EDITORIAL UPDATE: Dec. 8th, 2023

Today’s growing Climate Crisis is taking all of humankind, regardless of wealth or means, along with most other living things on planet Earth on the path to extinction.

Yes, extinction is a strong word until one takes the time to review the in-depth scientific findings of human-induced planet-warming. The results of the science are conclusive; a global heating effect is modifying the climate and ny extension, weather predictability (historic in human terms) and stability, impacting both traditional seasons and weather.  This growing body of scientific evidence points to climate-conclusive changes now underway and their projected outcome.

The climate change verdict is out: GUILTY, human-caused burning of fossil fuels has placed our dependency on planetary norms in to a global death spiral. Not since the Holocene period aka the Age of Humans which began about 9,700 years ago has Earth gone through climate changes as the current speed of change, compounded by ever growing GHG emissions in the atmosphere and within the world’s oceans.

The issue of global heating has gone, yes, global, and the COP summit format is evidence of the world’s attention.  COP did not happen in vacuum. After a lot of public alarm, the global ratification Paris Climate Accords in 2015, COP (Conference of the Parties) became the next-step vehicle for countries to how best to determine and enact the Paris accords in the transition to global clean energy economy.  It also took time and growing public awareness, outside of the world of petro-chemical interests, to conclude that climate action was needed and now: “…something has to be done before it’s too late!” 

A consensus response to actions which must be taken sooner, not later was only part of the challenge.  There are conflicting interests and contentious issues among all the stakeholders, and this current COP summit hosted by fossil fuel stakeholders is a case in point.  Yet, beyond natural barriers to progress, COP is also an opportunity for vested parties to come together on common points of interest, and the threat and realization of climate impacts is now universal, regardless of what you might imagine between governments, science-based climate interests, and competing industrial sectors pitting their profit interests against the future of humanity.

This year’s COP 28 conference is hosted by the oil and gas interests of Dubai.

The current global climate summit got off to rocky start as an excise in arrogance rather than common sense, when the event’s host Sultan Al Jaber, who is also Dubai’s state oil CEO, said this week that “…the phase-out of fossil fuels would take world ‘back into caves” and that “…there is no scientific evidence supporting the phase-out of fossil fuels”… for clean energy alternatives available today, and in the future.

It seems sultan like the words “phased-down” and not out, implying so long as no actionable deadlines to transition off fossil fuels we be put in place, he was all for the summit and its lofty (as many see it) achievable climate goals.

But, this year’s climate summit has also came at a time when 2023 has proven to be the hottest year on record, and a reminder to COP attendees, not only scientists, policy makers, and climate issue specialists, and the fossil fuel interests alike (bankers and other pollution profiteers), that being further comforted knowing the “climate” event is hosted by one of their own, and in one of the largest fossil fuel producing countries in the world, Dubai, may not be enough to hold back rising temperatures and a climate reality, nor a growing  consensus that one action is worth a thousand words – and fossil fuels have to go!

As opportunity and time run out for actionable global heating remediation, it is shaping up to be a battle for meaningful actions to taken or transition opportunities lost at COP 28.

We can always close our eyes to the world around us, and continue down a path of business-as-usual. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the path of irreversible global climate  consequences we have placed ourselves on. It is no longer a question of if, but when — and that’s something even the Sultan fears most.

The clean or dirty energy choices we make now will determine the livability and outcome for every person alive today.  And, if we fail to address this global emergency driven by a 20th century dirty energy economy, the rising costs to society and the environment will be simply unsustainable.

Then there are the diminishing energy benefits from petroleum-gas-coal based energy sources. Rising production, environmental and climate costs point to a dead-end path, and that path is now in sight.

Everyone owns this problem, and anyone believing we can afford to stay the course is increasingly finding a shrinking consensus for cheerleading our present and ongoing reliance on global dirty energy monopolies, their energy sources, and market dependencies they created. People talk of addressing today’s societal inequities, there is no greater wealth inequality than the wealth gap between fossil fuel suppliers and their energy-dependent users.

Disappearing property insurance

American homeowners already coping with extreme weather now face a new risk: disappearing property insurance. Private companies have increasingly reduced coverage, concluding that the risks—and potential losses—threatened by climate change outweigh probable profits.  Insurers have increasingly raised fees and reduced coverage, concluding that the risks—and potential losses—threatened by climate change outweigh probable profits

We are entering an age of rising climate costs (directly and indirectly) paid for by both consumers and the planet. The thought that a five cent per gallon increase at the pump will have people up in arms, but ignore the linkage to rising climate risks loaded not only into their direct energy costs, but by extension and example, the present rising turmoil in P&C Insurance market. The Property and Casualty insurance sector now sees costs and risks in different light, as Climate-related claims rise. It has been, until recently, the elephant in the room most people failed to see.

