Climate Archives - Page 8 of 17

Hawaii Prepares To Go All Electric

February 17, 2022/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Hawaii’s 2022 legislative season, now in session has been marked a record number of bill submissions addressing the forthcoming electrification of personal and commercial ground transportation, as in battery electric vehicles (BEV). Equally remarkable are the number transformative bills directed at addressing climate change, renewable energy, and environmental protection.

According to then state’s leading electric vehicle group, Hawaii Electric Vehicle Association, and there are over 43 separate House and Senate bills addressing EVs (electric vehicles), in one form or another, ranging from the state guidelines and incentives to assist the build out of a multi-island BEV public charging infrastructure to addressing equity (affordability) issues, with BEV financial incentives directed to Hawaii’s low-to-moderate income residents.

For definitive look at the BEV related bills now under Hawaii state legislative consideration visit: https://hawaiiev.org/2022-ev-legislation

A National EV Charging Infrastructure is also Coming to Hawaii

Senator Brian Schatz’s office reported earlier this week of new Federal Funding being allocated to Hawaii in the form of $2.6 million funding grant. the money is part of $5 Billion immediate Federal funds release for the intended build out of national EV charging network. Funding details are available on DOT’s web site: https://highways.dot.gov/newsroom/president-biden-usdot-and-usdoe-announce-5-billion-over-five-years-national-ev-charging

The $5B Federal funds release represents about 2/3 of the total $7 Billion allocated to BEV charging infrastructure in the bi-partisan infrastructure bill passed last year.

For Hawaii, here some of the high points;

1) The state has until August (this year) to submit its deployment and use of funds plan to DOT. The earlier Hawaii responds, the earlier the funds will be distributed to the state.

2) The funds may only be applied to charging station build-outs on so-called designated Alternative Fuel Corridors, i.e., federal roads within the state. All of the state’s primary populated islands have qualifying roads. In other words, state parks, shopping malls, etc. do not qualify in this initial round of Federal funding.

3) The funding is a 80/20 package, meaning private partners participating in the state’s build out plan, e.g., HECO will be required to pay 20% of their project participation costs. The balance (80%) is covered within federal funding and administered by the state.

4) Questions as to the charging speed, type of charging, and locations for deployment are yet to be determined. The state, and its private sector partners, are to submit a final funding plan by August, which is then subject to final approval by DOT, before the $2.6 million Federal is released to the state — and all of which is scheduled to occur this year.

A National EV Charging Infrastructure

The new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula (NEVI) Program was established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden last November
The U.S. Departments of Transportation and Energy also announced this week nearly $5 billion will be made available to help states create a network of EV charging stations along the Interstate Highway System and designated “alternative fuel corridors.” Funds can be used to install and operate EV charging stations
There is currently 41K BEV charging stations compared to 136K gas stations with greater fueling capacity in terms of the number of vehicles fueled at one time and time for fueling.
The Federal funding goal is to develop a nationwide highway network of 500,000 EV charging stations by 2030.
There are 116,000 public charging ports / 41,000 stations across the country, according to the Energy Department — mostly lower-speed “Level 2” chargers that are heavily concentrated in California. Cost estimates for installing chargers vary widely. Tesla has proposed the government cap costs at $75,000 per port, which would mean 80,000 chargers with the new federal funding and matching state dollars.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials suggested the new federal funding was an opportunity to ensure prices for charging are listed in terms of kilowatts per hour and to require that charging can be paid with credit and debit cards, rather than through an account with charging providers. (the latter is a long overdue recommendation)
Various groups disagree about the proximity of chargers. A group of Western state transportation departments said the current 50-mile standard was hard to meet in rural areas. But the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major carmakers, said the distance should be closer to offer convenience similar to filling up at a gas station.
The federal government will consider a particular corridor fully built out when it has at least four 150-kilowatt charging points every 50 miles, with limited exceptions. Once states meet that goal, they can use their remaining money for other charging projects (potentially faster charging DC power options).

“People want to purchase EVs, but they worry about where and when they’ll be able to charge their car. By building EV charging stations across the state in places where people can actually use them, this new federal funding will make EVs more accessible for Hawaii families, create quieter streets, and help the State of Hawaii achieve its ambitious goals for building a clean economy,” said Hawaii’s Brian Schatz, who presently chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.

Auto Dealers and Retailer Outlets Apprehensive

Analysts say higher prices at the dealership represent a conflict rather than a conversance of interests as to role of dealerships in the future of BEV sales. For legacy auto manufacturers, this is a problem only now surfacing and could very well slow expansion of the nation’s nascent BEV sector.

