February 2012 Climate Change Summary Report

“China to cultivate biofuel use”

February 29, 2012: China Daily reports: “China is expected to use 12 million metric tons of aviation biofuels by 2020, accounting for 30 percent of the country’s total use of jet fuel, according to Li Jian, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.  The market value of jet biofuels will exceed 120 billion yuan ($19 billion) by 2020, Li said on Tuesday. He said the new carbon-emissions tax the European Union is imposing on airlines will prompt China to develop jet biofuels, which will be put into wide commercial use before 2020, when the country is expected to be using more than 40 million metric tons of jet fuel a year.”

 

“Americans’ belief in warming changes with the weather”

February 29, 2011: E&E News reports: “Americans’ belief that climate change is occurring is increasingly tied to the temperature outside their doors, according to a new survey released yesterday by the liberal Brookings Institution. The survey, which was conducted in December, showed that more Americans believe climate change is occurring than at any time since fall of 2009, during the height of the debate over climate change legislation in Congress. Sixty-two percent of respondents told Brookings that there was “solid evidence” that average temperatures are increasing, up from 52 percent who told Brookings the same thing in spring of 2010 but still down from 2008, when 72 percent of respondents said they believed.”

 

“China Pursues Shale Gas as a Cleaner Alternative to Coal”

February 28, 2012: OilPrice.com reports: “Over the past twenty years, China has experienced dramatic economic growth, transforming itself from a basically agrarian society into the world’s second largest economy behind only the United States. Since the initiation of economic and political reforms in 1978, China has produced an average annual growth rate of 10 percent. From 1978 to 2008, China increased its GDP 83 times (NBS, 2009) and lifted over two hundred million of its people out of poverty. This has continued to generate increased energy supply. Within China’s energy sector, production was stimulated by the clarification of mineral exploration rights, the development of transportation and roadway infrastructure projects, diversification of management structures and the liberalization of environmental and safety regulations.”

 

“US EPA won’t expand GHG rule, saying states not ready for added work”

February 28, 2012: Platts reports: “US regulators have decided not to increase the scope of a landmark greenhouse gas permitting program after determining that state agencies would find it difficult to handle the additional workload, according to newly released documents. The US Environmental Protection Agency released the proposed third step of its so-called ‘tailoring rule,’ which established first-time GHG permitting requirements for new or modified power plants, refineries and other stationary emissions sources that would release at least 75,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide-equivalent GHGs. The rule requires large facility owners to acquire Clean Air Act permits to limit GHG emissions before they can build new facilities or embark on major upgrades that would cause substantial increases in emissions

 

“Asia-Pacific fighting climate change”

February 27, 2012: The Korea Times reports: “There is mounting evidence that Asia and the Pacific are undergoing weather patterns more extreme than previously experienced, attributable to the effects of global climate change. Reduction of the impact of climate change is gaining importance in the international agenda. Increasing intensity and frequency of climatic hazards are impacting negatively upon environmental and socio-economic systems. As disasters such as flooding, mudslides, forest fires, cold waves and heat waves and storm surge, decreases in ground water are issues in the arena of governance of sustainable development in the region.”

 

“Obama Presses Energy Strategy”

February 27, 2012: The Wall Street Journal reports: “Gripping the politics of gasoline prices, both President Barack Obama and Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison used their weekly addresses to argue their points on energy production. Sen. Hutchison, of Texas, said the Obama administration needs to issue more offshore drilling permits and should have approved the Keystone XL pipeline to transport oil from Canada. … Mr. Obama responded to that critique directly, though he had not seen her comments before taping his address. He accused Republicans of caring only about oil drilling and again pitched his ‘all of the above’ energy strategy, including oil, natural gas, solar, nuclear and biofuels.”

