Climate Archives - BeyondKONA

A Hotter World; more extreme consequences; more political denial

January 11, 2025/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

The Earth is about 4 1/2 billion years old. During that time the planet has experienced 5 major climate-changing events of global proportion, each accompanied by 5 major global extinctions events.

Most people are focused on the noise of their modern daily lives. Macro subjects like global heating, species losses, wars, and the social and economic impacts of these threats to the status quo are generally left to so-called subject matter experts, that is, until events strike home.

Bloomberg reported early today the potential cost of the Los Angeles area fires (presently destroying large swaths of Southern California) are now projected to range between $135 billion to $150 billion in property and other economic losses.

By comparison, the total damage and economic loss from the unprecedented 2023 Maui wildfires has been estimated to range between $13 billion and $16 billion. These hugh property losses, in each case, do not consider costs measured in personal tragedy to individuals, families, and businesses victimized by ever-increasing and catastrophic events linked to global heating.

The Trump Effect

As countries unveil new climate targets, and Donald Trump readies his return to the White House for a second term, Trump is already positioning 2025 as the year he overturns assumptions and actions now addressing growing climate impacts.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House will mark the return of one of the world’s most outspoken and ill-informed climate science deniers. In the role as president, Trump will have the bully pulpit all to himself.

Trump’s public track record is clear enough, he is living in a world of false narratives both past and present. Denying well established and conclusive scientific findings on the human causes and effects connected to present day global heating consequences is denying the truth, but this too is not a new role for Donald Trump.

While climate change did not play much of a role in this past year’s campaign, Trump’s likely actions in office this time around could be far more significant than in 2017. Back then, he announced the US would pull out of the Paris climate agreement, the most important UN process to tackle global climate change. The agreement saw almost all the world’s nations – for the first time, agreeing to cut the greenhouse gas emissions linked to global heating.

Speaking in his New Year’s message, secretary-general of the United Nations António Guterres said that the world is witnessing a “climate breakdown – in real time”.

“We must exit this road to ruin. In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions and supporting the transition to a renewable future,” he said, stressing that …“it is essential – and it is possible”.

The new mission of the Trump round-two administration is the same as the first time around, push for a major ramp up of oil and gas exploration and production within the US, fuel a dirty energy market economy based on increasing consumption, roll back environmental protections, defund an emerging clean energy national economy, and impose heavy tariffs on electric vehicles and solar panels coming from China and other import markets Trump does not control.

“You are looking at, overall, a ‘drill baby drill’ philosophy,” Dan Eberhart, chief executive officer of oilfield services company Canary LLC told Bloomberg News. “You are going to see offshore lease sales, you are going to see pipelines move much quicker, you are going to see fracking on federal lands and a mindset that is focused on advancing big oil profits and removing environmental safeguards.

It is not yet clear if Trump can turn back the clock for coal, oil and gas, or curtail the growth of sustainable energy sources. For a start he faces both global and domestic opposition – also notably from within his own party, once laughingly referred to as the Gas Oil Pollution party.

President Biden’s singular outstanding accomplishment during his four year term was the passage and implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which ultimately may channel as much as $1 trillion of spending towards a national transition into a sustainable clean energy economy. To win over largely Republican states, Biden channelled a large portion of IRA funds into several key GOP states and districts, who have since conveniently joined a growing global clean energy economy.

“The result from this election will be seen as a major blow to global climate action,” said Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief. “But it cannot and will not halt the changes under way to decarbonize the economy and meet the goals of the Paris agreement.”

In memory of President Carter … who was ahead of his time:

“No one can embargo the sun,” Carter once said. “No cartel controls the sun. Its energy will not run out. It will not pollute our air or poison our waters. The sun’s power needs only to be collected, stored and used.”

Faintest Ray of Hope, as the World Burns

November 10, 2024/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

elements of this story were previously published in the Guardian; Nov. 9th, 2024

Breaking records

Global carbon emissions are continuing to increase. Last year they reached a staggering 40.6bn tons, a record that is expected to be broken by the end of 2024. Atmospheric carbon levels are now more than 50% higher than they were in pre-industrial days. Hence that 1.5C rise. Unfortunately the world’s response to this disturbing worsening of atmospheric affairs has been painfully slow…

The heat is on

At last year’s Cop28 summit in Dubai it was agreed to “transition away” from fossil fuels. Remarkably, this was the first time an international commitment to tackle, explicitly, the root cause of our climate crisis had been agreed. In other words, it has taken three decades of negotiations to get to the state where this fairly weak commitment could be accepted globally, even though it falls far short of the full-blooded phasing out of fossil fuels for which many countries and most activists have been pressing. The arrival of Donald Trump is unlikely to help their cause.

America

Trump’s victory in the US presidential election last week casts a particularly bleak shadow over the already gloomy preparations that are being made for this week’s Cop29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. European Commision president Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron are among those not expected to attend and there is fear that the breakthroughs hoped for will not happen..

The ‘big hoax’

Into this arena strides Donald Trump, a man who has described climate change as “a big hoax”, and is expected to repeat the decision – made during his last presidency – to withdraw the US from the landmark Paris agreement when he takes office. “There is just the faintest ray of hope now that the world will limit global warming to 1.5C, but Donald Trump may extinguish it,” said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Boiling point

In contrast to the views of Trump, the UN secretary general António Guterres has been particularly outspoken in his warnings about the dangers that our planet now faces in the run-up to Cop29, talking of humanity committing “collective suicide” and accusing fossil fuel companies of having “humanity by the throat”. The era of global warming has ended, he has argued and “the era of global boiling has arrived.”

Tipping over

Alarm over Earth’s climate is based, in part, on researchers’ warning that the 1.5C rise in global temperatures – which the climate negotiators had hoped to avoid – is likely to be breached over multiple years by the end of the decade, while many other climate researchers fear that holding the heat down below a 2C rise is likely to prove impossible as well.

In such a scenario, major tipping points are likely to be passed. These will include the destabilisation of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the abrupt thawing of the world’s permafrost regions, the collapse of the North Atlantic Ocean Circulation, and the massive die-off of tropical coral reefs. Widespread flooding will ensue and temperatures will continue to rise, while deadly droughts and storms will increase in frequency. Hundreds of millions of people – mostly those in developing nations – will find their homelands no longer habitable.