While climate scientists continue to present evidence as to the urgent need to eliminate carbon emissions from transportation, many traditional auto dealers see EV’s as a threat to their livelihood.

Sticker prices for hybrid and electric vehicles have fallen significantly over the past decade, but remain out of reach for the typical car buyer, and recently added pricing barriers of entry for new EV buyers is even a greater market challenge for auto dealers. Pricing premiums of $10,000 or more over MSRP for sought-after electric vehicle models, e.g., Ford’s Mustang Mach-e and F150 Lighting all electric pick-up truck, and Nissan’s forthcoming Ariya crossover are increasingly standard practice.

F-150 Lightning customers have only recently been able to convert their reservations into firm orders, while Ford has been receiving buyer complaints that certain dealerships are raising prices well above MSRP on the vehicles they ordered. Overpricing will certainly dent the reputation of the truck, Ford and its new EV offerings.

Ford and GM’s warnings to their dealer networks not to overprice their new EV models expose a tense undercurrent developing between legacy carmakers and dealers.

It’s more than a threat to business-as-usual for dealerships. Newer and emerging electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla, Rivian and Lucid are now sell directly to buyers, in effect, eliminating the middleman.

At the same time, legacy automakers are banking on consumers to migrate to electric vehicles even as dealers worry they may adopt a direct-sales formula for EVs, following the start-up success of Tesla, and in effect edging them out of a market that’s projected to balloon to nearly $1 trillion by 2030.

Brian Moody, executive editor at Autotrader sees things this way, “This is not because Rivian and Tesla are demanding this,” he said, “it’s because consumers are demanding choice. They’ve gotten used to buying online.” More than three-quarters of F-150 Lightning reservation holders are new to Ford, many coming from recent buying experiences with EV start-ups that have direct-to-consumer sales.

The challenge for manufacturers is to bring their dealer networks into the 21st century

Just because legacy manufacturers are pivoting to EVs, experts say, automakers cannot simply ditch their dealer partners.

Manufacturers mostly don’t want to handle the real estate obligations of sales and service or the logistics of moving finished products. Dealers also have deep expertise in direct sales and local marketing. They know how to get customers in the door and into new cars. Manufacturers in many cases don’t want to take on those specialties. The transformation of the century old industry remains a work in progress, and EV’s, like their zero-to-sixty performance, just sped up that process.

Republicans absent, President Biden’s Climate Plan languishes; held hostage by a one coal state democrat

February 17, 2022/0 Comments/in Climate /by Bill Bugbee, Executive Editor

Meanwhile, hundreds of billions in private investment in a clean energy economy are mostly on hold awaiting Federal action.

Hundreds of billions in private investment in a clean energy economy are mostly on hold awaiting Federal action and Democratic lawmakers to enact clean energy tax credits proposed as part of the President Biden’s Build Back Better bill. According some economists the bill’s tax credit provisions pushes the economics of many projects over the hump.

The proposed bill, backed by President Biden, would pump about $550 billion into the clean energy and climate business, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, about $311 billion of it in the form of tax credits and incentives.

“Investors are waiting in the wings to deploy capital for clean energy, with this industry poised to be the major engine of 21st-century prosperity,” said Leah Stokes, an associate professor of political science at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “Without these government incentives, that capital won’t get deployed. With them, we are poised to have a prosperous clean energy economy.”

Industry groups, as well as climate activists, have been frustrated by the delays. More than 260 clean energy companies wrote to congressional leaders in January saying that each month of delay to the Build Back Better (BBB) tax incentives costs the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion in economic activity.

The letter cited an analysis by the American Clean Power Association that found the legislation would more than double clean energy investment to $750 billion over the next 10 years creating hundreds of thousands of new and good paying American jobs, while advancing America’s transition to a clean energy economy.

The same analysis projected that the credits would cut carbon emissions from the U.S. power sector by roughly 70 percent below 2005 levels — the equivalent of powering 175 million American homes with reliable and climate resilient clean energy.

Are EV’s in Trouble if BBB fails?

On average, the cost of a new electric vehicle, whether all-electric (BEV), and even plug-in hybrids (PHEV) are higher than that of a conventional gas powered car. In the case of 100% battery-electric vehicles (BEV’s) beyond drive off costs, when combined with lifetime owner maintenance costs altogether is cheaper than owing a gas or diesel powered car or truck. There are a number of federal & state electric car tax credits, many with complicated formulas to determine a BEV’s price tag, alos with hidden benefits of fuel savings that lower the upfront cost to potential BEV buyers, but often are apparent without first doing ones’ true cost ownership homework and looking beyond the vehicle’s price tag.