With P&C operating costs now skyrocketing with climate risks and claims on the rise, Insurers are now leaving higher climate risk states, as California is experiencing. The recent deadly Maui fire was a wake-up call for everyone, including within the P&C insurance sector which traditionally thought off Hawaii in terms hurricane risks, and as Hawaii’s Gov. Green recently acknowledged.

Rising P&C insurance costs are directly linked to housing (and the real estate market in total). Rising insurance costs, and the question of future property insurance costs, and even availability, is just one more example tied to costs of global heating and increasing cost of living factors, which translates into rising insurance costs added into their rent or mortgage payments, into food costs, and into their health costs. Altogether, failure to see the bigger and impactful picture of an economy based on fossil fuels, and continuing to live with fossil fuels wold’s primary energy source.

Today’s fossil fuel dependencies are further propped-up by false and obsolete economic subsidies and assumptions designed to serve a highly enriched industrial sector of the global economy lined with vested interests.  Global taxpayers subsidize annually the fossil industrial sector to the tune of over 7 (seven) Trillion dollars (USD), and those added costs due not include climate heating cost impacts to the global economy and consumers, and the . added pollution and heating the planet. It is an energy path taken, and its past time to get off.  Fossil fuels do not need further and massive taxpayer subsidies or be allowed to continue to operate with unabated immunity to the compounding planetary costs and impacts they have created and are creating.

Just one of many real world cause and effect climate examples now underway is are climate-heating impacts now driving droughts now affecting 1.84 billion people throughout the world, according to COP summit findings. And, 85% of the people directly affected are living in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), increasingly linked to social conflicts driven by climate change-induced droughts coupled to social and economic upheaval.

Global food chains are also impacted in the growing combination of factors ranging fueled by rising climate-driven weather global impacts and droughts.

BeyondKona has covered the subject of so-called “Global Warming” since our local publication began in 2017.  We have covered the causes and effects of this human-induced crisis affecting the entire planet, Hawaii more specifically.  BeyondKona will continue the subject coverage simply because, one; it affects everyone, and two; is too important an issue to ignore with the climate future of Hawaii and the world now at stake.

Bill Bugbee

BeyondKona, Publisher

COP 28 – Recap of Developments; week one:

Day 1: Delegates from nearly 200 countries agreed on details for running the loss and damage fund, a facility designed to help vulnerable countries deal with more extreme weather stoked by global warming.

Day 2: COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber announced the United Arab Emirates will put $30 billion into a climate finance fund called Alterra, which he dubbed a “vehicle like no other.”

Day 3: Exxon Mobil Corp. and Saudi Arabia’s Aramco led a pledge by 50 oil and gas producers to cut emissions from their own operations. Darren Woods was at the summit to discuss the news — marking the first time an Exxon CEO attended a COP.

• Vice President Kamala Harris announced the United States was providing $3 billion in climate aid to poorer nations.

Day 4: The World Bank said it’s working with a club of 15 finance bosses to lower the risk of investing in climate projects in emerging economies and attract private capital for cutting emissions.

Day 5: The COP28 president found “no science” to support the phase out of fossil fuels to keep warming below 1.5C, Al Jaber said he was misunderstood. At a press conference he was joined on stage by Jim Skea, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Day 7: Vladimir Putin flew into the UAE — his first trip to the Middle East since he invaded Ukraine — to discuss energy. While he steered clear of COP, the Russian president’s presence in the country was on everyone’s mind at the summit.

In sync with COP 28, President Biden requested more than $11 billion annually to help developing countries cope with the ravages of climate change and transition to clean energy. But lawmakers have so far failed to deliver the funding, with House Republicans voicing steadfast opposition.

A little-known U.S. agency has been leveraging the president’s plan through private-sector partnerships to deliver billions of dollars in climate finance for developing countries. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, or DFC, provided $3.7 billion in international climate finance in fiscal year 2023, that equals than a third of President Biden’s original request. “It’s work that, in the aggregate, that has become the backbone of the U.S. government’s overall effort to mobilize climate financing to developing economies,” Jake Levine, DFC’s chief climate officer, revealed.

Global sea surface temperatures broke new record highs, and Antarctic sea ice continues its unprecedented meltdown.

The ‘safe’ threshold for global warming will be passed in just 6 years

New research suggests we have just six years left to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and less than two decades to keep temperatures below the make or break 2 C threshold outlined in the science of the Paris Agreement the world signed off on in 2015.