Follow the money

Trying to prepare for the climatic misery that threatens to engulf the world will form the main thrust of Cop29. A new finance goal to help developing nations create green energy systems and to help them adapt to a warming world is high on the agenda over the next fortnight’s negotiations.

The sums of money involved are eye-watering. Most estimates suggest that developing countries will need an additional $500bn to $1 trillion per year in climate finance from international sources. That’s at least five times as much as the $100bn commitment that is currently in place.

Gaslight

It remains to be seen how far these plans will progress at Baku over the next two weeks. Hopes of breakthroughs – already at a low level – have been further depressed by the disclosure that a senior official in Azerbaijan’s Cop29 team, Elnur Soltanov, was filmed discussing “investment opportunities” in the country’s state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor. “We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed,” he says.

Running out of time

The problem is that the world is running out of time, a point stressed by Johan Rockström, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “With Trump’s win, we now face, at best, a repeat of his last term’s climate inaction – a four-year pause we simply can’t afford in this critical decade.”

However, a more optimistic take on the situation was provided by Stern. “I was in Marrakech for the Cop22 summit in 2016 when the news came in that Trump had won the election,” he told the Observer. “We knew what that meant, but it was remarkable how strong was the resolve among delegates that we keep going. And we will keep going this time as well.

“His presidency will make life more difficult but we are not going to give up. That would be the worst possible option” said Lord Stern, chairman of the Grantham Research Institute.

Hurricane Helene; climate poster child

October 18, 2024/1 Comment/in Climate, Politics & Policy /by BeyondKona

— UPDATE (Oct. 18th 2024, originally published Oct 3rd) —

Officials called Hurricane Helene’s deadly rainfall and floods “biblical” and “generational.” But weather forecasters used another term: “once in 1,000 years.”

It is striking Hurricane Helene was actually the second of three back-to-back once-in-a-millennium storm systems striking North Carolina in a matter of days, and shortly thereafter to be followed by Hurricane Milton which made landfall in Florida on October 9, 2024, following Helene, which made landfall in Florida on September 26, 2024.

Hurricane Milton devastated communities that were still recovering from Hurricane Helene. But the precursor of a set of three super storms was an unnamed tropical storm which was labeled once-in-1,000-year storm with rains swamping communities on the opposite side of the state, and inundating homes along the coast.

It’s a mistake to believe we’ll only see one of these storms within a lifetime and in a given place. That’s because of the supercharging effects of climate change on weather, contributing to the likelihood of catastrophic rains increases, said Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California Los Angeles.

—

After Hurricane Helene’s super heated energy ripped through the US Southeast this past week, the Harris and Trump campaigns saw things very differently as to the cause and effects of this unprecedented and climate-heated storm systems most recently demonstrated in the form of hurricane Helene; the latest example of the new climate-fueled weather reality facing the United States and the world.

Helene has left millions still without power in states including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia. And days after Helene struck, the outside world still has only a rough idea as to the wholesale storm damage, harrowing escapes and still fully unaccounted loss of lives with homes, businesses and infrastructure fully destroyed.

It was a storm of unparalleled scale, ravaging the south-eastern end of the United States (a total of seven states). So far Helene has killed over 200 people with a death toll continuing to rise. The storm’s cost measured in damage and destruction has been estimated in the billions of dollars impacting public and private properties, and disrupting of commerce.

Politics vs. Climate Reality

It is has been a long road to belief and the need for an overdue public awakening since Al Gore’s book “Earth in the Balance” was first published in 1992.

Since that time, America has struggled between the polar opposites..of strong and compounding scientific climate evidence versus wishful thinking and outright denial. Based on scientific findings of the past 50 years a common climate cause & effect message has evolved and become somewhat finalized. This forward energy moved the needle of public opinion from the obscure to front page news. A meaningful climate response was (is) developing as policy – right now..

Over the past four years the Biden – Harris Administration has led on climate policies in synch with a national awakening that our planet is in trouble, and we’re directly responsible.

Directing US government agencies, President Biden’s one-term presidency took up the fight against global heating denial and previous executive inaction.

In the world today, fully obscured in media-politics are information outlets often commingling facts (news) with fiction and myth.

Overcoming partisan warfare, President Biden and his VP co-pilot Kamala Harris found a way forward with meaningful climate policies directed at the United States and the world.

The Biden-Harris administration’s climate work was translated into a signature moment for President Biden back August 2022. The president signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This achievement capped nearly two years of administration effort to pass sweeping bipartisan legislation addressing a growing climate crisis mostly ignored up that point by both political parties and previous administrations.

With passage of the IRA plan, the Biden-Harris team unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars directed at US clean energy projects which are advancing national technology development and innovation and creating with it a 21st century American economic renaissance.

Newly enacted regulations supporting the IRA climate legislation goals were also enacted and primarily directed at throttling planet-warming pollution from cars, methane blenching oil wells, and dirty-energy power plants. Together, represented well over half of all greenhouse gas emissions released by the United States.

Some of the resulting IRA policies were explicitly designed to be popular — winning over hearts and minds as tax breaks turned homeowners into solar enthusiasts and dollars flowed into US factories, and creating new 21st century jobs. However, historically and politically uncharacterized, a sizable portion of IRA funds are directed towards deeply red districts where voters are more likely than not to be skeptical of climate connected changes and disbelievers of bonafide climate science.

“We’ve been able to get an incredible thing done (IRA becoming law), and it’s just the beginning,” said Andrew Reagan, executive director of Clean Energy for America, a group that advocates on behalf of America’s growing ranks of clean energy workers. “All of the hard work over the next 10 years by folks in the government and folks in the private sector is going to be what makes this an essential and successful economic transformation .”

Trump 2.0: no science or common sense, just politics

If elected in 2024, Donald Trump has promised a repeat performance of his first disastrous term in which he will yank the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord for a second time — if he wins the presidency again in November. Trump’s statement last Friday comes after years of Big Oil and their Republican minions preparing for this election moment going about updating their pro-pollution playbook while laying the groundwork for Trump the candidate to withdraw from the global agreement if elected.

