Warming Accelerates as Climate Action Lags — report

For at least two decades, countries, companies, cities, and communities have been claiming they are “doing better” on climate change. Annual reports have been full of ratios showing greenhouse emissions per unit of output falling, and sometimes emissions falling in absolute terms.

All good—but unfortunately, not enough.  All over the world, as leaders and CEOs have been honestly claiming they are doing better, the situation has been getting worse, according to the World Resources Institute’s State of Climate Action report released earlier this month.

Graph source: NOAA, NASA, released 2019

The report, evaluated climate progress across six sectors and found that decarbonization efforts across most of them, from vehicle electrification to renewable energy gains, need to happen at least five times faster.  The report findings conclude:

• Climate impacts from global heating are indeed much worse than we had earlier understood.  

• Countries need to speed up their climate action dramatically to stay on track toward halving global emissions by the end of the decade.

• In order to meet benchmarks within the Paris Agreement for 2030 and 2050, the report recommends rapid transitions — between three and eight times faster than current rates — to zero emissions power generation, lower industry emissions, and have more sustainable crop output and reforestation.

• The current pace of emissions reductions worldwide is too slow to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

• Rampant deforestation and agricultural sector emissions are two of the worst climate offenders. Both have increased since 2012.

To get on track, the world must—among other actions—rapidly transition to clean electricity generation, accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles, reduce emissions from industrial production, boost agricultural productivity, shift to more sustainable food consumption patterns, and increase annual tree cover gain. For these and other goals, the report specifies the much faster rate of progress needed to meet most of these global targets.

Helen Mountford, vice president of climate and economics at the World Resources Institute, said the fight against global warming needs to “greatly accelerate” before a United Nations climate conference in late 2021.    “The decisions countries make in the lead up to the COP26 UN climate negotiations next year could either steer us to a safer and more resilient future or greatly increase the likelihood of deadly and costly climate impacts,” she said in a statement.

Biden Talks with 14 World leaders, Discusses Need for Climate Action

The leaders of the Vatican, Ireland and Canada each talked to President-elect Joe Biden about climate change in their first phone call. So did the British, Australian and Indian prime ministers. The presidents of France, Chile, South Africa and South Korea did, too.

Biden has discussed climate change in 12 of his first 14 calls with world leaders, according to readouts from his transition team. That’s an unprecedented diplomatic focus from a new U.S. president, and signals Biden’s plans to make climate a signature component of his foreign policy.

The phone calls are more than a gesture, experts said. The U.S. has a credibility problem on climate that will be difficult for Biden to repair.

Domestically, Republicans have enough congressional power to stymie new laws mandating emissions cuts. Internationally, the history of every 21st-century U.S. president reversing their predecessors’ climate policies calls into question the durability of Biden’s promises.

With his calls, Biden could be signaling that those constraints won’t dissuade him from pursuing climate action, said Barry Rabe, a University of Michigan professor of environmental policy.

“There are lots of things for a president to talk to a world leader about in that initial call. And I think what is said could be indicative of what’s on the top of a president’s list,” he said.

“The very fact that he would raise [climate] in call after call — rather than cherry-picking one or two — is really suggesting that this is going to be a significant priority,” Rabe said.

Biden has vowed that one of his first acts as president will be returning the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement, which President Trump quit. He has also vowed to pressure other countries to pledge more ambitious goals.

Not a lot is known about Amy Coney Barrett’s views on climate change, but this exchange on day two of the Senate hearings was telling.

Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) questioned Barrett, trying to prove a point about Democratic objections to her confirmation: “My colleagues think you’re only qualified if you’re dumb, if you have a blank slate. If you’ve never thought about the world. Have you thought about the world?”

Barrett answered that indeed she had. He asked her if she’d thought about social problems and economic problems.

She answered yes to both.

“I’ve read about climate change,” she said. “I’m certainly not a scientist. I mean, I’ve read things on climate change. I would not say I have firm views on it.”

The use of a boilerplate phrase often trotted out by Republican lawmakers – who often default to insisting they are not scientists – raised eyebrows among those concerned about how the 48-year-old judge will rule on climate cases should she get a lifetime appointment. Kennedy certainly didn’t mean to make this point in his questioning, but the exchange made the point environmentalists’ have saying, that is, a 6-3 conservative majority on the court would be disastrous for combating the climate crisis.

But a Supreme Court appointment is for life.

A common understanding and joke both inside and outside the Wash. D.C. beltway is that the modern Republican party, aka the GOP, has long since left behind the Grand Old Party for the party of Gas Oil Pollution.

It’s a story of follow the money.

From decades of oily and contaminated dollars flowing into Republican Party and PAC coffers, bias Think Tanks, and even some Universities.  Yes, the Democratic Party has its own history of oil & gas donors, but dark money from fossil fuel interests has been a trickle compared to the gusher of dollars spilling over onto Republican candidates and office holders.