Researchers also found that if emissions continue at the current rate, we will cross this threshold before the end of the decade, according to a study published Monday (Oct. 30) in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The climate clock is ticking down to zero hour, and Hawaii is NOT prepared…

If global carbon emissions continue on track to exceed safe limits by 2030 they will unleash the worst effects of climate change, as new research suggests. All these changes translated down to just six years left for humankind to change course and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Our planet has just endured a season of simmering — the hottest summer on record,” U.N. secretary-general António Guterres said in a statement. “Climate breakdown has begun.”

A new estimate of our remaining carbon budget — the amount of carbon dioxide we can produce while keeping global temperatures below a dangerous threshold — indicates that, as of January, if we emit more than 276 gigatons (250 metric gigatons) of CO2 we will hit temperatures 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

It’s real. It’s happening. It’s accelerating. And it’s our fault. Human activity — particularly the production of greenhouse gasses from fossil fuel emissions — it is reshaping our planet, and Hawaii will not escape the effects of rapid environmental change now occurring at rates never seen before, certainly since humans walked the Earth.

As global temperature averages creep upward these changes are transforming the oceans of the world.  Seas are warming, rising and becoming more acidic, compounded by extreme weather events such as droughts, wildfires, floods and powerful storms which are now commonplace.

These global heating impacts means that even Hawaii, with its remote mid-pacific location, will not be exempt from global changes in temperature, climate, and weather.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The Heat Will Kill You First (2023) warns that extreme heatwaves are becoming more common and are dramatically altering life as we know it – they’re an existential danger. Rising temperatures are already changing the planet, shortening seasons and intensifying disasters.

The world is waking up to a new reality: wildfires are now seasonal from California to Hawaii, the Northeast is getting less and less snow each winter, and the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting fast with multiple consequences.

Heat is the first order threat that drives all other impacts of the climate crisis. And as the temperature rises, it is revealing fault lines in our governments, our politics, our economy, and our values.

The basic science is not complicated: Stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and the global temperature will stop rising tomorrow. Stop burning fossil fuels in 50 years, and the temperature will keep rising for 50 years, making parts of our planet virtually uninhabitable. It’s up to us. The hotter it gets, the deeper and wider our fault lines will open.

Hawaii Island report; UPDATE

Mayor Roth’s Hydrogen Dream

Hydrogen (H2) has been on Hawaii’s energy radar for over 10 years now when in the University at Manoa released its first report to the state entitled; “Hawaii Renewable Hydrogen Program: Policy Evaluation & Recommendations.”  The report was commissioned to determine gaps and barriers within the existing state energy guidelines designed to guide effectively changes and lay the groundwork for legislation to fill policy gaps and reduce barriers to Hydrogen production in the state.

Legislation in the state did follow in the form of amendments to he state’s Renewable Energy Portfolio guidelines, better known as RPS. At the time hydrogen was included within the guidelines as an energy substitute for fossil fuels, it was intended to be one of several energy options for the state to achieve its energy independence from imported fossil fuels by 2045, as determined by the 100% renewable energy goal (RPS).

Under the leadership of President Biden, 10 years later, national policy and federal funding caught up Hawaii’s hydrogen dreams in the form of advancing R&D hydrogen test sites and create the economic foundation for hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels, aka the “hydrogen economy”.

Fast forward to the hydrogen present –

The long history of the heavily funded Hu Honua Bioenergy (biomass power plant) proposal requires increasing electric rates and increasing greenhouse gas emissions in exchange for the right to chop down and burning Hawaii Island forests (the lungs and carbon sink of planet Earth) on the path regulatory approval for generating electricity on behalf of Hawaii Island’s utility and customer grid, owned and operated by Hawaiian Electric (HELCO).

The project proposal dates back to 2008, and pre-dates today’s popular and local hydrogen dreams and schemes.  The failed-to-launch Hu Honua power plant may be the only proposed power project in state history to go before the Hawaii Supreme Court no less than four sequential appeals and legal rebuts.

After Hu Honua`s recent legal defeat before Hawaii’s Supreme Court many assumed the ill-conceived energy project was dead, that is until Hawaii County’s Mayor Roth’s administration recently came to the rescue plan, first by quietly approving in after-the-fact fashion County permits this past spring. This action triggered Life of the Land to file an information request with the County. The County’s response noted that Hu Honua would not say what their plans were, and that Hu Honua had not instigated the request to approve the permits. If Hu Honua didn’t request the permit process exception, why did the County intervene on their behalf? Anyone who has had the challenging experience of working through the County’s building permitting process processes will testify such an outcome is totally unprecedented, so again, why the special treatment?