On June 1, 2017, newly elected President Trump announced from the Rose Garden that the United states will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, fulfilling a then 2016 campaign promise. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris global Climate Agreement effectively provided a significant blocking of meaningful actions to lowering and eliminating global greenhouse gas emissions, especially with the United States among the top three climate polluters and agreement signatories. It was no less than a major four year global set-back towards the social-economic clean energy progress already in motion within the United States, and certainly a roadblock to a global transition into clean energy economy … just as Big Oil planned it.

The Paris Accord signatories are a recognition of the serious threat Global Heating represents to everyone on the planet, as well as the unified response and roadmap to progress for the 195 member nations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in addressing what has become global threat — it was also an agreement which took more than over 10 years to finalize, and was (and is) based on the most credible scientific climate findings and political compromise among a diverse group of member nations creating the agreement.

The Paris Climate Accord also blurs the distinction between developed and developing countries, requiring all nations to submit plans for emission reductions in context to a global problem requiring a global solution. The United States is typically ranked as the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases globally, about 6 billion tons of CO2 per year, behind only China.

REPAIRING A PLANET IN DISTRESS

In addressing climate impacts as a national, as well as global problem, the Biden-Harris administration set-forth on day one of it’s administration to repair the national and global damage of Trump administration climate policies and actions in targeting previous climate reforms and withdrawing from the Paris Accord, which was followed by four years of chaotic swings in policy and national direction.

The day one priority for the then 2021 newly elected President Biden was for the United States to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord as soon as possible in it role previous leadership role as a full partner to the Accord. Following the restoration of the US leadership and participation in the global climate actions, the Biden-Harris administration focused their attention on transforming and restoring American leadership as a global clean energy leader and technology competitor.

The bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act was the crowning jewel in President Biden national accomplishments on climate, which placed national needs ahead of party politics, including an emphasis on deeply red southern states and districts — where voters are more likely to be skeptical of climate science and the connection to global heating changes now underway, as Hurricane Helene recently demonstrated.

Trump 2.0 vows to abandon the Paris Climate Agreement, and plans also plans to pull-out of the 32-year-old UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that underpins the entire structure of international cooperation against warming temperatures. There would be far-reaching and enduring impacts, and potentially sidelining US leadership and interests on climate talks for years to come, as was the case when Trump first took office in 2016.

IRA CLIMATE FUNDING IN JEOPARDY

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a significant piece of legislation signed into law by President Biden on August 16, 2022, and another climate target by Trump 2.0.

The legislation allocates $369 billion for energy security and climate change programs over ten years. Key aspects of the IRA include:

Reduce the federal deficit to fight inflation
Invest in domestic (clean) energy production and manufacturing
Lower carbon emissions by approximately 40% by 2030
Reduce healthcare costs (also a driver of inflation)

The IRA provisions include tax incentives for clean energy projects, bonuses for investments in low-income communities and energy communities and extends and expands credits for energy-efficient home improvements and residential clean energy installations (many Hawaii business and residents are benefitting from the IRA).

Healthcare, like energy transformation, is a growing 21st century challenge

The Biden-Harris IRA bill also addresses key issues within Medicare by enabling the system to lower taxpayer and patient costs by allowing the system to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers for the first time – a most helpful action in light of aging population.The IRA also caps out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000 annually, and extends Affordable Care Act premium subsidies through 2025. But the real ground breaking aspects of the IRA legislation are its climate-weighted national economic benefits of an emerging US clean energy sector.

The legislation has already spurred over $500 billion in private sector manufacturing and efficiency investments since its 2022 enactment, including approximately $240 billion in clean energy manufacturing.

The underlying economic and social goals, beyond the health benefits to society from a clean energy economy, is the IRA creating good-paying 21st century jobs in the emerging global green energy economy.

The 2024 Candidate Trump version has promised to redirect IRA away from climate-crisis focused funding, and to scrap IRA funding for clean energy — such a move will put at risk billions of dollars in grants and other support already earmarked — but not yet delivered — to clean energy ventures.

Trump 2.0 has pledged to “claw-back” IRA funding from national Climate programs and incentives already in progress.

Billions of dollars for climate and transitional clean energy funding dollars are at stake if Trump is elected in 2024. The Biden administration, aware of this risk, have been working to swiftly distribute climate money, putting much of it out of a new president’s reach. The Biden administration has further tried to pare back oil industry emissions of methane (a most potent greenhouse gas) and key by-product component of natural gas production and consumption through the IRA program.

The Trump camp has already stated they will “remake the EPA” and its environmental regulations and policies which get in their way of their big oil pro-pollution and fossil-fuel growth agenda, further placing air, water, and climate protections at risk.

The outcome of November’s election will go a long way to deciding what happens next — but not all the way. Investors, analysts and developers whose decisions shape the American energy transition are resolute: A victorious Trump can’t fully halt the country’s green shift.

Putting campaign rhetoric aside, it’s clear that the sweeping 2022 climate law known as the Inflation Reduction Act has been built to withstand political attacks. Some IRA grant money has already gone out the door. IRA tax credits are now seeding factories in Republican strongholds, but reversals on climate change mitigation efforts and clean energy progress as foreseen in Trump’s vision and agenda – and if elected, Trump will return to a familiar theme of climate denialism as national policy.

Going backwards is not a an option for humanity or the United States. As Gore’s book pointed out, life on Earth is increasingly out-of-balance.

2024 Presidential Election is all about Character – editorial

October 5, 2024/1 Comment/in Climate, Politics & Policy /by BeyondKona

CHARACTER …refers to the aggregate of traits and qualities that define an individual’s personality.

It encompasses moral and ethical attributes that distinguish one person from another. Character traits can include aspects like integrity, resilience, and social behavior. This definition emphasizes how character influences interactions and decisions in both personal and social contexts

WHY CHARACTER MATTERS – Candidate Donald Trump (R)

There was a time in the American presidency when character and integrity counted for something…

Candidate Donald Trump (R) was convicted earlier this year on 34 Felony counts – sentencing is pending, while recent national polls indicated a near tie position with Vice President Kamala Harris (D).