Japanese study touts benefits of biomass-based biofuels
Researchers from Japan’s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization found that using biomass to produce biofuels could help limit dependence on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. “We proved that the improvement in cultivation technologies and the establishment of regional biomass-utilization systems have large potential for saving fossil fuel resources and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions,” the researchers said. The findings were published in the International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy. United Press International (2/24)

“The Methanol Alternative to Gasoline”

February 24, 2012: New York Times op-ed by former governor of Pennsylvania and secretary of homeland security Tom Ridge and former secretary of transportation Mary E. Peters: “President Obama recently called the United States the ‘Saudi Arabia of natural gas’ and asserted that it was time for our oil-dominated transportation fuel market to open the door to natural gas. He’s right. It would be cheaper for consumers and reduce the strategic importance of oil. But first we need cars that can run on methanol, a high-octane fuel made from converted natural gas. …Unfortunately, most cars sold in the United States offer consumers no choice beyond gasoline. The so-called flex fuel vehicles that are now on the market are warranted to operate only on gasoline and ethanol. If Congress were to enact an open fuel standard that required new cars to be warranted to run on all-alcohol fuels, including methanol, natural gas could compete with oil in the liquid fuels market. Producing these cars would cost about $100 more. And these fuels could be distributed through the current refueling infrastructure with only slight retrofits.”

 

Obama: U.S. cannot drill its way to lower gas prices
President Barack Obama said Thursday that any plan to expand oil production as a way to lower gasoline prices is “a bumper sticker,” not a viable solution. “If we’re going to take control of our energy future, if we’re going to avoid these gas-price spikes down the line, then we need a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy — oil, gas, wind, solar, nuclear, biofuels, and more,” Obama said. Bloomberg Businessweek (2/23), United Press International (2/23), Market News International (2/23)

“EU at stalemate on Canada’s oilsands ranking”

February 23, 2012: CBC News reports: “European Union officials are at a stalemate after voting on whether to classify Canada’s oilsands crude as more harmful to the environment than other fuels — a proposal that Canada would fight. The ballot by experts from the EU’s 27 member countries, which are weighted by population, failed to produce the required 255 votes needed to approve the classification. Germany, France, the U.K., and Italy all carry extra weight in the voting. As a result, the proposal will move up to the European Council, which will vote on it in late spring or early summer.”

 

“CO2 focus should be fossil fuels, not just tar sands”

February 23, 2012:  columnist Gerard Wynn reports: “A calculation of the carbon dioxide emissions embedded in global crude oil reserves shows that burning these would pump out more CO2 than many scientists and world leaders have deemed safe to the climate, after including additional emissions from deforestation and burning coal and gas. Simply maintaining present levels of crude oil consumption over the next several decades would have the same effect, implying a present carbon over-spend. But many environmentalists have demonised a particular type of crude oil from tar sands in Canada and Venezuela, which involves high energy costs to pump oil from a thick, sandy mixture.”

“New study finds oil sands fuels would cause imperceptible temperature rise”

February 21, 2012: ClimateWire reports: “A common rallying cry against the Keystone XL pipeline is that it would be a climate change disaster. But a new analysis says that the possible rise in global temperature that would occur from burning Canadian oil sands crude is small in comparison to combusting global reserves of coal or natural gas, and not likely to single-handedly create a climate tipping point. In addition to existing pipelines carrying oil-sands fuel to the United States, Keystone XL would have ferried the crude from Alberta to Texas refineries. ‘By themselves the oil sands will not cause a climate catastrophe,’ said Neil Swart, a doctoral candidate at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. ‘The warming that would occur from utilization of the tar sands is not that great.’”

 

“Europe will push for a world environment agency in Rio”

February 17, 2012: ClimateWire reports: “Beefing up global political oversight with a world environment organization has emerged as a top priority for Europe heading into this summer’s sustainable development conference in Brazil, but with the host nation and the United States not necessarily on board, selling the concept might be hard. The idea, years in the making and pushed initially by France, is to strengthen the Nairobi, Kenya-based U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) in a manner that would give the agency a more explicit mandate to guide global environmental concerns. That would convert what many regard as an underfunded, backwater agency into a more robust traffic cop to watch the commons.”