This unprecedented County action occurred without public notice or explanation. The County’s unprecedented action was in response to Hu Honua which had recently built several structures without acquiring the necessary building permits and approvals from the County.  County’s self-initiated process-approval actions was a step with intended or unintended consequences by advancing the ill-fated power plant prospects. It was an action that runs counter not only to County protocol and longstanding community opposition to the plant, but also runs counter to state Supreme Court and PUC decisions.

The Hawai’i County Planning Department must submit proposed revisions to the General Plan every ten years.

The current 180-page proposal presented on September 19, 2023, also includes another gift to Hu Honua and its stakeholders.  The Draft Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide (LUPAG) shows that the land area zoned as Heavy Industrial at Hu Honua would more than double in size. Presumably, this would enable a hydrogen conversion station to be built alongside the currently inactive Hu Honua power plant and facility.

Earlier this year, Hu Honua submitted a letter from Hawai’i County Mayor Mitch Roth to the Public Utilities Commission. Hu Honua asserted that the Mayor was backing them. Mayor Roth subsequently stated he was not endorsing Hu Honua and that he didn’t remember the letter.  The Mayor asserted that he was pushing hydrogen, and in theory, one could chemically, thermally, and or use electricity to convert trees into hydrogen gas. Thus, Hu Honua permits needed to be processed.

Earlier, the Hawai’i State Energy Office submitted a bid to become one of the seven proposed national hydrogen hubs as part of President Biden`s initiatives. The state effort recently failed. However, sources told Beyondkona that Hawaii County is continuing to push ahead with its own efforts to build a hydrogen future, and so far without any substantive public or County Council review.

Why push Hu Honua towards becoming a hydrogen production facility?  Who needs it? Who benefits? And who pays for it? In the background to these publically unanswered questions has been been the Roth administration roadshow for hydrogen.  This past summer, Mayor Roth and his R&D and Environmental departments heads have been engaged in a countywide road show / talk story promoting their ideas and vision of a so-called hydrogen economy beginning in Hawaii County.  In a July energy-centric webinar promoting hydrogen and featuring the Mayor, when asked, Mayor Roth told the audience, “…Hawaii County is not in the energy business.” Based on his Administration’s recent actions, the opposite could not be more true.

With Hu Honua principals facing repeated regulatory, legal and community barriers to their designs of producing and selling electricity to HELCO, if the plant instead became a hydrogen production and possible fueling station for County H2-fueled vehicles, it would an unprofitable business case and far from economically sustainable. The development of hydrogen-based transportation systems requires infrastructure to produce, compress, store, and deliver the hydrogen; a means to dispense the fuel; and vehicles to use the hydrogen. Those basic fundamentals require market demand, which in turn requires market infrastructure, and plenty of capital to underwrite such a risky public venture, again, and the business case completely supporting and fully justifying Hawaii’s market demand for a hydrogen economy, especially when the electrification of ground transportation in Hawaii already well on its way.

The problem with H2

Perhaps Mayor Roth’s hydrogen push should be applauded, at minimum, as the County’s highest elected official, such an energy policy now being promoted with County resources and by extension, funded with taxpayers dollars, should first be subject to public review. Such a review should first examine the costs and benefits. So far, Roth and his team have failed to make the case for Hydrogen development on Hawaii Island, and for that matter, anywhere else.

Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaiʻi Authority (NELHA), is the County’s experimental platform for so-called clean energy business propositions, nearly all of which do NOT use and are engaged in the production of clean energy, here was the perfect candidate to fulfill someone’s hydrogen dream.

The question to how NEHAL would produce hydrogen remains unclear. One of several key drawbacks to H2 production is that it requires a lot of energy, and where that energy comes from no only matters, it also effects to the levels of energy inefficiency associated with producing hydrogen in the place, which in short, requires more energy to produce H2 than it returns as a fuel. In the NELHA proposal, this remains a fully unqualified question and answer. The same H2 fueling program requires that H2 is produced adn/or stored at NEHAL in Kona and trucked to Hilo to ensure fueling is accessible on both sides of the Big Island.

Based on statements by Roth administration representatives there has been talk of Hu Honua as a potential production source for Hydrogen on Hawaii Island. This could solve the County’s theoretical problem of trucking H2 fuel from Kona to Hilo.