Then along comes Donald Trump, TV personality, self-proclaimed genius, and other labels which apply – most recently, President of the United States, now seeking to remake the world in his image, and very happy to follow the money, so long as it flows his way.

From day one when Trump took office, he brought with him to the White House, Rex Tillerson, as his Secretary of State.  Tillerson was the former CEO of Exxon, a global oil and gas leader in exploration, production, and class A polluter (including two of the nation’s most disastrous oil spills in history; Alaska and the Gulf).

Tillerson was also a high profile climate science denier, and likely the primary enabler of  Trump’s campaign promise to immediately exit the global (197 country agreement addressing global warming) Paris Climate Accord. The Accord was clearly a threat to big oil profits and in the crosshairs of Tillerson and all other fossil fuel-vested interests.  Sure enough, the one campaign promise Trump prioritized ahead of all others: exit the Paris Climate Accord on day one happened without delay or a lot of forethought, and as they say, the rest is history.

Among 20 of the most powerful people in government environment jobs, most have ties to the fossil fuel industry or have fought against the regulations they now are supposed to enforce.

Under the Trump administration, the people appointed to those positions overwhelmingly used to work in the fossil fuel, chemical and agriculture industries. During their time in government they have been responsible for loosening or undoing nearly 100 environmental protections from pollution and pesticides, as well as weakening preservations of natural resources and efforts to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

At least four have direct ties to organizations led by Charles G. and the late David H. Koch, who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat climate change and clean energy measures.

Trump Appointed Key Cabinet and Agency Positions Controlled by Fossil Fuel Money Interests:

Two major Antarctic glaciers are tearing loose from their restraints, scientists say …

The new findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, come from analysis of satellite images. They show that a naturally occurring buffer system that prevents the glaciers from flowing outward rapidly is breaking down, unleashing far more ice into the sea in coming years.

It’s just the latest in a flurry of bad news about the planet’s ice.

The mayor of Portland declared a state of emergency as fires burned toward the city. California and Washington State are battling growing fires, too.

Multiple mega fires are now burning more than three million acres, millions of residents in California, Oregon,and Washington are being smothered in toxic air, experiencing rolling blackouts, and triple-digit heat waves. No this is not a script for an apocalyptic movie — it’s not a movie, it’s real, it’s now, and it’s Climate Change and its effects.

The West Coast is on fire; towns are being decimated by infernos, and firefighters are stretched  beyond their limits.

The climate crisis now unfolding is not limited to the Western United States, or the nation’s most populous state, but what is happening in California is more than just an accumulation of individual catastrophes, it is an example of something climate experts have long worried about, but which few expected to see so soon: a cascade effect, in which a series of disasters overlap, triggering or amplifying each other.

“You’re toppling dominoes in ways that Americans haven’t imagined,” said Roy Wright, who directed resilience programs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency until 2018 and grew up in Vacaville, Calif., near one of this year’s largest fires. “It’s apocalyptic.”

San Francisco Bay Bridge, 10:30 AM, Thursday

From LA to San Francisco, orange-red skies choking with smoke require driving with headlights in the middle of the day.

Wildfires continued their explosive spread along the West Coast on Thursday, scorching entire neighborhoods and forcing mass evacuations across California, Oregon and Washington State as a record-breaking fire season continued.

West Coast firefighters continued their efforts to contain fires that had caused extensive damage and killed at least seven people.

In California, hundreds of fires blazed across the state, including in the Mendocino National Forest in Northern California and Fresno in the central part of the state, as well as areas near Los Angeles and in Silicon Valley. Because of the extraordinary number of fires, California’s forces have been stretched, preventing them from sending firefighters to Oregon, where multiple fires, including the Almeda Fire, have caused extensive damage.

A barrage of scientific evidence shows that climate change has intensified droughts and hotter, drier weather across the Western United States, which has made brush, trees and other organic matter more combustible. According to one study, between 1984 and 2015, climate change contributed to the near-doubling of the geographical area vulnerable to wildfires in the West.

Officials said hundreds of homes had been consumed by flames and aerial images of towns like Talent and Medford, Or., showed streets lined with homes that were charred, if not destroyed.

Living in the West, the connection between climate change and fire is unavoidable. A month ago, California suffered a record-breaking heat wave that baked the earth into kindling. Then the match was struck. The Bay Area woke up to a sky flashing blue with dry lightning — lightning unaccompanied by rain. Nearly 9,000 strikes hit the ground, sparking fires across the region.

Can the climate-denying right really continue to ignore this basic cause-and-effect? Trump’s brand of denial is hardly unique. In some ways, it is embedded in our political system. Trump has ignored climate change because it’s been politically easy to do so. The effects of climate change are imprecise, and in the case of the wildfires, they’re almost not his problem, as the Electoral College allows him to write off the West Coast entirely. (Trump often tweets as if “blue states” are not even part of the country.)

