have it take effect by 2020.  A framework of voluntary national pledges by industrialized countries, without obligation, was put forth during the annual conference in Cancun in 2010, while these countries were to provide financial and technological assistance to developing countries. 

By the following year in Durban all nations agreed to limit emissions.  This pledge would bring major emitters from the developing world such as China and India, on the one hand, and the U. S., not bound by Kyoto, on the other, under the same legal framework for reducing emissions, thereby limiting the accumulation of GHGs.  This feature is a crucial concession from both sides of the emissions argument.

By 2015, the notion of having a binding treaty agreed to by all participants in the conference still remains in place.  Instead of having emission limits incorporated into the treaty, however, the draft treaty now suggests that every nation, whether developed or developing, submit voluntary pledges, termed “intended nationally determined contributions”, for reductions in emission rates in advance of the convening of the Paris conference.

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions.  As of November 12, 2015 161 nations, of a total of 193 U.N. member states, have submitted their contribution statements.  Here we summarize those for three major sources of GHG emissions.  The U.S. is a major contributor to the emissions from industrialized countries.  It is pledging to reduce its GHG emission rate by 26-28% below the level of 2005 by 2025.  China, a developing country, is currently the nation with the highest GHG emissions in the world; it will be responsible for a major portion of historical and projected emissions up to 2035.  It pledges that its annual emission rate will continue increasing until about 2030, then begin falling.  India, also a developing country, has been increasing its fossil fuel-driven energy production at similar (high) annual rates of growth as China, although its absolute numerical production is much lower.  The pledges by China and India are not stated in quantified numerical amounts, but rather in terms of reaching an unspecified maximum annual rate of emission by 2030, and reducing the annual rate thereafter.  (Please see Details below for further discussion of these three cases.)

 

Analysis

 

Kyoto established an unworkable two-tiered division among nations of the U. N., applying nation-by-nation numerical goals for reducing GHG emissions only to the set of industrialized nations.  As a result, the U. S., the nation with the highest annual emission rates at the time, did not ratify the protocol (see Details) and so was not bound by its terms.

Over the next 15 years the U. N. nations sought unsuccessfully to agree on a treaty to take effect as Kyoto’s term drew to a close.  These negotiations were pursued along the same lines as Kyoto, codifying emission rate reductions and trying to resolve the divisions between industrialized and developing countries.  Over this period warming continued mostly unrestrained as emission rates increased.  Climate scientists repeatedly issued reports warning of the harmful consequences of worldwide inaction during this period.

The upcoming conference in Paris in early December 2015 will consider a radically different draft treaty.  First, all U.N. member nations are to be constrained by its terms, eliminating the division of nations into two groups.  And second, rather than imposing numerical emission rate reductions within the framework of the treaty, each nation is to submit its own domestically-generated emission reduction goals to the U.N. (see examples in Details).  Clearly mechanisms for measuring, reporting and validating each nation’s emission rates have to be included in the treaty.  The draft further suggests that nations submit additional, more robust reductions of emission rates in future years.  Other aspects of the draft deal with finance, and land use change and reforestation.

Forward-looking problems may still persist for decarbonizing the energy economy, however.  The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook warns that plans currently being discussed for limiting emission rates may be too slow.  Another report   discloses that China’s accounting of historical use of coal may have underestimated the actual amount by 17%.  Yet another account discusses the difficulties that India will face as it seeks to reduce emission rates while still accommodating the needs of its growing population, expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2030.

Public opinion in 39 of 40 countries surveyed (except Pakistan) agrees that global GHG emissions need to be reduced, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center.  About 70% of polled people in the U.S. and China supported this view.  Polls such as this should provide strong support for negotiators to approve a final treaty this year.

Conclusion.  The draft treaty that will be considered at the Paris conference has the potential of resolving the difficulties identified in the U.S. at the time Kyoto was under consideration.  All nations are to be bound by its terms in equitable fashion.  And commitments for reduced GHG emission rates will be generated within each nation and deposited with the U.N. for reporting and verification.  These terms should significantly allay the scientific, political and economic concerns that were voiced in the U.S. Congress when Kyoto was under consideration (see Details).  We fervently hope that the Paris conference will succeed in agreeing to a final treaty, which will then be considered for adoption by each U.N. member nation.  In particular, the U.S. Senate should be able to consider such a treaty in a favorable light.

 

Details

 

Differing points of view between developed and developing countries in Kyoto.  Developing countries tend to stress equity in insisting that they be given the same opportunity to develop, using fossil fuels for energy, that industrialized countries have benefited from for more than a century.  At the same time they point to the responsibility of those developed countries now to limit their emissions because of their advanced economic status.  These attitudes stress hindsight or past history.

Developed countries, on the other hand, consider equity as supporting a policy that developing countries should constrain their emissions since they are now the ones most responsible for expanding the world’s burden of atmospheric GHGs.  This means not only slowing the growth in annual emission rates, but actually reducing annual emission amounts.  Developed countries are already doing this, as seen in the European Union and the U. S.  These policies reflect foresight with a vital concern for the future environment of our planet.  They emphasize the present status of emissions among the world’s nations, and strive to reduce them regardless of past history. 