The President Biden’s BBB bill calls for expanding tax credits for Electric Vehicle purchases to as much as $12,500 (legacy Federal and state EV tax credits, some still in effect, offer significantly less financially benefits to BEV buyers on select qualifying models). In the meantime, Detroit and other automakers are (or preparing to) invest billions into new plants to produce EVs. Without Federal EV purchase credits, middle and lower income buyers will have difficult with current electric vehicle price tags, slowing the transition to zero emissions, this is especially true for many of Hawaii’s residents.

This tax credit has a “phase out” built into the program that is dependent on the manufacturer of the car. The phase out will kick in at the beginning of the second calendar quarter after a manufacturer has sold 200,000 eligible BEVs and/or PHEVs. Today, most electric cars brands remain eligible for this EV tax credit, excluding Tesla and GM. The phase out of the current EV purchase tax credit will not be occurring anytime soon, as a whole, the auto industry (other than Tesla) remains in the nascent stages of producing and selling BEV’s at scale.

BBB Passage, Democrats’ remain hopeful…

Democrats, in fact, remain optimistic that the EV and clean energy tax credits will be approved in one form or another.

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — whose opposition has stymied the bill — have expressed support for some of its key climate provisions, including most of the clean energy tax incentives. But Manchin has flipped flopped before on his stated bill commitments, and has also made clear this month that he does not want to approve an economic package right away and is focused on other legislative priorities.

For a large sector of American’s emerging clean energy economy, time is the enemy, both in terms of global competitiveness and global heating.

Without any Republican support in the Senate for meaningful climate solutions, Democrats’ will be forced to go it alone in what is presently an evenly politically divided Senate. If the worse case scenario plays in the 2022 election cycle, and Republicans re-take control of the Senate, and-or possible the House, time-essential climate legislation will be once again off the table.

Climate Change Brings Record Ocean Warmth 2

Great Barrier Reef on verge of another mass bleaching, is Hawaii next?

February 5, 2022/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Temperatures over the Great Barrier Reef in December (summer for Australia) were the highest on record with “alarming” levels of heat that have put this one-of kind ocean jewel on the verge of another mass bleaching of corals. Recent global climate changes represent a new normal of extremes in global air and water temperatures and weather.

According to Kyle Van Houtan, with the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s oceanography research team… “Extreme climate change is here, it’s in the ocean, and the ocean underpins all life on Earth.” More than 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the ocean, which plays a critical role in maintaining a stable climate.

Record breaking high ocean temperatures hit the Great Barrier Reef marine system in what has been considered an unprecedented reef bleaching event of 2015-16. And as these southern hemisphere high ocean temperatures migrated north with seasonal changes, the summer of 2015 was offer no relief for the northern latitudes and the Hawaiian island chain, which experienced a summer of massive coral die-off with devastating and last results to the state’s marine coral reef systems.

Scientists analyzed sea surface temperatures over the last 150 years, which have risen because of global heating linked to rising levels of carbon emissions, primarily associated with fossil fuels. The Monterey Bay research findings determined that extreme temperatures were occurring just 2% of the time a century ago and recently have risen to more than 50% of the time across global oceans since 2014.

What does this mean for Hawaii this coming summer and the state’s marine coral reef systems?

If the global marine heating patterns of 2015-16 repeat, Hawaii can likely expect this summer’s warming to produce further coral die-off, possibly repeating the severe temperature impacts to the corals which survived the 2015 bleaching event. The surviving coral species in Hawaii’s waters represented so-called temperature-tolerant marine corals, which also have their own limits and tolerance to high ocean temperatures.

Recent science and history have taught us that temperature extremes have an outsized impact on ecosystems, including documented changes to near shore marine environments in both latitudes, and from the deep ocean environments to coral reefs, kelp, most fish species, and most other marine life.

The scientists have also examined ocean temperature records from 1920 through 2019, the most recent year available. They found that by 2014, more than 50% of the monthly records across the entire ocean had surpassed the once-in-50–years extreme heat benchmark. The researchers called the year when the percentage passed 50%, and did not fall back below it in subsequent years, the “point of no return”.

By 2019, the proportion of the global ocean suffering extreme heat was 57%. “We expect this to keep on going up,” said Van Houtan. But the extreme heat was particularly severe in some parts of the ocean, with the South Atlantic having passed the point of no return in 1998. “That was 24 years ago – that is astounding,” he said.