Candidate Trump also faces an additional three Federal lawsuits now in various stages, regardless of the outcome of the 2024 race for the Presidency.

The pending Federal lawsuits Trump faces include alleged actions then President Trump committed and otherwise engaged in illegal interference with the intent to change the outcome of the 2020 election outcome in which President Joe Biden was elected.

Federal Election Interference case: Trump faces four federal felony charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results
Georgia Election Interference case: Trump faces 13 state felony charges in Georgia, including racketeering, related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
Federal Classified Documents Theft and Obstruction case: The case was dismissed by a Trump-GOP appointed Florida judge in July 2024. Dept. of Justice prosecutors have appealed the decision and the case is pending further action.

ELECTION INTERFERENCE — BREAKING NEWS – Oct 6, 2024

Donald Trump laid the groundwork to try to overturn the 2020 election even before he lost, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and “resorted to crimes” in his failed bid to cling to power, according to a newly unsealed court filing from prosecutors that offers new evidence from the landmark criminal case against the former president.

The filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s team offers the most comprehensive view to date of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the election reaches trial.

Though a months-long congressional investigation and the indictment itself have chronicled in stark detail Trump’s efforts to undo the election, the filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who while losing his grip on the White House “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process.”

Special Counsel reveals new details of Trump’s illegal action in an attempt to overturn 2020 election

— New evidence in unsealed court filing (October 2nd) argues the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution, and therefore subject to the law, just like any other citizen. The filing was submitted by special counsel Jack Smith’s team following a Supreme Court 6-3 opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts they take in office.

Several standouts points of the Special Counsel’s latest case filings include:

New evidence shows Donald Trump “resorted to crimes” in a failed bid to cling to power after losing the 2020 election.
According to federal prosecutors, in a newly unsealed court filing, the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution.
The new filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who, while losing his grip on the White House, “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process”.

DONATIONS, BRIBES and Quid Pro Quo

Donald Trump has made a controversial request to oil industry executives for significant campaign contributions. Trump reportedly asked oil industry executives to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the White House and in exchange, Trump promised to:

Roll back environmental regulations
Hasten permitting and leasing approvals
Preserve or enhance tax benefits for the oil and gas industry

This request was allegedly made during a meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, attended by executives from major oil companies including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips

The idea of personal character mattering for any candidate of public office is an easy answer; of course. But for the office of the President of the United States, character not only matters, it is the essential qualification for the office.

Hawaii Residential Insurance; costs rise, options shrink

September 24, 2024/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Last year’s Maui fire driven by a changing climate, was a wake up call for many, especially for the state’s Property & Casualty (P&C) insurance providers.

While Hawaii’s insurance market has been relatively stable compared to states like Florida and California, the increasing frequency and severity of climate-related events are already placing upward pressure on insurance rates throughout the industry, leading to higher costs and changes in coverage and availability.

Hawaii’s residents not otherwise sleeping under a coconut tree generally find themselves within one of three residential P&C insurance market categories as; Home Owners, Condominium Owners, or Renters, and as a result, most residents have some form of Property & Casualty insurance coverage, and in many local markets have experienced annual cost increases exceeding inflation over the past several years.

For Hawaii and beyond, long-term premium increases are projected to increase throughout the insurance sector by 5.3% per year through 2040, largely due to increasing climate change impacts.

Locally, P&C insurance companies are a band on the run. Hawaii’s Insurers have so far paid out more than $2.34 billion and more than 10,000 claims as the result from the climate -driven Maui fires, as of June 30, according to the Hawaii Insurance Division. About $1 billion more in claims is expected, the agency said in a late July update. The August 2023 wildfires that spread across much of Maui killed 102 people and displaced more than 12,000, further validated P&C insurers worst fears of greater financial exposure in an increasingly climate-unstable world.

Even before the Maui fire Hawaii property insurance premiums had been rising year-over-year, a trend likely to continue due to increasing climate related change property claims. While it’s too early to determine the exact impact of the recent Maui wildfires on rates, they are expected to contribute to further rate increases.

Insurance companies are likely to reassess the risks associated with offering coverage in Hawaii, particularly in areas prone to wildfires and other climate-related disasters. This reevaluation is already leading to higher premiums and more selective or limited coverage and coverage value ceilings. Some insurers are already limiting coverage and/or increasing scrutiny in high-risk areas throughout Hawaii.

No major insurance carriers have announced plans to pull out of the state due to the Maui fires, but the industry as whole with customers in the state are or could reassess their risk exposure in Hawaii at anytime, especially as the industry is transformed by non-historic risk events that previously did not exist.

Cause & Effects

The 2023 Maui wildfires has had a significant impact on Hawaii’s property and casualty (P&C) insurance landscape, affecting rates and underwriting policies. The Maui wildfires resulted in substantial insurance payouts, with Insurers having already paid $2.34 billion on more than 10,000 claims as of June 30, 2023. An additional $1 billion in claim payouts is expected bringing the total insured Maui fire loss to an estimated $3.4 billion, and making it Hawaii’s second costliest natural disaster on record.

Significant losses have prompted insurers to reevaluate insured risks with Hawaii based customers, and like California, the threat of some P&C insurers leaving the state remains high a some future time. In the meantime, insurers are likely to reassess their underwriting policies in Hawaii:

Some companies may limit coverage or increase scrutiny in high-risk areas.
At least one company has issued a moratorium on new fire policies in parts of Maui where wildfires are still actively burning.
Insurers are further reevaluating the risks associated with offering coverage to homeowners in Hawaii.

Despite the aforementioned concerns, Hawaii’s insurance market appears relatively stable:

No major insurers have announced plans to pull out of the state due to the fires.
Hawaii’s market has been stable for many years, with availability across various insurance types.
The state is in a better position compared to states like Florida and California, where more insurance companies are withdrawing.

However, the Hawaii Property Insurance Association (HPIA), which serves as an industry safety net, may struggle to handle an increasing number of homeowners unable to secure private insurance. HPIA typically charges higher premiums for less coverage, with a maximum coverage limit of $450,000. State government and insurance regulators are also taking steps to address the situation:

The state issued a declaration allowing out-of-state adjusters to help process claims.
The insurance commissioner encouraged insurers to ensure continued coverage for those impacted by the wildfires.
The Hawaii Insurance Division is monitoring the situation and providing some support to affected policyholders.

