Another year of extreme weather--and a big bill

“For many people, 2021 was the year in which climate change jumped from the part of our brains reserved for future-think — for worries not yet realized — and landed squarely in the now,” Sabrina Shankman wrote in The Boston Globe recently. “It was the year that extreme heat rolled into wildfires into poor air quality into endless downpours and flash floods. No more future tense. 2021 was the year that climate change entered the present.”

“I think the word ‘unprecedented’ got a real workout this year,” said Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist and acting deputy director at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. 

That word certainly applies to the weather experienced last year in Lytton, British Columbia. The scenic village near the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson rivers endured one catastrophe after another. Last summer, a day after Lytton set Canada’s all-time heat record of 121 degrees, a fast-moving wildfire tore through the area, devouring scores of homes, The Washington Post reported. Then, in December, flooding brought on by torrential rain washed out main roads to the north and south of Lytton. “I used to think that it was going to be the next generation that was going to have to deal with climate change. I think otherwise now,” Mayor Jan Polderman said. “It’s something we better start dealing with sooner than later.” 

South of Lytton, the U.S. Pacific Northwest took a beating from the same heat dome, The Post’s Sarah Kaplan and Brady Dennis  wrote. “It scorched crops, melted pavement, and cooked a billion sea creatures inside their own shells. Hospitals saw 69 times the usual number of emergency room visits; one facility put patients in body bags filled with ice in a desperate effort to bring their internal temperatures down. More than 1,000 people died.”

“Scrolling through the list of 2021's billion dollar disasters in the U.S. reads like a tour through the Book of Revelation,” Axios’ Andrew Freedman wrote. More than 4 in 10 Americans live in a county that was struck by climate-related extreme weather last year, according to a new Washington Post analysis of federal disaster declarations, and more than 80 percent experienced a heat wave. 

“People are suffering and dying unnecessarily,” said Kristie Ebi, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Then there’s the financial toll. The world’s 10 costliest weather disasters of 2021 caused more than $170 billion worth of damage, according to a new report from UK-based Christian Aid.

According to Steve Bowen, head of catastrophe insight on the impact forecasting team at insurer Aon, 2021 is expected to be the sixth time extreme weather catastrophes have cost more than $100 billion — all of which have happened in the last decade.

Add to that the damage that global warming does to various economic sectors. Sixty percent of the nation’s downhill skiing capacity lies on National Forest lands, where wildfire is a growing threat to the $788 billion outdoor industry. “I always thought climate was going to take the industry out, for sure, but due to warming, shorter seasons and spring meltdown,” Auden Schendler, Aspen Skiing Company’s senior vice president for sustainability, told The New York Times’ Tim Neville. “I now believe the way we’re going down is through fire.”

No relief is in sight. Last month’s temperatures averaged across the state of Texas made it that state’s warmest December, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said in a statement. It is also likely to be the first month to exceed the 20th-century average by more than 10°F.

Scientists say there's reason to expect even more menacing extreme weather disasters in 2022, Freedman reported: “This past year brought the uncomfortable realization that even scientists' worst-case scenarios don't fully capture what the climate system is already capable of.”

"It seems as if models do underestimate those extremes and particularly these scenarios are really hard to predict and also to prepare for," said Kai Kornhuber, a climate scientist at Columbia University.

Most Americans, polls show, want the federal government to respond to this threat. We urge Congress to pass the Build Back Better bill–now–and also tax the carbon dioxide emissions that are the primary cause of global warming.

Seeking Solutions to Aviation's Emissions Challenge

“Hour by hour, there is just about nothing you as an individual can do that is worse for the health of the planet than to sit on an airplane,” says NASA’s Peter Kalmus.

Aviation accounts for about 3 percent of global carbon emissions, but has other warming impacts, too. As Axios reported, those emissions are projected to rise significantly in coming decades alongside the growth of air travel, absent aggressive adoption of climate-friendly tech. What is the potential for growth? Start with this fact: An estimated 80 percent of the people on the planet have never flown. That is one reason that by 2050 we can expect to reach 10 billion passengers per year, double the pre-pandemic rate.

Concern about aviation’s emissions has fueled a movement that encourages travelers to use trains and buses instead of planes. It’s called flygskam, a Swedish term best translated as “flying shame.”

But are we prepared to give up the many benefits of air travel? They are economic, diplomatic, and cultural. “Look, we simply have to get there,” said Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, as she discussed solutions with a writer for National Geographic. Her company is pioneering the development of aviation fuel from unorthodox sources such as waste to replace the standard kerosene jet fuel. “Everyone agrees: Airplanes simply can’t keep flying around on fossil kerosene. But there is no magic solution to this problem.”