 “US launches coalition to fight climate change”

February 17, 2012: AFP reports: “Faulting the world for not doing enough to curb climate change, the United States on Thursday announced the formation of a coalition to cut short-lived pollutants that speed up warming and harm health. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the coalition of the United States, Bangladesh, Canada, Mexico, Sweden and Ghana will launch a global drive to curb black carbon (soot), methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The chief US diplomat said such pollutants survive only a short time in the atmosphere — unlike long-lasting carbon dioxide, the main climate change culprit — but account for more than a third of global warming

 

“Carbon Traders Group Urges Overhaul of EU Cap-and-Trade Plan”

February 16, 2012: Bloomberg reports: “The European Union should change its carbon-trading plan by introducing a mechanism to allow changing the bloc’s pollution cap to reflect economic conditions, the International Emissions Trading Association said. While the world’s biggest cap-and-trade program is working as intended, fragmented policies are undermining its price signal at the time when an economic slowdown weighs on the market, IETA said in a statement today. EU carbon allowances lost 46 percent from a year ago amid oversupply and concerns that the crisis will erode demand for pollution rights.”

 

“Obama Regulations are Killing U.S. Jobs”

February 16, 2012: An op-ed by Rep. John E. Peterson in Keystone Conservative states: “President Obama’s hostile attack on oil production and refining is accomplishing its defined goal of making oil more expensive so his green energy allies can compete.  And while it is a cold, hard fact that wind and solar energy will not replace a single barrel of oil in our transportation system, Obama’s policies are leading to skyrocketing prices at the pump and unaffordable heating costs for millions of Americans.  Nowhere is this more evident than here in the Northeast, where nearly eight million Americans still heat their homes with oil.”

 

“Obama stresses climate change and clean energy in budget that may be scratch paper for divided Congress”

February 15, 2012: ClimateWire reports: “The White House released a 2013 budget request yesterday that would increase funding for climate change and clean energy programs at several agencies even as it seeks to rein in overall spending to comply with spending limits set by the Budget Control Act enacted last year. While the request is largely symbolic, released at the beginning of an election year to a Congress that has found little common ground with the Obama administration, it does offer a window into White House thinking on climate and energy issues.”

“Airlines ‘complying under protest’ with E.U. emissions trading”

February 10, 2012: ClimateWire reports: “U.S. airlines are quietly figuring out how to adapt to the European Union’s carbon trading scheme, even as renewed opposition sought to throw the emissions plan into a tailspin. Some airlines already have increased fare prices now that they are subject to E.U. legislation requiring all flights to and from Europe be part of the 27-nation bloc’s carbon market. The law is a central part of the E.U.’s broader plan to combat climate change. And while opposition from the industry remains fierce, airlines already are using their new funds to line up contracts with brokers and buy allowances while the E.U. carbon market prices are low, said Annie Petsonk, international counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund.”

 “Canada PM vows to ensure key oil pipeline is built”

February 10, 2012: Reuters reports: “Canada’s prime minister on Friday made his strongest comments yet in support of a proposed pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific coast, saying his government was committed to ensuring the controversial project went ahead. Enbridge Inc’s Northern Gateway pipeline, which is strongly opposed by green groups and some aboriginal bands, would allow Canada to send tankers of crude to China and reduce reliance on the U.S. market. An independent energy regulator — which could in theory reject the project — last month started two years of hearings into the pipeline.”

Feds predict demand for gasoline will fall, ethanol output to rise
U.S. gasoline consumption declined 2.8% in 2011 amid higher mileage standards and an aging population taking fewer long trips, according to the Department of Energy. The downward trajectory in demand is expected to continue through 2013, the agency said. Meanwhile, ethanol production is projected to rise to an average of 933,000 barrels per day in 2012, and 938,000 barrels per day in 2013, up from 909,000 barrels per day in 2011, the agency said. The Des Moines Register (Iowa)/Green Fields blog (2/8)

“Utility Regulators Ponder how to Meet EPA Emission Rules and Keep the Lights On”

February 8, 2011: ClimateWire reports: “Within the electric power industry, the debate over the impact of new environmental restrictions appears to have moved on. The focus has shifted from the old coal-fired plants that will be closed to an urgent need to coordinate extensive retrofits of pollution controls on plants that will stay in operation, so those outages don’t threaten the stability of the nation’s power grid. The watchword at a meeting of state and federal utility regulators in Washington, D.C., yesterday was ‘coordination,’ a label for the uncharted challenge of scheduling lengthy retrofit outages at perhaps 1,000 power plants, a task that has grid officials worried.”