While the full impact of the Maui wildfires on Hawaii’s P&C insurance market is still unfolding, it’s likely to result in some rate increases and changes in underwriting policies beyond Maui. However, regulators are presently actively working to maintain insurance availability in support affected Maui residents, but may this effort should be expanded with a statewide view into the near future.

Self-Insure?

Some people are rolling-the-dice and self-insuring or skipping traditional P&C insurance altogether.

A recent study by the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit that seeks to educate consumers, found that the number of people foregoing insurance coverage is rising sharply. “Twelve percent of homeowners are now voluntarily not purchasing home insurance versus 5% before the pandemic, so the rate has more than doubled,” Mark Friedlander, the institute’s director of corporate communications. That comes despite the finding in a survey by the financial adviser firm Bankrate that most Americans don’t have $1,000 set aside for a family emergency.

“How realistic is it for an American family to say, ‘we’re just going to forego insurance and we’ll pay for a loss out of pocket’? Not very.” Friedlander said. “But that’s the kind of trend we’re seeing.”

Biden’s Policies; addressing a Hotter Planet

September 18, 2024/0 Comments/in Climate, Energy & Technology /by BeyondKona

The most important change to our planet as we head into the autumn of 2024: the Earth is continuing to heat dramatically.

Scientists have said that there’s a better than 90% chance that this year will top 2023 as the warmest ever recorded.

– UPDATED –

PROBLEM

Paleoclimatologists were pretty sure last year was the hottest in the last 125,000 years. The result this summer has been a non-stop set of super-weather events driven by an ever hotter planet. A Social and economic run of disasters plastered media outlets with pictures of floods, floating cars through streets underwater and people fleeing for their lives. Global Heating (aka Climate Change and Global Warming) is increasingly making life on this most habitable of planet very difficult, and in some places increasingly impossible. And it’s on target to get far, far worse.

Possible the biggest thing change in the months ahead will be the outcome from the American presidential election, which presently looks as if it is going down to the wire.

Thes 2024 election is fundamental on several points as to the future direction of United States, as it will decide America’s power future and transition into a clean energy economy. The consequences of rolling back science and progress in our global transition to a clean energy economy is no less impactful to all Americans, than how quickly we honestly and effectively address the unabated temperature rise now underway. The possibility of political delays and/or failure into an essential transition to clean power can be summed up in word: catastrophic.

Donald Trump gave an interview last week, in which he laid out his understanding of global heating. He summed up his climate-change denial theories in just two words…”It’s weather.”

SOLUTION

The second-biggest thing happening on our planet right now: clean and renewable energy has arrived at commercial scale previously only dreamed about, and from the most logical and straight-forward global clean energy options; the Sun and wind. By some calculations, we’re now putting up a nuclear plant’s worth of solar panels every day around the world, and this has put the old and dirty energy fueled global economy on the edge of complete replacement.

In California, there are now enough solar farms and wind turbines that day after day this spring and summer these pollution-free energy sources supplied more than 100% of the state’s electric needs, and for long stretches. There were also now enough batteries connected to the state’s grid that they become the biggest source of power for California’s after-dark economy and forty million residents.

In China, it looks as if carbon emissions from its historic coal-driven economy may have peaked – they’re six years ahead of schedule on the effort to build out clean energy renewables.

In Hawaii, solar power plants with battery storage are slowly, but surely, turning the state’s dirty energy combustion power plants into obsolete relics of an energy past dependent on the state’s imported energy suppliers.

POLITICS

(If) Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, he promised, beginning on day one, he would become a “dictator” and order “drill, baby, drill”. Reported earlier, Trump has meet with key power players within the fossil fuel sector for a “one billion dollars” ask in campaign contributions, telling his oily audience … “I’ll fix it”. Big oil is also doing its best to raise money on behalf of Trump. Never has an industry sector so powerful politically and economically imagined in their wildest dreams they’d find a former president and 2024 candidate for sale to the highest bidder. The Washington Post reported a couple of weeks ago, Harold Hamm (who is also reported to be worth US$18.5 billion making him the 63rd wealthiest person in the world, and in his own words told the Post …”we’re working incredibly hard to raise as much money as he can from the (dirty) energy sector”. “We’ve gotten max-out checks from people we’ve never gotten a dollar from before.”

Biden’s green policies. and IRA bill (passed 2023), will save 200,000 lives and have boosted clean energy economy, data shows

Two separate reports find policies will save Americans from pollution in coming decades and so far have added nearly 150,000 clean energy jobs.

The environmental and clean energy climate policies of Joe Biden’s administration will save approximately 200,000 Americans’ lives from dangerous pollution in the coming decades and have spurred a surge in clean energy jobs, two independent reports outlining the stakes of the upcoming US presidential election have found.

The first full year of the Inflation Reduction Act (perhaps Biden greatest accomplishment as President), was a sprawling clean energy-climate bill passed by Democratic votes in Congress in 2022, with VP Kamala Harris enabling the deciding vote which made possible nearly 150,000 transformative clean energy jobs, according to a new report by nonpartisan business group E2.

Nearly 3.5 million people now work in growing clean energy sector in the US, more than the total number of nurses nationwide, with 1m of these jobs centered in the US south, a region politically dominated by Republicans.

Clean energy jobs grew by 4.5% last year, nearly twice as fast as overall US employment growth, and account for one in 16 new jobs nationally, the report found.

New roles in energy efficiency led the way, followed by an increase in jobs in renewable energy, such as wind and solar, electric car manufacturing and battery and electric grid upgrades.

But the future of the IRA, which provides tax credits and grants for new clean energy activity, is a flashpoint in the election campaign, with Donald Trump vowing to “terminate Kamala Harris’s green new scam and rescind all of the unspent funds”.

The former president and Republican nominee has accused Harris, his Democratic opponent, of waging a “war on American energy” and called for an end to incentives encouraging Americans to drive electric cars.