Climate Change is going in one direction – a Hotter Hawaii

Hawaii maybe in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but it cannot escape the impacts of global warming and its Climate Change side effects —  no longer theory, but now fully engaged globally.

For Hawaii, an island state, sea level rise is major concern…

Global warming is behind the recent acceleration of sea level rise observed since record keeping began in 1880. The ocean, which has absorbed 93 percent of the heat that human activities have added to the climate system, expands as it warms, which pushes up sea levels. Warming also melts glaciers and ice sheets on land, with the run-off adding to sea levels.

The sea level anomalies recorded in Honolulu during May-August have been the highest ever, with observed values of 20 centimeters (8 inches) above normal in April, +17 centimeters (6.7 inches) during May, +9 centimeters (3.5 inches) in both June and July, and +10 centimeters (4 inches) in August.  Data from the Honolulu tide gauge shows the increasing trend in sea-level since 1905, with the recent events in 2017 above all others.

Sea surface temperature has increased as the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans has surged in the past few decades, causing marine heat waves and contributing to more intense storms, sea level rise, sea ice melt, and widespread ecosystem change.

…

While heavy precipitation events in most parts of the United States have increased in both intensity and frequency, there are important regional and seasonal differences in total precipitation change. Climate change is linked to increased total precipitation and flood risk

Sea surface temperature has increased as the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans has surged in the past few decades, causing marine heat waves and contributing to more intense storms, sea level rise, sea ice melt, and widespread ecosystem change.

Extreme Weather Swings from excessive rainfall to droughts

Abundant rainfall occurred throughout most of the U.S. Pacific island region during the first half of 2017, with almost all recording stations reporting above-average first-half totals.  It was one of the wettest spring periods on record in Pohnpei, with flash flooding reported from American Samoa to Hawaii.  However, rainfall patterns over the last three months of June, July, and August have been much drier than normal across the region.

Extreme Heat and Heat Waves

Global warming has amplified the intensity, duration and frequency of extreme heat and heat waves. The National Academy of Sciences reports and validates numerous studies as well as two major science assessment reviews that definitively identify the fingerprint of human influence in driving the changes observed to date.

The climate has shifted significantly, leading to more heat records in every season. The number of local record-breaking average monthly temperature extremes worldwide is now on average five times larger than expected in a climate with no long-term warming.

NOAA reports that global warming has contributed to the severity and probability of 82 percent of record-hot days globally.

Sea surface temperatures

Sea surface temperature data from NOAA’s Optimum Interpolation Sea-Surface Temperature (OISST) dataset indicate that many areas were warmer than normal across much of the Pacific during the first 8 months of 2017, with a small, localized region of cold anomalies now starting to develop along the equatorial eastern Pacific.

Daily global CO2 emissions decreased by about 17% during the height of the global shutdown, according to research in the journal Nature, was a relatively small drop, especially considering just how many millions of people were avoiding driving and flying.

For decades fossil fuel companies have pushed the idea of a personal carbon footprint, a metric that ignores the fact that more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions comes from energy production.

To ward off the worst effects of climate change, scientists say we must make massive shifts in our behavior to prevent the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2040. Hawaii state engaged scientists and climate specialists to conduct a one year study on climate changes throughout the state. The project Hawaii 2040 investigated communities around Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island, looking into present day and projected climate changes in various impacts and form from sea level rise, wildfires, coral bleaching, extinction, disease, to watersheds.

For example, the study determined what was already suspected, Climate Change is as much an economic issue as it is environmental. Three feet of sea level rise is estimated to cause more than $20 billion in damage to coastal businesses, roads and land. That doesn’t economic impact on the state does not include the compounding effect on tourism, the loss of environmental assets, and other industries that drive the state’s economy.

As a coral reef scientist, Mark Hixon of Honolulu said he is appalled at how unprepared Hawaii is for forthcoming massive coral bleaching events. His focus is on saving the uhu, a parrotfish whose feeding habits make reefs more resilient.

Edward Matukawa of Kapaa, Kauai, said the unprecedented flooding in April 2018 impacted his family’s rental property in Hanalei. He’s worried about what he and other property owners should do in light of rising seas and stronger storms.

The state has policies and data that identify the many indicators of a changing climate, the 2050 sustainability audit (produced in 2008), noted how 70 percent of Hawaii’s coastline is eroding, streams are drying, rainfall is decreasing and corals are bleaching.

The March audit concluded that comprehensive planning would help the state adapt, but it hasn’t happened in a meaningful way.

“Through the course of the past 12 years, the Hawaii 2050 Sustainability Plan was disregarded,” the audit said.

2020, the year Climate Change Predictions

Turned Real, and Beyond Denial