CHINA AND THE U.S. MUST FIND A WAY TO TEAM UP TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE

“We ultimately can’t solve climate change without China. It’s by far the largest emitter in the world,” Joanna Lewis, a China specialist at Georgetown University, told The Washington Post. 

And at times, China and the U.S. have risen above the challenges posed by their economic and geopolitical rivalry. At a UN climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, a joint U.S.-Chinese pledge to cooperate on climate issues helped push other negotiators toward a more ambitious final agreement, diplomats said at the time.

But there have been many ups and downs. As The New York Times’ Peter Baker wrote recently, “at an international climate change conference early in his administration, President Barack Obama confronted a senior Chinese official who offered what the American delegation considered a weak commitment. Mr. Obama dismissed the offer. Not good enough.”

The Chinese official “erupted,” Baker wrote, relying on an oral history produced by Columbia University. “What do you mean that’s not good enough? Why isn’t that good enough?” The official mentioned a past conversation he had had with John Kerry, then a Democratic senator. “I talked to Senator Kerry, and Senator Kerry said that was good enough.” Baker wrote that Obama “looked at him evenly and said, ‘Well, Senator Kerry is not president of the United States.’”

Can the two nations find a way to cooperate on climate? “Today we’re faced with a really complex geopolitical environment. And I don’t think that the U.S. government has a clear understanding of how climate fits within its overall strategy toward China,” said Kelly Sims Gallagher, a professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University who was a senior adviser on Chinese climate issues under Obama.

She suggested that the Chinese may be using climate as a bargaining chip to achieve other gains in its overall relationship with Washington. “Climate is understood by China to be something the U.S. wants, and it's using climate as a source of leverage in the multifaceted relationship,” she told The Washington Post.

Kerry, who now serves as special presidential envoy for climate, said recently that he had been invited to China in the “near term” to keep talking about climate issues.

China’s climate performance is a mix of good and bad. Regrettably, provincial governments approved more coal-fired power plants in the first three months of 2023 than they did in all of 2021, according to Greenpeace East Asia. 

But China also installed a record amount of solar power capacity last year — and this year alone is set to install more than the entire existing solar capacity of the United States.

To nudge China to reduce emissions and act more ambitiously on climate, the Biden administration has started to explore other tools, including tariffs that would be linked to the carbon footprint of Chinese imports, reported The Post’s Michael Birnbaum and Christian Shepherd.

Such tariffs could be an effective long-term incentive for Chinese manufacturers to invest in cleaner technology and research to lower emissions in steel, aluminum and other exports, said Philippe Benoit, a scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

That idea has raised hackles in China, which contends that tariffs would be less about battling climate change than about blunting Chinese trade. A tariff would “primarily be intended to protect domestic industrial competitiveness,” said Sun Yongping, director of the Global Climate Governance Research Center at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. If implemented, it would “cast a shadow” over U.S.-China climate cooperation and damage mutual trust by creating challenges for Chinese exports, he said.

One way or another, the two giants must find a way to work together. “It would be a huge missed opportunity for the U.S. to not be engaging in one of the few areas where we can have constructive conversations with China,” said Georgetown’s Lewis.

Climate change threatens our homes and insurers

“An era of complacency is ending. If you decide to buy that condo where you can hear the ocean’s waves, realize that you are likely to pay more for that privilege — one way or the other.” That’s how Benjamin Keys, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, put it in a recent New York Times op-ed. “We have reached a turning point,” he wrote. “Climate risk is driving insurer decisions like never before.”

In 2021, the structural damage from wildfires, floods, and other climate-related disasters totaled $145 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In recent years, insurers have been paying claims for about 20 disasters a year with damages of over $1 billion, a sixfold increase from the 1980s.

Not all insurance companies can handle that level of claims. “Ten insurers have gone belly up in Florida in just the last two years,” Keys pointed out. “And in many cases, insurers are pulling back in risky areas, leaving state-backed insurance plans holding the bag. Both private and government-backed insurers are undercapitalized for dealing with the potentially massive disasters we could be facing in coming years.” 

Not surprisingly, premiums are rising even more quickly than other expenses in this country. Between 2021 and 2022, 90 percent of homeowners saw an increase in their home insurance premiums, according to a Policygenius report.

To save money, some people who are at risk of flooding do not buy flood insurance. It’s estimated, Keys wrote, that only one-third of households in flood zones have flood insurance — “with many risking financial ruin if the ‘big one’ hits.”

“Most homeowners should care about climate change and the potential impact on their families and property,” John Berkowitz told The Washington Post’s Michele Lerner. Berkowitz is the founder and CEO of OJO Labs, a real estate technology firm that owns the Movoto listing site in Austin, Texas. Lack of knowledge about climate risk makes it difficult for buyers to recognize that their home could be more costly to maintain, more expensive to insure, and more exposed to damage and possible destruction from a storm or fire, Lerner wrote.

There’s a way to estimate the environmental risks of your property: Use the Risk Factor tool created by First Street Foundation.