“Should Airlines Keep Fighting the EU Cap-and-Trade?”

February 8, 2012: A Forbes op-ed by MIT Research Director Edgar Blanco states: “For over six months, US and China have been strongly opposing the EU plan to include their airlines in the European Trading Scheme (ETS). Yesterday, China took the next step on this opposition by banning its airlines from paying such a tax. Here is a quick refresher on the ETS ruling that went into effect January 2012. All airlines are expected to reduce total CO2 emissions of flights landing or departing from European airports. To achieve this, the EU computed a baseline CO2 emissions using 2004-2006 averages.”

Poll: Corn acreage will expand by 2.6% this year
In an effort to take advantage of the highest farm commodity prices in at least 40 years, farmers will plant corn on 94.329 million acres this year, up 2.6% from 2011 and the biggest crop since 1944, according to a poll by Bloomberg. “Grain farming has been one of few profitable industries for the past three years, and there will be a tendency for farmers around the world to maximize acreage,” said Don Roose, president and CEO of U.S. Commodities. “We have the potential to grow record world crops this year that can swamp demand.” Bloomberg (2/7)

“Global Warming to Disproportionately Affect the Poor”

February 6, 2012: ClimateWire reports: “Climate change poses an unequal risk for poor and minority communities, a new study from California concludes. The study, conducted by the California Department of Public Health, found that sea-level rise, high numbers of elderly people living on their own, heat waves and flooding would all have a greater impact on poor communities, particularly Latinos and African Americans, than it would on affluent areas.”

 “Rev Up the Tapping of our Own Natural Gas”

February 6, 2012: Chicago Tribune op-ed by T. Boone Pickens states: “If you are going to transform American energy to address the national security and economic risks associated with our OPEC oil dependence, there is only one solution: move our natural gas reserves into transportation, with an emphasis on the heavy-duty truck and fleet-vehicle markets. Free-market advocates argue that’s bad public policy. They fail to understand that OPEC is far from a free market.”

Report: U.S. makes headway in energy independence
The U.S. has reversed a nearly 20-year-long slide in energy independence, thanks in part to surging domestic oil production, increased consumption of homegrown ethanol and higher mileage standards, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The amount of energy demand met by domestic sources in the last six years has risen to about 81% through the first 10 months of 2011, Bloomberg said. “For 40 years, only politicians and the occasional author in Popular Mechanics magazine talked about achieving energy independence. Now it doesn’t seem such an outlandish idea,” said Adam Sieminski, who has been nominated to lead the Energy Information Administration. Bloomberg (2/6)

 “As EU Ramps Up Biofuels, Climate Debate Intensifies”

February 3, 2012: The Wall Street Journal reports: “At the tip of the 30-mile-long peninsula that hosts one of the busiest ports in the world, Finland’s Neste Oil has just finished converting a plot of land reclaimed from the sea into the biggest biodiesel refinery in Europe. The €670 million ($850 million) investment by the state-controlled company in the plant, which is already transforming vegetable oil and waste animal fat into diesel, aims at benefiting from European Union policies that seek to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and trucks.  But this plant, with a capacity of 800,000 metric tons a year, and others built by different companies around Europe face a new challenge: a possible shift in EU policy that could undermine their profitability.

“China Set to Top U.S. Greenhouse Gas Output by Almost 50%”

February 3, 2012: ClimateWire reports: “By 2015, China will emit nearly 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the United States, a top Chinese energy researcher said yesterday. Ye Qi, a professor of environmental policy at Tsinghua University and director of the Climate Policy Initiative, both in Beijing, said China has made enormous strides over the past five years in both reducing energy intensity and developing renewable energy capacity. But, he said, China’s overall energy use has skyrocketed along with its growth, keeping renewable sources just a sliver of the country’s overall share.