Absent local market demand for hydrogen, and talk of the County converting its vehicle fleet over to H2 as a fuel as a justification for the H2 push, the economics and practicality of such a proposal is little more than a hydrogen dream, and a potential nightmare for taxpayers.  The big H2 picture for the County’s proponents is the need to develop a market for hydrogen outside of the island, and a vision that Hawaii’s mid-pacific location is an ideal location to set-up a H2 filling station and/or export facility infrastructure for the gas on Hawaii island, Oahu andc ustomers outside of Hawaii for that matter. Failure to image is not he problem, rather it is a solid business case which is missing in this entire discussion. Likely a factor in the Feds decision to turn down the state’s application for some of that free Federal money in pursuit of H2 dreams..

Beyond the economic questions, there are the climate and environmental issues associated with producing hydrogen and managing an efficient hydrogen (H2) hub, and doing it in an environmentally and climate friendly way. Certainly, burning trees at Hu Honua (and the forever supply of Hawaiian trees and deforestation needed to fuel Hu Honua is another entire unresolved issue) in order to produce hydrogen gas. None of this makes sense or is practical by any honest measurement, and someone need to sit down with the Mayor and talk facts, not wishful aspirations.

Any hydrogen economy needs a hydrogen infrastructure to support it raises the immediate questions of building the needed infrastructure to store and distribute hydrogen safely and efficiently – and who pays for it.  Do we do this as matter of County policy ahead of addressing real world infrastructure questions facing Hawaii Island, and the state in total – where is the required due diligence, ahead of political cheerleading?

The County and other parts of the state are facing growing problems that include addressing aging and increasingly ineffective water and waste management systems, cesspool conversions, and road – bridge repairs, and transforming outdated permitting and regulatory roadblocks to a truly enabling clean energy conversion process. If nothing else, the growing climate crisis mandates needed regulatory and process reforms, certainly if Hawaii is to ready itself for the ever increasing climate challenges now directly impacting the state.

Our recommendation to Mayor Roth, stop chasing energy unicorns. Focus on and enable public and private sector initiatives now underway which are slowing advancing the state’s transition to a 21st century clean energy economy, from the electrification of transportation to clean energy security and resilience. These are quantifiable and achievable benefits of a clean energy economy for Hawaii, and the County.  It can be as simple as plugging-into the Sun and Hawaii’s tradewinds.  No burning required.

Breaking News: Hu Honua’s back from the dead

Hu Houna stakeholders and their agents are in the process of writing another chapter in an unending story, which so far is poorly written.  One of BeyondKona’s consulting energy experts, Henry Curtis, predicts the most likely future for Hu Honua is that it will submit a bid in the latest HELCO Request for Proposals, whereby Hu Honua would produce electricity (by burning local trees) to produce electricity to HELCO, and possible generate hydrogen on the side for the only potential customer; Hawaii County.

Another of BeyondKona’s consulting energy experts, Steve Holmes, see an outcome this way;  Hu Honua will likely go the Stage 3 solicitation route. I presume they will use the “firm “ power path as way of avoiding an outstanding barrier to being a grid supplier of electricity — by conventional measurements Hu Honua can’t compete on a cost per kWh with solar plus storage.

Hu Honua could also sell a limited amount of hydrogen needed by a few County buses and that certainly doesn’t help the economics either. Hu Honua seems unable to bring their costs down and all the phony baloney carbon neutral stuff already decided by the Hawaii Supreme Court against HuHonua’s previously arguments before the court doesn’t go away. The NPDES (water quality) permit issue remains another unresolved barrier of entry for Hu Honua in spite of the bizarre scheme to add locally drilled deep cold groundwater to the plant’s discharge water.

BeyondKona see this latest round in justifying Hu Honua’s role in Hawaii Island energy future as little more than lipstick on a pig.

The aforementioned contains some reference content (with permission) from Henry Curtis’ Oct. 16th Ililani Media blog. Henry is also a contributing editor to BeyondKona.  http://www.ililani.media/2023/10/hawaii-county-is-advocating-for-hu.html

The rich history of the Hu Honua saga can also be found in earlier BeyondKona coverage, examples include:

• https://www.beyondkona.com/hawaii-supreme-court-rules-against-hu-honua-5-0-whats-next/
• https://www.beyondkona.com/the-hu-honua-saga-continues/
• https://www.beyondkona.com/an-open-letter-to-hawaiis-puc/
• https://www.beyondkona.com/hu-honua-meltdown/
• https://www.beyondkona.com/hu-honua-2019-burn-trees-for-power-update/

UPDATE SEPT 15th, 2023:

The number of people who died in the fire that swept through Lahaina has dropped from 115 to 97, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said Friday.  He also said the number of missing now stands at 31, down from an initial high of over 3,000 people.