Equity should also entail taking into consideration the plight of the world’s most disadvantaged countries by supporting their mitigation and adaptation efforts.

U. S. Congressional Remarks on Kyoto.  The following paragraphs provide quotes from the Congressional Record of comments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate regarding Kyoto.  They refer to the Sense of the Senate, Senate Resolution (S. R.) 98, offered by Senators Byrd and Hagel, objecting to Kyoto.  It was approved by a vote of 95-0 late in 1997.

Senator Byrd, January 29, 1998: “Now…I am not a scientist…I just sense that something is going on out there….[S]cientific evidence suggests [that]…should global warming occur, by the time we have absolute confirmation…it might well be too late to take preventative action.…I believe that it might be prudent to undertake cost-effective measures to deal with the risk of climate change as a form of global insurance policy.

“Kyoto…did not satisfy the two [Byrd-Hagel] goals that were agreed upon: ‘the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol…which would—(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce  [GHG] emissions for [developed countries] unless the protocol…also mandates new …commitments…for Developing countr[ies], or (B) would result in serious harm to the economy of the [U.S.]….Kyoto…did not meet either of these two Senate standards’….

“The standard response from the developing world is to argue that the industrialized nations should make all of the reductions, because of the developed world’s historically high levels of [GHG] emissions.… 

“But this argument is…unsound….China…will become the largest emitter of CO2…during the first half of the next century, surpassing the [U.S.]”  (In fact this happened already by about 2009.)

Representative Hamilton, February 3, 1998:  Mr. Hamilton was an expert on foreign affairs.  He quoted from his newsletter: “Developing countries argue that they are not the chief source of emissions, and they cannot reduce fossil fuel use without harming economic growth.  The…contribution of developing countries [to GHGs] is expected to rise over the next decade.

“U.S. business and labor groups strongly oppose allowing developing countries to reduce emissions [more slowly] than industrial countries.  This discrepancy…will encourage companies to move operations to developing countries with lower energy prices—and take thousands of jobs with them.

“The pressing question is how much should we sacrifice now to buy insurance against unknown future threats….

“[G]radual steps now to reduce reliance on fossil fuels could prevent disruptive climate change later—change that could severely damage the economies of the world.  If we do not get this right, our grandchildren will not—and should not—forgive us.”

Representative Peterson, March 12, 1998: “Here are some risks not mentioned by [Kyoto] treaty supporters: the risk that energy suppression mandates will devastate employment in major U. S. industries; that rising [energy] prices will depress the living standards of American families; [and] that new tax and regulatory policies will…risk the surrendering of more U. S. sovereignty to the U.N.”

Representative Danner, March 18, 1998 :  “I express my opposition to…Kyoto…. Economists predict that [it] will have a devastating and disproportionate effect on…the [U. S.]  Further, these…reductions [apply] only to developed nations and do not apply to developing nations such as India and China, two of the worst violators [of GHG] emissions.”

Senator Hagel, April 20, 1998 :  S. R. 98 “directed the President not to sign any treaty that placed legally binding obligations on the [U. S.] to limit or reduce [GHG] emissions unless—unless—the … agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit [GHG] emissions for Developing Countr[ies]…Meaning simply that if this was a global problem, it required a global solution….

“Numerous … economic studies predicted serious … harm, [including] job losses in the range of over 2 million, large increases in energy costs,…a drop in economic growth rates of more than 1 percent…and major American industries being driven out of business….”

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. The intended contributions of the U.S., China and India, submitted to the U.N. in preparation for the Paris conference, are summarized here.

U. S.  The U. S. is committing to reduce its emissions from the level of 2005 by 26-28% by 2025, with best efforts made to achieve 28% reduction.  President Obama has already put in place several policies that will contribute to meeting this goal.  This program places the U. S. on a longer-term path to achieve an economy-wide reduction in GHG emissions of 80% by 2050.

China has been increasing its use of coal and other fossil fuels dramatically since Kyoto was negotiated, emphasizing its justification to industrialize rapidly.  Its emission rates continue growing because it is adding new fossil fuel-driven electric generating plants to power its expanding economy.  Its reconsidered goals were outlined in the summit meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Obama in 2014.  Its goal, confirmed for the U. N.’s  Paris conference, is that the annual rate of GHG emissions will reach a maximum by 2030 and possibly sooner, and then decline.  China’s commitment to slow the growth of its emissions was not specified in numerical terms.  As part of this initiative China expects to use fossil fuel-derived energy more efficiently, to increase the share of energy derived from renewable sources to 20% by 2030, and to expand its forested lands.  It is to be emphasized that China’s numerical rate of emissions will not begin declining until about 2030.

India has been rapidly expanding its energy production from fossil fuels, especially coal.  As recently as 2014, Prakash Javadekar, India’s minister of environment, forests and climate change, rejected constraining its growth and reducing its emission rate.  India’s first responsibility, he stated, is to reduce poverty and expand the country’s economy, rather than reduce GHG emissions.  In this regard India’s justification resembles the earlier Chinese development goals. 