Of course, all of us who have insurance have a stake in this problem. As Keys explained, “To have the necessary buffer to pay out claims after catastrophic losses, insurers will need more reserves and more reinsurance, and they will pass those costs on to policyholders in the form of higher premiums. That includes policyholders who live well out of harm’s way. The year after the Marshall fire destroyed over 1,000 homes and caused over $2 billion in damage near Boulder, Colorado, average premiums rose over 17 percent statewide.”

The smartest way to reduce such risks is to reduce carbon dioxide and methane emissions–and the quickest way to do that is to put an honest price on those emissions. Please urge your senators and representative to support a carbon tax.

There's progress on curbing methane, but we need to move more quickly

In 2022, the global energy industry released into the atmosphere some 135 million tons of methane - a potent greenhouse gas responsible for roughly a third of the rise in global temperatures since the industrial revolution.

To address this huge problem, the Global Methane Pledge was launched at COP26 in November 2021. Led by the United States and the European Union, the Pledge now has 111 country participants who together are responsible for 45 percent of global human-caused methane emissions. By joining the Pledge, countries commit to work together to reduce these emissions by at least 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030. 

Congress also took a significant step in this fight. As The Atlantic’s Emma Marris reported, the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law in August, contained one sizable stick tucked amongst a lot of carrots: a methane fee. It applies only to large oil and gas facilities with significant emissions. According to the Congressional Research Service, “This charge is the first time the federal government has directly imposed a charge, fee, or tax on [greenhouse-gas] emissions.”

Last November EPA proposed rules that agency chief Michael Regan said would reduce flaring—a technique used by gas producers to burn off excess methane from oil and natural-gas wells. Owners would be required to monitor abandoned wells for methane emissions and plug any leaks, he said.

Unfortunately, some congressional Republicans want to eliminate the tax on methane emissions. A provision doing just that is part of H.R. 1, the broad energy bill passed March 30 by the House. The legislation is not expected to win Senate approval.

Is the oil and gas industry cooperating with efforts to reduce methane emissions? The United Nations’s voluntary oil and gas reporting and mitigation program, the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 now includes some 100 companies with assets on five continents, representing more than 35 percent of the world's oil and gas production. U.S. oil and gas companies are expressing increasing interest in mitigating methane emissions, considering it a relatively easy climate change solution and good business for making their gas cleaner to global buyers sensitive to the emissions intensity of their gas supplies. There are critics, however, who maintain that the industry is moving too slowly.

Agriculture, including livestock, is another major source of methane emissions, generating about a third of the total. Last month, the French food company Danone, owner of milk and yogurt brands like Activia and Horizon Organics, pledged to cut absolute methane emissions from its milk supply chains by 30 percent by 2030, making it the first major food company with a methane-specific emissions target. 

In Hadley, Massachusetts, Barstow’s Longview Farm is helping businesses turn food waste into clean energy through an anaerobic digester. The machine takes methane from cow manure and food waste and turns it into enough electricity to power 1,600 homes, The Boston Globe explained.

Another hopeful sign is improved tracking of emissions. The UN’s environment watchdog plans to launch a public database of global methane leaks detected by space satellites. The UN is calling it MARS or Methane Alert and Response System.

Next year, Harvard Professor Steven Wofsy, working with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and others plan to launch a satellite that they say is more precise than other methane-sensing satellites. Named MethaneSAT, it will allow scientists to track emissions to their sources and provide key data for reduction efforts.

Of course, carbon dioxide emissions remain the number-one concern as we struggle to combat climate change. But reducing methane emissions is essential.

We need to manage the risks that climate change is creating

Robert Litterman, a member of our Advisory Board, testified before the Senate Budget Committee February 16 hoping to “help shed some light on the under-appreciated fact that climate change is not just an environmental problem, it is an economic and financial one as well.”

Bob is one of the giants in the field of risk management. An economist by training, he spent 23 years with Goldman Sachs, where he was a partner and head of the risk department. He then co-founded Kepos Capital, again specializing in risk management. 

In 2020, Bob chaired the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) climate-related Market Risk Subcommittee, which published a unanimous and widely cited report, “Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System.” As he told the Senate Budget Committee, “[W]e came to the unambiguous conclusion that climate change poses several important risks to the American economy.” The report stated: “Climate change is expected to affect multiple sectors, geographies, and assets in the United States, sometimes simultaneously and within a relatively short timeframe…”  

Bob also cited a 2016 report by Freddie Mac, which, he testified, “estimated that the economic losses from sea level rise are ‘likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and Great Recession.’ And that was in 2016. Projections for sea level rise have only gotten more dire since then,” he said, “as scientists have learned more about the vulnerabilities of the Greenland ice sheet and several massive West Antarctic glaciers.” Bob was able to get a close look at the threat during a 2022 trip to Greenland with two of our co-founders (Bill Eacho and George Frampton) and two fellow members of our Advisory Board (John Englander and Julia Neshiewat). Bob is also on the boards of the Climate Leadership Council, the Niskanen Center, and other organizations.