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED: AUG. 27th

Maui Fire’s Missing-Person List Falls to 388 After FBI Vetting

• List of missing was expected to shrink as duplicates removed
• Death toll still 115 after check of Lahaina’s last buildings

The list of people who remain unaccounted for after Maui’s wildfire disaster dropped to 388, a significant decline from earlier estimates, after hundreds of individuals initially reported missing were found.

Maui County has released a list validated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of those unaccounted for since the Aug. 8 wildfire tore through the seaside town of Lahaina. An additional 1,732 people who had been reported missing have been found safe and well as of late Thursday afternoon, the county said in a Thursday statement.

Search teams combing through the last unchecked buildings in Lahaina haven’t found the mass casualties many feared, Governor Green said earlier Thursday, offering a rare positive note in the wake of his state’s deadliest natural disaster.

Maui residents cope with loss and come together, as local government response stumbles.

Volunteers at a center in Napili-Honokowai, distributing supplies to those evacuated from Lahaina. Local Maui residents open their homes to Lahaina survivors and extended family members in signs that Hawaii’s Aloha spirit also survived the fire and loss.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said progress is being made to get displaced Lahaina residents into temporary housing. “Some individual residents are already in hotels, and  larger numbers in the coming days” Green said, adding there were 500 rooms the government was paying for.  Rental homes will also serve as temporary homes, the governor added. “Airbnb is going to offer us hundreds of typically short-term rentals in a longer term capacity, so we can put people into a place for months.”

As families face an agonizing wait for word on missing loved ones on Maui, the death toll from the fire is likely to rise. The fire-related death toll on Maui (Lahaina town) has risen to 111 as of Thursday, with more than 1,000 persons still unaccounted and missing. No other details are available.  Questions are now emerging about the Maui County government’s and Hawaii emergency early warning response. Absent any official warning, residents and tourists alike were forced to flee for their lives as winds whipped wildfires into a destructive inferno.

Uncontrolled blazes fueled by drought and high winds tore through the historic town of Lahaina and other parts of the island of Maui this week, killing at least 111 people in what has called the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history.

Hawaii’s islands are covered with lush tropical forests, some of the wettest places on the planet. It once seemed to be an unlikely place to be scorched by fire. But in a warming world, extreme weather disasters can happen anywhere.

The inferno came so quickly that, to escape the smoke and flames, some Lahaina area residents ran into the ocean to escape the fire and where later rescued by the Coast Guard. The most concentrated damage appeared to be in Lahaina, once the royal capital of Hawaii and a major Maui vacation destination, now burned to the ground.

Neighboring Hawaii Island did not escape the same conditions which fueled property losses, but fortunately no lives were reported lost.

Lahaina, Maui: Before

Lahaina, Maui: After

Lahaina Town, a historic and living monument to Hawaii’s Past

For many visitors, the town of Lahaina is a place to go for tropical beaches. But for the residents of Hawaii, it is a trove of the state’s rich cultural history.

The loss of Lahaina’s heritage museum, a landmark that housed artifacts from before the rest of the world knew Hawaii existed, is still being assessed.

Also,was the loss of town’s oldest building, the Baldwin Home, was occupied by the 19th-century physician who saved Maui from an epidemic of smallpox. Its central feature, a sprawling 150-year-old banyan tree, was planted to commemorate the arrival of Christian missionaries in 1873, now lost to fire.

On August 7, more than an hour before Maui authorities said the first fire erupted according to authorities, a security camera at the Maui Bird Conservation Center in the east Maui region of Upcountry, captured a bright flash in the woods. Soon after, parts of Maui burned to the ground and similar fires on Hawaii Island continue to threatened properties and towns on the north end of the island. Events which turned parts of Hawaii’s legacy into ashes are a testament to global weather and climate changes fueling unprecedented global heating and fires around the globe. It is also further proof that even in Hawaii, with its remote Pacific location, they is no escape from the global climate crisis now underway.

Climate-fueled and hurricane-driven wildfires that devastated the island of Maui, razing much of the historic district of Lahaina in only a matter of hours, provides further evidence that future climate-fueled events can strike without warning.  “We had no preparation, no warning, nothing,” said Theo Morrison, the executive director of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, which manages more than a dozen historic sites in the town.

• Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said at a news conference Saturday that the blaze was the result of a never-before-seen confluence of climate-related conditions and warned that it would take a long time for tourism and the community of West Maui to recover. 

Big Island, with big climate problems ahead

Rising temperatures, up 2 degrees Fahrenheit in Hawaii since 1950, have contributed to a decades-long trend of reduced rainfall. Reduced precipitation makes vegetation more prone to catching fire. The blazes this week happened in areas with moderate to severe drought.