In a change from this policy, India’s commitment for the Paris conference intends to increase its energy efficiency by 33 to 35% from its 2005 level by 2030.  This program includes a goal of expanding non-fossil fuel-derived energy (currently at a very low level) by 40% by 2030, relying on foreign assistance.  In addition it will add new forest lands to help remove CO₂ from the air.  It is noteworthy that India, like China, does not state a numerical amount of actual reduction in its rate of emissions, only a slowdown in the rate of increase of its emissions.

 

© 2015 Henry Auer

Exxon Investigation - What Does It Mean?

If you haven't hear by now, the New York attorney general has begun an investigation of ExxonMobil concerning the corporate claims on climate change. The basis for the investigation is to determine if the company lied to the public and its shareholders about climate change and the effect it might have on shareholder value. So, what does all of this mean, if anything?

The call has gone out recently for a RICO investigation of the fossil fuel industry, ala the tobacco RICO investigation. Some deniers have been stating it couldn't happen because there is no proof of wrong-doing. There are two problems with that statement. The first being the deniers don't get to define what is, and isn't, evidence. Their definition of 'evidence' is a signed confession and tape recordings of secret meetings where corporate executives use a movie-script to lay out their nefarious conspiracy to deceive the world for their own benefit. Anything less than that and it isn't evidence. Russell Cook is a notable proponent of this line of thinking. But, like I said, they don't get to define what constitutes evidence - the legal system does. The other problem the deniers are going to have is there doesn't have to be proof of wrong-doing in order to conduct an investigation. There only has to be enough evidence to issue subpoenas and begin deposing people. It's funny the way evidence and testimony starts appearing when that happens.

So, denier claims that there is no basis for an investigation clearly are obviously not valid (is anything the deniers say valid?) because the New York attorney general is conducting one.

So, back to the original question - what does this mean? I think it means the forces are building. When we look at the situation with the tobacco industry we see it took a long while for the lawsuits to begin and once they did, tobacco consistently won. And, yet, they continued and we all know how tobacco was eventually brought down and its deceitful practices fully exposed. Today, I believe we are witnessing the same kind of evolution. Things are building against the deniers and the fossil fuel industry. More and more, they sound shrill and panicky. Their claims are becoming increasingly bizarre and less rationale. Even people who support them are realizing how silly their statements are becoming.

Will ExxonMobil be charged? I don't know the answer to that. I believe, from what I've seen, there is a good case for it. But, that will be for the AG to determine. A bigger question is if the US AG will initiate a RICO investigation. That would be the coup de grace for the deniers. Once the evidence from that came to light, the denier lobby would dry up quickly. The FF people would be radioactive.

And, here's the thing. The evidence obtained by the New York AG could be what finally motivates such an investigation.

Hopefully, we're seeing the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel industry anti-science campaign and their dark money support of the denier lobby.  Of course, the next question is, will it be in time?

The Road Not Taken In Climate Change

In The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost said,

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Some people view this as a celebration - by taking the road less traveled he had good experiences that he might not have had otherwise. Others view it as a lament - this road led him to things he would prefer he hadn't experienced. Either way, the point is made. We all have that occasion to go right or go left and the decision makes 'all the difference.'

That time has long since passed when it comes to climate change. We came to the branch in the road decades ago and decided not to take the path of dealing with it. Now, we are in a time and place where manmade climate change is a reality we have to deal with. That is why I find it interesting to see articles about whether or not global warming is responsible for some weather event.

In recent months, we have seen massive heat waves that have left thousands dead in India and Pakistan, huge flash floods in the Southwest that swept away homes and cars; incredible drought in California resulting in record amounts of wildfires and eventual mudslides; super-typhoons in the Pacific; and a '1000-year' flood in South Carolina, to name just a few. For all of these events (and many more), the question is always raised - is this the result of global warming? The problem is this question makes no sense.

Asking this question supposes we know of some alternative time-line without manmade climate change, one where we can check the weather on a given date and compare it to our own timeline to see how they compare. If we hadn't changed the climate, would California still have a drought? Would South Caroline still have a '1000-year' flood? Would thousands still be dead from heat in India and Pakistan? How do we know and how could we possibly know? The best we can do is make an effort at calculating the probabilities of such events. And, of course, how can you tell if this particular event is the result of AGW or not?

The answer is, they are all the result of AGW - every single one of them. In fact, all weather is the result of AGW. We are responsible for every single weather event, no matter how mild or severe. The reason is weather doesn't just pop-up out of nothingness and climate change isn't some switch you can flip on or off. Significant AGW has been ongoing for over 40 years. That means any climate system today is the end product of a 40-year climate system that has been changed by our emissions.

There is the claim in chaos theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Rocky Mountains can cause a storm in Miami three days later. I don't subscribe to this belief, but the point is important. If weather is so sensitive that a butterfly flapping its wings can change it, then what will be the effect of 40 years of AGW? Wouldn't everything be different as a result?

There is no alternative timeline to which we can compare our weather. All weather today is the result of manmade climate change caused by human emissions. There is no other possible conclusion. And, we made the decision decades ago to do nothing about that. We chose our path in the woods and that has made all the difference.