“Storm over Climate Change among Weather Forecasters”

February 3, 2012: Reuters reports: “But weather forecasters, many of whom see climate change as a natural, cyclical phenomenon, are split over whether they have a responsibility to educate their viewers on the link between human activity and the change in the Earth’s climates. Only 19 percent of U.S. meteorologists saw human influences as the sole driver of climate change in a 2011 survey. And some, like the Weather Channel’s founder John Coleman are vocal in their opposition. ‘It is the greatest scam in history,’ wrote Coleman, one of the first meteorologists to publicly express doubts about climate change, on his blog in 2007. ‘I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; it is a SCAM.’”

“Nader withdraws from proposed Inhofe-Markey debate”

February 3, 2012: E&E News reports: The Senate’s most vocal climate change skeptic and the House’s most loquacious climate change defender may still face off in a debate on the science of man-made global warming, despite the departure of Ralph Nader from the project. The former Green Party presidential nominee and veteran good government activist challenged Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) to debate Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) via letters to the editor in Oklahoma and national media outlets back in December, and Inhofe accepted.”

“Why Barack Obama Will Have to Talk about Climate Change”

February 3, 2012: The Guardian reports: “In his State of the Union address on January 24, President Obama largely avoided the topic of climate change. He talked about it once, in passing, as a topic on which “the differences in this chamber may be too deep” to enact new legislation. Its less-controversial cousin, “energy,” on the other hand, got a whopping 23 mentions as an area where Republicans and Democrats should be able to find agreement. … But there are several reasons that Obama won’t be able to avoid talking about climate change for too long—and well he shouldn’t. The first is the ongoing battle over the Keystone XL pipeline.”

New owners of former Range Fuels ethanol plant to hire hundreds
LanzaTech plans to hire hundreds at a recently purchased ethanol plant in Soperton, Ga. The company plans to retain some workers who worked at the plant when it was owned by Range Fuels, according to Laurel Harmon, LanzaTech’s vice president for government relations. “We’re looking at tens of jobs in the near term, and hundreds of jobs as we scale to commercial [production],” she said. The Macon Telegraph (Ga.) (2/2)

“EU Climate Chief Calls for ‘Much Care’ on Biofuels”

February 2. 2012: EurActive.com reports: “The European Union’s climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, has warned about expanding the use of biofuels as the EU executive finalises an assessment of the potentially damaging effects they may have over the earth’s climate. She spoke to EurActiv as part of a wide-ranging exclusive interview on sustainability issues. A draft Commission impact assessment, obtained by EurActiv last week, indicates that the greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels such as palm oil, soybean and rapeseed may exceed those of fossil fuels when wider factors are considered. This is because tropical forests and wetlands are often cleared to compensate for lands taken to grow biofuels elsewhere, a process known as indirect land use change, or ILUC.”

 “Biodiesels Pollute More than Crude Oil, Leaked Data Show”

February 2, 2012: Euractive.com reports: “Greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels such as palm oil, soybean and rapeseed are higher than those for fossil fuels when the effects of Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) are counted, according to leaked EU data seen by EurActiv. The default values assigned to the biofuels compare to those from Canada’s oil sands – also known as tar sands – according to the figures, which should be released along with long-awaited legislative proposals on biofuels in the spring. A spokesperson for the European Commission said she could ‘not comment on leaked documents, such as impact assessments which have not been published.’ ”

 

“Days of Summit-Level Climate Talks may be Over — U.S. Official”

February 2, 2012: ClimateWire reports: “Don’t expect another Copenhagen — maybe ever. That’s the word from U.S. deputy climate envoy Jonathan Pershing, who said yesterday that the 2009 spectacle of President Obama and other world leaders haggling late into the night over climate treaty language is likely a once-in-a-lifetime event. In a teleconference organized by the Association of Climate Change Officers, Pershing said the only events that came close to the magnitude of Copenhagen were the 1945 Yalta Conference or the negotiations toward the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.”