Many experts are pinning their hopes on what are called “sustainable aviation fuels” or SAFs. On December 1, United Airlines flew the world’s first passenger flight powered by 100-percent SAFs from Chicago to Washington.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Department (DOT) has drawn up a plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. aviation sector, with a 2050 target of net-zero. “A very big part of the plan seeks to help spur development and uptake of SAFs for long-haul flights,” wrote Ben Geman of Axios.

“I don’t know how you decarbonize [aviation] without SAFs,” Congressman Sean Casten (D-Ill.) told Axios’ Andrew Freedman. Casten, who was on the United flight from Chicago, is backing the Sustainable Skies Act (H.R. 3440), which would promote SAF research, development and production.

But as Freedman noted, SAFs won't eliminate aviation’s carbon footprint because the amount of emissions depends on the feedstocks used to make the fuel. The New York Times’ Hiroko Tabuchi reported, “Scientific studies have long shown that biofuels can be as polluting as fossil fuels.” If the biofuels are made from, say, soy or corn, there will be emissions from production and transport of those raw materials. 

Alexander Laska of Third Way told Jeremy Beaman of the Washington Examiner, “We need to look at the entire lifecycle of the feedstock from how it's grown and harvested, how it’s transported, how it's refined, and blended.” United Airlines, Tabucki wrote, “is looking to a more promising source of sustainable fuel: forest waste, like fallen branches, or leaves and stalks left over from growing crops.” The EU, as part of its effort to create an SAF mandate, is likely to impose restrictions on the kinds of biofuels that can be used.

One way to speed the adoption of cleaner fuels, Sam Howe Verhovek wrote in National Geographic, is to create a carbon tax on kerosene jet fuel. 

Liquid hydrogen and electric power may help meet the challenges posed by this hard-to-decarbonize transportation sector. At the moment, the weight of batteries is a significant limitation, but there are signs that electric-powered flight could play a notable role in local and regional travel. “Enthusiasts say that within 15 to 20 years, electric airliners could be carrying as many as 50 people a few hundred miles” wrote Verhovek.

While of critical importance, airplanes’ fuel is not the only way to tackle aviation’s emissions. Another goal of DOT’s Aviation Climate Action Plan is to help speed efficiency gains, with a target to "demonstrate a suite of aircraft technologies by 2030 to achieve a 30% improvement" relative to today's best tech.

Congress may boost the aviation sector’s progress on emissions by passing the Build Back Better bill. The House-passed version includes $1 billion for an alternative fuel and low-emission aviation technology program, which would fund grants and cost-sharing agreements with companies producing SAF and other technologies.

As the Sea Level Keeps Rising, We Need Accurate Data

As delegates returned home from the climate summit in Glasgow, we received yet another warning about the threat that climate change poses. Two days of torrential rain across British Columbia touched off major flooding and landslides and shut routes operated by Canada's two biggest rail companies. All rail access to Canada's largest port in the city of Vancouver was cut off, Reuters’ Artur Gajda and Rod Nickel reported.

Some areas of British Columbia received eight inches of rain on the final day of COP26, the amount that usually falls in a month. Earlier this year, BC dealt with a major drought, which sharply reduced farm output, and during the record-breaking “heat dome” that hit BC, Washington, and Oregon in June, wildfires all but wiped out Lytton, BC.

As the planet experiences more intense storms with historic amounts of rain, such calamities are putting us in increasing peril. In his 2021 book Moving to Higher Ground, Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward, oceanographer John Englander updates the science of sea level rise, driving home the point that excess heat already stored in our oceans guarantees that sea levels will continue to rise for centuries to come.  Many people around the globe, Englander maintains, will be forced to move to higher ground. 

In Charleston, South Carolina, sea levels have already risen by 10 inches since 1950, according to estimates from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Earlier this year, city leaders endorsed a $2 billion federal proposal to build an eight-mile-long sea wall to protect the city’s historic district. In Miami, where sea levels are expected to rise by 15 inches in the next 30 years, the Army Corps of Engineers is researching the feasibility of an estimated $8 billion, 13-foot-high sea wall, Xander Peters reported in The Christian Science Monitor.

Englander, a recent addition to our Advisory Board, has served as the CEO of the International SeaKeepers Society, The Cousteau Society, and The Underwater Explorers Society. He’s the founder and president of the Rising Seas Institute, a Florida-based nonprofit think tank and resource center created to advance the understanding of potential solutions to future flooding. 