“The physical risks of climate change,” Bob testified, “are those that stem from the disruptions it causes via rising seas, more severe storms and floods, more frequent droughts, more intense heat waves, and more destructive wildfires. Property is destroyed. Supply chains are disrupted. Crops wither. Labor productivity declines.

“The transition risks of climate change are those that stem from changes in policy, technology, and/or consumer preferences. As lower-carbon technologies become cheaper, demand for fossil fuels will decline. As more and more consumers demand sustainable products, demand for fossil fuels will decline. And as governments around the world take steps to decarbonize their economies, demand for fossil fuels will decline. 

“This process can lead to stranded assets in carbon intensive sectors. If investors have not managed this risk, it may cascade through the economy. Central banks have estimated the losses in the energy sector at up to $4 trillion in the energy sector, and up to $20 trillion in the broader economy.”

Pointing to the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, Bob testified, “100-year floods may happen every 5 or 10 years today because of the changing climate.” He stated, “Losses from billion-dollar extreme weather events totaled $165 billion last year and while it varies from year to year, it is clearly growing rapidly over time.”

Citing the agricultural sector as one example of the economic risks, Bob said, “[W]e found that climate change is likely to significantly reduce crop yields, decrease labor productivity, degrade soil and water quality, increase the range and virulence of pests, and disrupt supply chains.”

Some Americans think of climate change as a threat only to the planet, overlooking the impact on people’s health. To counter that view, Bob testified: “Climate change will also likely inflict large costs on human health, and by extension, significantly reduce labor productivity in certain sectors. Estimates of the annual monetized damages from premature deaths due to extreme heat in 2090 range from $60 to $140 billion. Lost labor hours could reach six percent in parts of Florida and Texas.”

Near the end of his statement, Bob said, “While the subject of this hearing is the economic risks and costs associated with climate change, I would be remiss if I did not mention one last thing. All of the research and analysis on this subject agrees that the sooner we act to reduce emissions, the fewer costs and risks we incur. In addition, it appears that transitioning to a low-carbon economy will actually result in substantial economic growth.” 

In our view, the most effective step our nation could take to speed that transition is to put an honest price on carbon emissions, via a carbon fee.

MED SCHOOLS STARTING TO INCORPORATE CLIMATE CHANGE INTO CURRICULUM

Evidence continues to mount about the threats that climate change poses to human health. Extreme heat, for example, increases the risk of strokes and heart attacks and exacerbates underlying health conditions such as diabetes and asthma, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The National Institutes of Health found that changes in air and water temperatures can increase bacteria, parasites, and chemical contaminants in food. According to research published February 7 by the United Nations Environment Program, climate change is heightening the risk posed by antibiotic-resistant viruses.

You might assume that the nation’s medical schools are on the case. Not exactly. A 2022 survey by the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations found that only 15 percent of medical schools worldwide were teaching a climate-and-health curriculum. The figures are better in this country. A 2022 study by the Association of American Medical Colleges found the percentage of medical schools covering the health effects of climate change doubled, to 55 percent in 2022 from 27 percent in 2019.

Karly Hampshire, now a fourth-year medical student at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), is one of those who has been working hard to boost that percentage. Recalling her initial days of med school in 2018, when wildfires were raging in California, Humphrey told MedPage Today, “Even though we were walking to school every day in this awful hellscape ... our pulmonary block did not cover the health effects of air pollution,"

Hampshire and colleagues created the Planetary Health Report Card in 2019 to compile data on medical schools' climate-related offerings. The database includes information on 87 member institutions in eight countries, rating schools based on their planetary health curriculum, interdisciplinary research, institutional support for student-led projects, community engagement and advocacy efforts, and campus sustainability.

Within the next 5 or 10 years, Hampshire said, most schools will likely offer climate-and-health content. "We're already seeing the health effects of climate change play out in our immediate surroundings and immediate communities," Hampshire said. "I think medical schools will start to feel like they're lagging behind if they don't address it in the curriculum."

"This is fundamental to the mission of medicine," Renee Salas, MD, MPH, MS, an emergency medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who researches climate change and health, told Amanda D’Ambroio of MedPage Today. "It is an obligation of medical schools and continuing education to ensure that we can optimally prepare individuals to practice in today's environment.”

Medical schools have taken different approaches to offering such education. Some schools offer semester-long courses on climate and health. Others choose a longitudinal approach, integrating climate change into their existing curriculum. Climate-and-health advocates have argued for an integrated approach to climate change education in medical school in order to address the concerns about taking time away from other necessary clinical topics.

Another institution moving forward on climate change is 350-year-old Harvard Medical School. Now in her third year there, Madeleine Kline was among a small group of students and faculty who helped convince school leaders to adopt the new curriculum, which was approved in January. It will include instruction on the effects of climate change on human health, the role health care systems play in contributing to climate change, and how physicians can work to be part of the solution.

As calls to include climate change in medical curriculums grow, The Boston Globe’s Zeina Mohammed reported, so do the resources available to schools interested in making changes. Last year, trainees and faculty at several U.S. universities launched the Climate Resources for Health Education, a free, digital resource bank to help guide the incorporation of climate change into medical curricula.