Slowing global climate change is a must. But that will not be enough. Whatever we do now, in the next couple of decades, you’re going to have more and more dry, hot windy situations. Translation of knowledge to action is something that we have to invest in. Underlying dry conditions were exacerbated by strong winds tied to Hurricane Dora, a Category 4 storm that is moving across the Pacific hundreds of miles to the south. Experts also noted the spread of nonnative grasses, which are more flammable than indigenous plants.

Similar trends have made humid forests across the world more vulnerable in recent years. Small fires, often caused by human activity, can quickly become uncontrollable blazes as once again demonstrated in this latest round fires impacted the island state, but with one important development, lives lost.

“The fire hazards have gone way up,” said Josh Stanbro, the former chief resilience officer for Honolulu. “This is part of a long-term trend that is directly related to climate changes.”

  South Kohola, Hawaii Island (Maui in the distance)

South Kohola, Hawaii Island

There are currently no uncontrolled wildfires on Hawaii Island being reported. For developing fire information, go to: Hawaii County Civil Defense Notifications to receive timely and essential alerts, and view the most recent Civil Defense Updates on the Hawaii County Website.

The Lahaina Fire, “Flash Drought” driven

The Maui fire was greatly intensified by high winds, caused by the combination of a strong high-pressure system to the north of the island and the powerful Hurricane Dora to the south, i.e., a Flash Drought.  Those same atmospheric forces worked together like an eggbeater, whipping winds with gusts of up to 80 miles per hour. Climate change has been predicted to intensify both high-pressure heat domes and tropical cyclones such as Dora.

According to NOAA, a Flash Drought intensifies rapidly due to changes in precipitation, temperature, wind, and solar radiation. These changes in the weather increase evapotranspiration and lower soil moisture.  Flash droughts can cause extensive damage to agriculture, economies, and ecosystems if they are not predicted and discovered early.

Climate change, as scientists have long anticipated, is making the weather more extreme and unpredictable.

This summer, we’re being taught the tragic lesson that we all need to prepare for “unlikely” disasters as well as familiar ones, and to look for risk in new places.  The deadly wildfires on Maui that gutted Lahaina were a by-produce of climate-fueled weather conditions and the surrounding Maui hillsides covered with nonnative, invasive grasses — originally planted on the island by humans — which burned explosively.

Those grasses surrounding Lahaina were so dry and flammable because the island, especially the area around Lahaina, conditions driven by a so-called “flash drought.” In late May, none of the island was unusually dry, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Today, the whole island is either abnormally dry or experiencing moderate to severe drought. Scientists have warned that flash droughts will occur more frequently because of climate change.

July was officially Earth’s hottest month on record.

Even in the Southern Hemisphere, where it’s winter, there have been unusual warming patterns. Scientists are worried about Antarctica’s unprecedented lack of sea ice growth. Parts of Chile and Argentina have also seen temperatures soar in the depths of their winter.

Canada is still fighting blazes through its worst wildfire season ever. By mid-July fires scorched more than 10 million hectares (25 million acres), an area about the size of Iceland, with no end to the burning expected anytime soon.

This is how much extreme heat is costing the US a year, according to President Biden. His Administration this week is seeking an additional $12 billion for disaster assistance, as the administration monitors wildfire devastation in Hawaii and peak hurricane season approaches.

Investors Sue Hawaiian Electric For ‘Misleading’ Them About Potential Liability For Wildfire

Breaking News – Aug. 25, 2023

Hawaiian Electric faces another lawsuit in a mounting set of legal actions against the Hawaii-based utility.  Latest is an investor-lawsuit which joins a growing list of lawsuits which threaten utility’s future.

On Thursday, investors filed suit against Hawaiian Electric Co.’s parent company, Hawaiian Electric Industries, as well as several of its key current and former executives, alleging that the company and its top leaders violated federal securities laws.

The investor class-action suit, filed in U.S. District Court in California, seeks unspecified damages from the company and those leaders

It states that they made “materially false and misleading statements” in their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and that they failed to disclose to investors that the company’s wildfire prevention protocols were “inadequate.”

Specifically, the suit names former HEI President and CEO Constance Lau, who stepped down in January 2022, as well as her successor in that role, Scott Seu.

It also names the company’s former executive vice president and treasurer, Gregory Hazelton, and Hazelton’s successor, Paul Ito, who now serves as HEI executive vice president, treasurer and chief.

HECO representatives said in a statement Thursday that “we are still reviewing the complaint and have no further comment at this time.”