As delegates in Glasgow struggled to tackle these problems, The Washington Post ran a page-one story on its investigation finding that, in their reports to the UN, a number of countries were grossly exaggerating the emission reductions they had achieved. “An examination of 196 country reports reveals a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be vs. the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere,” a team of six reporters wrote. “The gap ranges from at least 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year of underreported emissions — big enough to move the needle on how much the Earth will warm.”

That troubling news was accompanied by a new analysis released by Climate Action Tracker, a nonprofit that keeps tabs on nations' pledges to cut emissions and calculates the climate change that would result if those voluntary commitments are met. The group concluded that the world is still on a course to be emitting twice the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 than would be consistent with the Paris Agreement's more ambitious temperature target. Based on a continuation of current policies (i.e., what's happening in the real world), Climate Action Tracker found that, by 2100, the globe will likely warm by about 2.7°C (4.86°F) compared to preindustrial levels.

While there is plenty of disappointment that COP26 didn’t produce agreement to move more boldly to counter climate change, there was progress, including on the reduction of methane emissions. John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, called the conference “a starting gun,” acknowledging that there are still numerous variables to consider before declaring the world on track to stop climate change. But at least “I think we're going to get closer and closer as a result, provided we implement and follow through." 

One encouraging sign was increasing discussion of pricing carbon and establishing border carbon adjustments. Those steps would speed up the transition to a world economy built on clean energy. 

Glasgow takes center stage amidst mix of optimism and pessimism

As 30,000 world leaders, diplomats, scientists, activists, journalists, and business executives gather in Glasgow, Scotland, for COP26, the outlook is a complex blend of pessimism and optimism.

The assignment for those attending this 26th Conference of the Parties October 31 to November 12 (including President Joe Biden) is to set new targets for cutting emissions from burning coal, oil and gas. At COP21 in Paris six years ago, more than 190 nations established a long-term temperature goal of keeping the rise in mean global temperature to well below 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels, and preferably limiting the increase to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). As part of the treaty, each nation was to develop its nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by 2020. 

These non-binding commitments are the pledges that participating countries are supposed to be updating. So far 17 countries (including the U.S.) and the European Union have made new pledges. Among the major emitters that have yet to do so are China, Russia, and India.

On October 26, Australia’s government promised to reach “net-zero” emissions by 2050, unveiling a plan that The New York Times’ Damien Cave wrote is “built on hope and investment in low-emissions technologies. Promising jobs and no new taxes or mandates, the plan did not include any toughening of emissions targets for 2030 — a major component of what scientists have said will be needed from world leaders at (Glasgow).”

The U.K. and U.N. hosts have said they want to “keep hope alive” of constraining global temperature rise to under 1.5 degrees Celsius, New York Times reporter Lisa Friedman wrote. “Meeting that goal means all countries must commit to cutting emissions faster and deeper than they already are doing.”

“We’re not bending the curve as much as we should,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, told Brady Dennis of The Washington Post. “We need to get much more ambitious.” 

A new U.N. report estimates that new commitments from about 120 nations, as of the end of September, could result in a 7.5 percent cut to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 if fully implemented. “But,” Dennis wrote, “emissions would actually need to fall about seven times that fast to hit the most lofty goal of the Paris agreement — limiting Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.”

Some experts want to look on the bright side. “There has been a genuine shift over the past decade,” said Niklas Höhne, a German climatologist and founding partner of NewClimate Institute, which created the Climate Action Tracker. “You can say that progress has been too slow, that it’s still not enough, and I agree with all that. But we do see real movement.”

One major reason for that movement is the plummeting cost of renewable energy. “A decade ago,” Brad Plumer reported in The New York Times, “solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles were often seen as niche technologies, too expensive for widespread use... Today, wind and solar power are the cheapest new source of electricity in most markets. Electric vehicle sales are setting records. Automakers like Ford and General Motors are now preparing to phase down sales of gasoline-powered cars...”

Yet there are troubling signs of lost opportunities. Efforts to promote economic recovery from the pandemic could have focused much more on tackling climate change. “We are witnessing an uneven and unsustainable recovery from last year’s economic crisis – a recovery that consists of huge growth in fossil fuel consumption while leaving behind nearly 80% of the world’s population in the shift towards a new and cleaner energy economy,” said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which has just issued a sobering report. 