Harris, who has promised in unspecified ways to build upon the IRA, has attacked Trump for “surrendering” on the climate crisis as well as in the US’s attempts to compete with China, the world’s clean energy manufacturing powerhouse.

Bob O’Keefe, executive director of E2, said the IRA has helped lead “an American economic revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations”.

“But we’re just getting started,” Keefe added. “The biggest threats to this unprecedented progress are misguided efforts to repeal or roll back parts of the IRA, despite the law’s clear benefits both to American workers and the communities where they live.”

UNDER THE THUMB OF A NEW TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

Should Trump return to the White House, he will need congressional approval to completely repeal the IRA, although his administration could slow down and even claw back funding allocated but not yet released for clean energy projects, such as the $500m pledged for a green overhaul of a steel mill in JD Vance’s home town of Middletown, Ohio.

If a new Trump administration came to pass in 2025, he would have more power over the future of air pollution regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) than during the Biden presidency. Any major environmental and climate policy rollbacks will have a heavy toll upon public health. A new analysis of 16 regulations passed by the EPA under the Biden administration (started in 2021) findings reveal Biden’s regulatory reforms are on track to save 200,000 lives, save tax dollars, and prevent more than 100 million asthma attacks by 2050 by cleaning up historic toxic air pollution sources.

Trump has directly promised oil and gas industry executives a fresh wave of de-regulation (the regulatory dismantling of President Biden’s reforms, should he return to the White House. This will likely occur (if elected), with or without the $1bn in campaign contributions demand Trump placed on oil and gas stakeholders.
Project 2025, a conservative blueprint dismantling public benefits and regulatory protections was authored by many former Trump officials. Although disavowed by the Trump campaign, the Project 2025 sets forth a roadmap for dismantling regulatory protections in various key Federal agencies, including the EPA. A rollback of environmental rules and protections in the politicization of decision agency making and priorities are the essence of the Project 2025 roadmap. “These changes are designed to put polluters in charge of air and water regulations, and put millions of Americans at needless risk of cancer, heart disease and asthma,” said Symons.

Immigrants; Eating Dogs and Cats

September 18, 2024/0 Comments/in Climate /by Bill Bugbee, Publisher

Editorial – updated

“Misinformation” is today’s polite media term for “lies” now lubricating the Trump-for-President narrative. It is also the fuel for a machine of talking heads both in and out of the cable and internet media spaces serving as the campaign’s echo chamber. The most recent example of Trump campaign “misinformation” claims is about immigrants eating their neighbors pets in Springfield, Ohio.

“In Springfield they’re eating dogs,” the former president said, referring to an Ohio city dealing with an influx of Haitian immigrants. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating … the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”

Although, thoroughly debunked, and based on unfounded rumors and racist stereotypes, new polls show lots of Trump backers “still” believe Trump’s pet-eating cause and effect claims about Haitians, as well as plenty of other unhinged claims.

The origin of the dogs and cats being eaten by immigrants originated from unverified social media posts and comments at local meetings, and amplified by right-wing figures in the media after the Trump campaign picked-up on the story and ran with it.

Despite the lack of evidence, the rumor has been roundly promoted by prominent Republican figures, specifically Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance during campaign events, and the one and only recent Harris-Trump national debate.

The spread of these rumors has led to increased tensions in Springfield, including bomb threats against schools and government buildings. Both Springfield’s mayor and Ohio’s Republican governor have spoken out against these false claims and emphasized the positive contributions of the immigrant community.

It’s important to note that these types of unfounded rumors can have serious consequences, fueling xenophobia and potentially inciting violence against immigrant communities. Responsible discussion of immigration should focus on factual information and policy debates rather than spreading unsubstantiated claims and lies.

Today’s media hardly resembles the investigative and truthful news reporting period of the Watergate years. Instead, we to live in a media echo chamber of false narratives replacing news and investigative reporting, once the primary and verifiable domain of national broadcasting outlets.

Investigating and informative news outlets in various forms are now competing with talk show formats masquerading as TV & Internet news outlets. Today’s media lacks the necessary investigative and truthful reporting required to support a free and open democratic society, and media sponsors seem to like it that way.

Meanwhile, corporations have also discovered profitability in selling products and ideas as news, and news as infotainment. The arrival of AI tech applications will only accelerate this disturbing trend, and truth telling is paying the price of an increasingly misinformed public.

Another problem are the various forms of false news stories currently circulating on social media. One recent example alleged that Kamala Harris was involved in a 2011 hit-and-run accident in San Francisco. The fake news manufactured and was the work of a covert Russian disinformation operation, according to Microsoft. Researchers found that the group created a video, paid an actor to appear as the alleged victim, and spread the video report through a fake website of a nonexistent San Francisco news outlet named KBSF-TV. The Russian disinformation group responsible, Microsoft dubs Storm-1516, is described as a Kremlin-aligned troll farm, and exemplifies the growing public challenges of separating fake from real, informative, and honest news coverage.

Hawaiian Electric’s Future; marked by concerns and uncertainties

August 10, 2024/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Hawaiian Electric is the state’s largest utility and a significant contributor to the state’s economy.

HEI (Hawaiian Electric Inc.) had about $124 million in cash on hand after the end of the second quarter, June 2024. The utility’s cash imbalance has raised ongoing concerns and doubts about the utility’s future.

On Friday (Aug. 9) the utility disclosed it did not have a financing plan in place for the $1.99 billion Maui wildfire settlement it reached earlier this month. The company also took a goodwill impairment charge of $82.2 million during the second quarter.

Hawaiian Electric representatives further added on Friday that the company has incurred a net loss of $1.30 billion, largely due to the wildfire-related charge of $1.71 billion during the quarter.

The utility will also suspend dividend payments to its parent (HEI) because of going concerns and mounting financial liabilities.

Bailing Water

The utility, and its parent HEI said they were working closely with financial advisers to develop a financing plan for their share of the settlement and they could finance it through a mix of debt, common equity, equity-linked securities, and other potential, but unqualified options.

The utility insists it does not intend to raise electricity rates to pay for the settlement, HEI CEO Scott Seu said on a post-earnings conference call earlier this week.

Hawaiian Electric is also looking at strategic options for its retail banking operating unit, American Savings Bank unit.

Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc., the utility, is a subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI). As a holding company, HEI (the parent entity) does not sell products or services in the state and therefore is not regulated by Hawaii’s PUC.

Hawaii’s Climate-Fire Nexus

July 28, 2024/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

World breaks hottest day record

Across the United States millions of residents have experienced, and are experiencing, soaring temperatures and extreme heat. Increasingly all too familiar, scientists around the world have once again linked an increasingly hotter climate to rising global fossil fuel emissions.

The world registered its second hottest day in modern times. That was last Monday, and inching past the previous high record set the previous 24 hours, according to the a European Union’s climate monitoring agency.

Breaking record heat around the world also is responsible for wildfires engulfing parts of the United States, Mediterranean, Russia and Canada, and the accompanying hazardous public health air pollution impacts.

The average global surface air temperature rose to 62.87 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday. That was 0.11 F higher than Sunday’s record breaking temperature, according to global temperature data tracked back to 1940. The temperature data includes record breaking temperature highs in the Southern Hemisphere as well, which is currently in its winter season.

La Nina, no longer cooling higher temperatures

What makes this year’s record breaking temperatures so unusual is the world has had in recent-history higher temperatures during which La Niña events were characterized by the cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.

La Niña events typically lead temporarily to cooler temperatures, the 2010-2012 La Niña was notable for occurring during a period of overall rising global temperatures, which affected its impact and intensity, and led to significant weather anomalies globally, including extreme rainfall and flooding in Australia, drought in East Africa, and unusual tropical cyclone activity.

Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at Leipzig University in Germany, said it was “remarkable” that as global temperature rise and records setting heating trends which now breach the traditional cooler phase of the Southern Oscillation climate cycle, the scientific findings are revealing how global heating is now impacting both the hotter El-Nina and cooler La Nino cycles, and manifesting those impacts in the form greater event extremes and consequences.

It doesn’t take a room full scientists to read the obvious evidence; the world’s rising temperatures are the consequences of humans and our accumulative burning of fossil fuels from tailpipe-to-smokestack. And, Hawaii and its remote location are no longer exempt or protected by location from growing global climate impacts and rising temperatures.

The continued global burning of fossil-fueled energy sources has not only disrupted the Earth’s natural climate cycles, but poured gasoline on the fire of summer heating, adding to the frequency and ferocity of destructive fire events and dangerous levels of air pollution.

El Nino and La Nina cycles represent both ends of the oscillating climate system linked to the Pacific Ocean, and each increasingly fueled by rising global temperatures and supercharged by warmer-than-usual ocean water in the Eastern Pacific.

US government urged to declare wildfires, smokes, and extreme heat as major disasters

The risks associated with rising global temperatures and intense weather events are increasingly understood by the global scientific community. The National Weather Service says heat is the leading disaster-related killer in the US, killing more people than hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and fire events combined.

Higher temperatures tend to fuel weather intensity, including wild wind storms, which together fuel more wildfires with greater intensity and impact on property and people. These are lessons now well understood by the residents of Lahaina, and by extension, a greater awareness of changing climate and weather impacts on all residents of Hawaii.

The three most important elements affecting wildland fire behavior are wind, fuel, and moisture. Abundant elements comprising life in Hawaii. Of the three, wind is the most variable and the least predictable. Winds, particularly near the earth’s surface, are strongly affected by the shape of the topography and by local heating and cooling which are highly variable across Hawaii’s island chain, and accounts for much of the state’s island-by-island variability.

Wind affects wildfire in many ways

As our understanding of wind behavior and fire grows, wind carries away moisture-laden air and hastens the drying of forest fuels. Light winds aid certain elements in igniting a fire. The direction a fire spreads is determined mostly by the wind direction. Once a fire is started, wind also aids combustion by increasing the oxygen supply. It further aids fire by spreading burning embers to new fuels, and by bending the flames closer to the unburned fuels ahead of the fire.

Risks associated with intense heat include more wildfires, and poor air quality associated with large scale fires. The high demand for emergency response resources, coupled to a strain on the state’s infrastructure that delivers much needed power to keep vital services operating in an emergency, as with hospitals, schools, and key infrastructure services, for the most part is a work in progress.

Lawmakers and emergency services are increasingly aware of the growing climate and fire threats Hawaii faces. However, the state’s emergency response policy and resources are poorly equipped to address present and future challenges as the consequential and deadly lessons of the Lahaina fire already demonstrated.

Firefighters continue battle against more than 100 blazes burning in the US

Monday, July 29th … Many fires were sparked by the weather, with climate crisis increasing lightning strikes amid blistering heat and dry conditions. The fires are some of more than 100 blazes burning in the US at the moment. Some were lit, but many were sparked by the weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the western US endures blistering heat and bone-dry conditions.

North America Fire Map July 29 2024

NASA - USFS North American Satellite Fire Map - July 29, 2024

In northern California, the Park fire grew at ferocious speeds to become one of the largest wildfires in the state this year. In southern California, a blaze swept through the historic mining town of Havilah. And in Oregon and Idaho, authorities were assessing the damage caused by several large wildfires raging there.

Winds and temperatures were expected to increase slightly amid a drop in humidity, officials said in an update early Monday. Jay Tracy, a Park fire headquarters spokesperson said…“This fire is surprising a lot of people with its explosive growth…It is unparalleled.”

Nearly 4,000 firefighters are battling the fire, aided by numerous helicopters and air tankers. Reinforcements are expected to give much-needed rest to local firefighters, some of whom have been working nonstop since Wednesday.

Hawaii’s Climate-Energy Nexus

July 28, 2024/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Governor Green’s push for LNG gas imports conflicts with state climate priorities, ignores clean energy options, lacks common sense

Governor Josh Green has recently advocated liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a potential “bridge fuel” to help Hawaii transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045.

This policy change marks a significant shift from governor Ige’s administration’s position and objection to introducing one fossil fuel only to replace another in the production of electricity.

Gov. Green, former Lt. Governor under Ige administration, acknowledged his proposal would be an about-face in state clean energy policy, which has been strongly opposed to LNG imports since 2015.