Hawaiian Electric is accused of removing evidence that its power lines may have started Maui blaze in violation of national guidelines

• Hawaiian Electric, which is facing at least nine lawsuits linked to the fires, allegedly removed evidence from a scene close to where the blaze broke out

• The company took equipment including powerlines from a substation before investigators could comb the scene, it is claimed

• Lawsuits against the company say it failed to switch off power before the fires broke out, despite weather conditions which meant lines could spark a blaze 

Investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) – which investigates fire and arson-related crimes – arrived in Maui last week to help with the probe into how the deadly infernos began.  But by the time they arrived, utility crews had cleared equipment including damaged power lines from a key scene of the fires and moved it to a warehouse, according to a Washington Post report. The scene, a power substation Lahainaluna Road, is close where the fires are believed to have started

Hawaiian Electric, the state’s largest utility, providing power to 95% of the state’s residents, and has seen its stock price fall nearly 68% since the near total fire destruction of Maui’s fabled the town of Lahaina and lives lost.

Stock market attention quickly turned to the utility as the possible cause of the fires on Maui, partly because of videos and photos posted online by residents appeared to show power lines starting fires.  Investors quickly reacted to the bad news that the utility was facing a class-action lawsuit and as the fire death toll continues to climb which each passing day.

The class action lawsuit against the utility alleges that… Maui’s devastating wildfires were caused by the utility’s energized power lines that were knocked down by strong winds, and the deadly fire which contributed to the confirmed loss to date of over 114 lives, with another 1,000 plus lives still unaccounted. Maui officials did confirm on Friday (8-18) that the wildfire death toll has risen to at least 114, while the search for hundreds of missing people continues.

The Lahaina fire was one of four that broke out on the island on Aug. 8. Gov. Green said Friday that at least 2,200 structures have been destroyed and another 500 damaged in the blaze at an estimated cost of about $6 billion.

Image originally published, New York Times

Earlier this week, the law firm of Singleton Schreiber filed a lawsuit against the company alleging that Hawaiian Electric’s power lines ignited the Maui fires.  The suit specifically alleges that Hawaiian Electric Industries “chose not to deenergize their power lines during the High Wind Watch and Red Flag Warning conditions for Maui before the Lahaina Fire started,” despite knowing the risks of sparking a fire in those conditions.

• It has not yet been determined officially what started the wildfires on Maui.  In the lead-up to the fires last week, the National Weather Service in Honolulu warned. at least four times. in a series of tweets that dry conditions and strong winds posed a serious threat of fires in some areas of Hawaii.
• According to the Western Fire Chiefs Association, electrical systems are one of the most common causes of wildfires. Despite this, Hawaiian Electric (HE) did not enforce a public safety power shutoff, a temporary pause of service to certain areas due to increased fire risk. These shutoffs are generally initiated by utility companies based on weather conditions.

“Had these utility companies handled their equipment properly, the people of Lahaina would have been better prepped and prepared to escape the flames,” Paul Starita, Singleton Schreiber’s lead Hawaii attorney, said in a statement.

Preliminary numbers from research firm CoreLogic put the residential property damages at $1.3 billion, but Hawaii Gov. Josh Green estimates the losses “approach $6 billion.”

Utility Financial and Liability Risks

In terms of financial and liability risks facing Hawaiian Electric, one significant differences between Hawaii and California laws governing utilities is that Hawaii does not apply the legal doctrine of inverse condemnation to utilities — a policy which considers the utility liable for damages caused by their equipment whether or not they were found to be at fault for it. However, Hawaiian Electric could still be found to have been negligent as investigations into the fires unfold, Moody’s said.

Like most other utilities, Hawaiian Electric doesn’t maintain insurance for most of its transmission and distribution system so will need to recover costs related to the fire through regulatory support from the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (and eventually ratepayers), according to Moody’s.

The lawsuit filed by Singleton Schreiber in the Second Circuit Court of State of Hawaii, District of Lahaina contends that Hawaiian Electric knew that de-energizing power lines is a proven method to prevent wildfires, but “they either left their powerlines energized or, after [de-energizing] them, re-energized them too soon.”  The lawsuit further alleges that issues within Hawaiian Electric’s system and processes, including that it had exposed power lines in vegetated areas, didn’t properly maintain tension in the lines to prevent them from sagging, and didn’t properly implement vegetation management programs, all of which contributed to the utility’s failure to prevent the grid and potential contribution to the Maui fires and ignition.

Hawaiian Electric’s financial and cost recovery risks tied to the devastating wildfires in Maui that led to lives lost, and which affected more than 2,200 structures, according to a report issued by Moody’s Investors Service, resulted in the S&P Global earlier this week, and that the utility’s parent company, Hawaiian Electric Industries had been downgraded to junk status in terms of its outstanding debt.