The mixed outlook is also true in the business community. Many major corporations, such as Procter & Gamble and Unilever, are promoting a more rapid transition to a carbon-free economy, and the Business Roundtable has issued a pre-COP26 statement in support of decarbonization. But in some segments of the business community, you can hear the sound of heels dragging.

One COP26 test is methane. Rachel Frazen, a reporter for The Hill, wrote, “In recent months, the international community has shown momentum on reducing its emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. The U.S. and European Union are leading a global methane pledge, which seeks to reduce global methane pollution by at least 30 percent by 2030 and which more than 30 countries have signed.” 

James Hansen, who, as a NASA scientist a quarter century ago testified in Congress about the threat posed by climate change, recently told The Washington Post, “We need to get on a different path soon. And we won’t get on that path without a price on carbon. The fundamental requirement is to provide the incentives that will lead us to carbon-free energy. That means you have to make the price of fossil fuels honest. It has to include the cost to society.

“I’ve been pushing a carbon fee and dividend [a system in which governments tax emissions and distribute the revenue to citizens]. But frankly, getting 200 nations around the table to come to the agreement is probably not a practical way to do it.

“The fact is that the U.S. and China could do it. They could put a border duty on products from countries that do not have an equivalent carbon fee, and that would encourage other countries to have their own carbon fee.”

Ford making big move toward EVs

The transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to those relying on electricity picked up speed September 27. Ford announced that it will build three battery factories and an electric truck plant in Tennessee and Kentucky, creating 11,000 jobs over the next four years.

The company described the investment, which it said would enable it to produce more than one million electric vehicles a year in the second half of this decade, as the single largest in its 118-year history. Ford will invest $7 billion, and a South Korean supplier, SK Innovation, will add $4.4 billion.

“I think the industry is on a fast road to electrification,” Ford’s executive chairman, William C. Ford Jr., said in an interview with The New York Times. “And those who aren’t are going to be left behind.”

There are already more than 50 electric models available in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy, including 14 small SUVs, 10 midsize cars, and eight standard SUVs. 

Overall, The Wall Street Journal’s Mike Colias reported, Ford has committed to spend $30 billion on electric vehicles through 2025, with some of that already spent. It is a signal that Ford isn’t ceding this ground to rival General Motors, which has pledged to shift to electrics and produce its own batteries.

The industry “has made a hard pivot to electric vehicles in recent months,” wrote The Times’ Neal E. Boudette, “because of growing environmental concern — and because of the competitive threat posed by Tesla, the dominant maker of electric cars.

“Established automakers like Ford and General Motors are racing to catch up to Tesla, which is on track to sell more than 800,000 electric cars this year. Tesla has become the most valuable automaker in the world by far, with a market capitalization of nearly $800 billion. Ford’s market value is $56 billion.”

Ford executives say they are seeing higher-than-expected demand for a forthcoming electric F-150 pickup truck, called the Lightning, collecting more than 150,000 nonbinding reservations since it was unveiled in May.

Covering nearly six square miles, the Tennessee complex, 50 miles northeast of Memphis, would be roughly three times the size of Ford’s River Rouge plant complex near its Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters. It will feature an auto plant and a battery production facility.

Ford and SK Innovation will build two battery manufacturing plants in Glendale, Kentucky, 50 miles south of Louisville. The batteries made there will be used at North American plants that will produce Fords and Lincolns. 

"This is our moment - our biggest investment ever - to help build a better future for America," said Jim Farley, Ford's president and chief executive. “We are moving now to deliver breakthrough electric vehicles for the many rather than the few.” The company has already ramped up investment in EV production at its Texas and Michigan plants.

Mike Ramsey, a Gartner analyst, told The Times, “The fact they are spending billions of dollars means they’re saying: ‘There’s no turning back. We’re really going to do this.’”

Even companies that have resisted electric cars have been changing their tune, Boudette reported. Toyota, in a sudden shift in strategy, said recently that it planned to spend billions of dollars over the next decade to build battery factories and hoped to sell two million electric cars a year by the end of the decade.

Several other automakers, including Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai and Stellantis, which was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s Peugeot, are also investing billions of dollars to produce electric vehicles.

Ford told the BBC that the announcement was not timed to coincide with this week's voting on Capitol Hill on bills that include major provisions to tackle climate change. But the company said it supports passage of both bills, which would “help more Americans get into electric vehicles, while at the same time supporting American manufacturing and union jobs.”

Incentives and federal investment to accelerate the nation’s transition to EV’s are key components of President Biden’s Build Back Better plan. PRG considers those initiatives essential elements in our fight against climate change and common-sense supplements to a carbon tax.