Green has asked the state’s chief energy officer to conduct a comprehensive analysis of all possible energy sources, except nuclear, to accelerate Hawaii’s transition away from fossil fuel dependence.

Green acknowledges LGN adoption would be an about-face in state’s renewable energy policy for nearly 10 years, but his rationale supporting LNG fails the facts surrounding this fossil fuel, and concerns about high energy costs will not be addressed by adding LNG in the state’s energy mix.

If Green is truly concerned by the slow pace of building out solar and wind power in Hawaii, adding LNG in the state’s energy mix fails to recognize the missing infrastructure factors supporting LNG; from statewide port delivery-to-storage-to-distribution, LNG is a contradiction to Hawaii’s transition into clean and sustainable energy economy.

Gov. Green further argues the pace for solar, wind, and battery storage adoption is too slow and therefore justifies LNG introduction. Green should instead be focused on reforming the state’s antiquated regulatory and permitting processes as his first priority to an expedited clean energy transition.

A closer examination of Hawaiian Electric’s slow adoption (foot-dragging) is also called for by the Governor, but unlikely. A grid transformation to lower cost services, more efficient operations, and greater grid operating resiliency should be our highest priority in any energy transformation to zero emissions solar-wind-storage energy opportunities. These proven clean energy systems are exemplified by higher efficiency and lower consumer costs. There are plenty of examples of successful transitions enabling clean energy’s proven climate and consumer benefits, and more recently a business case for addressing utility shareholder interests.

LNG as the fuel of choice

Governor Green’s misinformed arguments supporting his LNG proposal assumptions clearly ignore the facts and reality of this fuel.

Fossil Fuel Firms ‘Building Bridge to Climate Chaos (LNG marine terminal)

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has significant climate impacts linked to its emissions throughout its lifecycle:

Lifecycle emissions: The full lifecycle of LNG, from upstream processes to combustion, contributes to greenhouse gas emissions:
- Upstream processes (extraction, processing): 52.1%
- Liquefaction: 5.4%
- Shipment: 1.7%
- Regasification: 0.9%
- Combustion for use: 40.4%

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is further promoted by the fossil fuel industry as a cleaner alternative to coal and a transitional fuel towards renewable energy. However, it comes with significant climate and business drawbacks:

High Greenhouse Gas Emissions: LNG is a fossil fuel with a substantial carbon footprint. The process of extracting, liquefying, transporting, and regasifying natural gas is energy-intensive and results in significant greenhouse gas emissions. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is released during these processes, making LNG potentially as harmful as coal in terms of global warming potential over a century.
Methane Leaks: Methane leaks during the production and transportation of LNG are a major concern. Methane has a much higher warming potential than CO2, and these leaks are often underreported, exacerbating the climate impact of LNG. It is also primarily composed of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is over 80 times more powerful than CO2 in trapping heat over a 20-year period. Methane leaks can occur during extraction, processing, transportation, and use of LNG.
Lifecycle Emissions: Studies indicate that when considering the entire lifecycle of LNG—from extraction to end-use—the emissions can be comparable to or even exceed those of coal, challenging the notion that LNG is a cleaner alternative.

The United States is currently considered the leading producer of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), but that alone is not a plus in Hawaii’s adoption and importation of LNG. The gas carries with it a number risks and costs Governor Green is unaware of or has failed to fully consider;

Energy Insecurity: The reliance on LNG can lead to energy insecurity, particularly for countries that depend on imports. Price surges can make LNG unaffordable, leading to power outages and economic instability, and US suppliers and their customers are not exempt from global supply & demand market instabilities and factors.
Market Volatility: LNG prices are highly volatile, influenced by geopolitical events and market dynamics. For instance, the war in Ukraine has caused significant fluctuations in LNG prices, impacting energy security and affordability, especially in developing countries.
High Costs and Infrastructure Investments: Building and maintaining LNG infrastructure is capital-intensive. The cost of LNG infrastructure, including liquefaction plants, shipping terminals, and regasification facilities, can be prohibitive. This makes LNG less competitive compared to rapidly decreasing costs of solar, wind, and battery storage which are abundant technologies, and proven to be not only sustainable, but cost competitive.
Long-term Commitments: Investing in LNG infrastructure locks in fossil fuel dependency for decades. This long-term commitment can hinder the transition to renewable energy sources, as the infrastructure built today will continue to operate and emit greenhouse gases for decades to come.
Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice: The expansion of LNG projects often violates Indigenous rights and leads to environmental degradation. For example, the LNG Canada project has faced significant opposition from Indigenous communities due to the environmental and social impacts of the associated pipelines.

While LNG is often marketed as a cleaner and transitional energy source, its climate and social negatives make it a far less attractive option compared to clean and naturally-renewable energy alternatives which in the case Hawaii abundant, as with sun and wind energy, operationally enhanced by the addition of advanced battery technology with energy management systems.

One this is certain, Hawaii’s LNG adoption would be a gateway to higher statewide greenhouse gas emissions, methane leaks, significant infrastructure costs, LNG market volatility, and the long-term environmental and social impacts which underscore the need for a shift to sustainable energy solutions, and which LNG fails the clean energy test.

Civil.Beat summed up the governors’ new love affair for natural gas this way …“The governor wants all options on the table for lowering the state’s electricity costs while ridding itself of fossil fuels.” LNG also fails on both counts to lower Hawaii’s energy cost in the addition of another imported dirty energy fuel source added into the state’s utility’s energy mix.

Young activists behind a landmark Hawaii lawsuit

Last month Hawaii state and local young climate activists have reached a first-of-its kind legal settlement, giving youth a role in curbing planet-warming emissions while avoiding a major trial.

The agreement requires the Hawaii Department of Transportation to develop a plan to fully decarbonize ground, sea and interisland air travel by 2045. It also creates a youth council to provide feedback to the state agency. Under the settlement, Hawaii agreed to make immediate investments in clean transportation infrastructure, including completing a pedestrian, bicycle and transit network in five years and dedicating a minimum of $40 million to expand the public electric vehicle charging network by 2030.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green takes credit for the landmark legal settlement that aims to curb climate-warming emissions from cars, trucks and planes across the sprawling island state.