“You should care about turtles, seabirds and whales, but even if you don’t, the two most lucrative fisheries in the US, lobster and scallops, are in those exact spots,” said Van Houtan, while 14 fisheries in Alaska have recently been declared federal disasters.

The Climate Connection

The heat content of the top 2,000 meters of the ocean set a new record in 2021, the sixth in a row. Prof John Abraham at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota, one of the team behind the assessment, said ocean heat content was the most relevant to global climate, while surface temperatures were most relevant to weather patterns, as well as many ecosystems.

“Oceans are critical to understanding climate change. They cover about 70% of the planet’s surface and absorb more than 90% of global warming heat,” Abraham said. “The new study is helpful because the researchers look at the surface temperatures. It finds there has been a big increase in extreme heat at the ocean’s surface and that the extremes are increasing over time.”

All coral will suffer severe bleaching when global heating hits 1.5C, study finds. Almost no corals on the planet will escape severe bleaching once global heating reaches 1.5C.

Adding to this correlational data, researchers have examined exactly how much more likely the warm conditions on the Great Barrier Reef were as a result of carbon emissions.

Imagine a world without human-induced global heating – a world without humans and their carbon emissions, the conditions on the Great Barrier Reef that caused the recent past and current bleaching events would have been virtually impossible,” said Dr. Andrew King, University of Melbourne.

Ocean warmth sets record high in 2021; Hawaii in the crosshairs

January 11, 2022/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

The warmth of the world’s oceans hit a new record high.

A new analysis, published Tuesday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, showed that oceans contained the most heat energy in 2021 since measurements began six decades ago — accelerating at a rate only possible because of human-emitted greenhouse gases.

“When you have this long-term upward trend, you’re getting records broken almost every year, and it’s this monotonous increase,” said John Abraham, a co-author of the study and a professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

Data was gathered from a worldwide network of buoys in seven ocean basins.

the team found that ocean waters have been steadily warming since 1958, with each decade warmer than the last. Warming has significantly increased since the 1980s. Over recent decades, portions of the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean have warmed the most.

The longer-term trends brought on by human activity are also overpowering short-term climate fluctuations, such as La Niña and El Niño, which can have regional effects.

“Ocean stores more than 90 percent of the Earth’s net heat gain due to greenhouse gases. Thus, ocean warming is a fundamental indicator of the climate change,” Lijing Cheng, lead author and associate professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, wrote in an email. “The record ocean warming in 2021 is strong evidence that global warming continues.”

Global ocean warming is taking its toll

The 2021 record isn’t surprising, said ocean researcher Linda Rasmussen, who was not involved in the study. Mainly, Rasmussen said, that is because the major driver of ocean warming has not changed. “Because the ocean still absorbs the vast majority of the excess heat, it would be surprising if the trend didn’t continue.”

Last year, the record warmth manifested in several extreme weather events. Warmer water provides more energy, or fuel, for tropical storms, increasing their intensity and longevity. Following a record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, 2021 brought another intense stretch of storms.

Hurricane Ida caused intense flooding and thunderstorms, ranking as the fifth-most expensive hurricane on record, with damage estimated at $75 billion. Hurricane Nicholas and Tropical Storms Elsa and Fred also inflicted billions of dollars’ worth of damage.

The increase in ocean heat also raises air temperatures, allowing more moisture to enter the warmer atmosphere. For every 1.8 degrees of warming, heavy rain events will intensify by about 7 percent. 2021 marked one of the wettest years on record for the East Coast, thanks to a slew of tropical storms and summer thunderstorms.

The unusual December tornadoes that struck several states can also be traced to the warm waters. In December, record warm temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico created an atmosphere more reminiscent of spring than winter. As such, two tornado outbreaks occurred in the southern and central United States in the same week.

Marine Heat Waves

“The coastal ocean temperatures that have broken records repeatedly in recent years would not have broken records without the underlying warming trend that has been in place for many decades,” wrote Rasmussen, a retired researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “Marine heat waves are one of the phenomena that are expected to increase as the ocean as a whole warms.”

“Ocean warming is destabilizing Antarctic ice shelves from underneath, which could lead to the collapse of large pieces of the ice sheet such as the Thwaites glacier, threatening massive . . . sea level rise,” Michael Mann, a co-author of the study and a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, wrote in an email. “This finding really underscores the urgency of acting on climate now.”

Also see: https://www.beyondkona.com/hawaii-based-climate-solutions-needed-now/

Surface air temperatures for the past seven years were the hottest on record, with 2020 and 2016 tied for the warmest. Water, however, is much denser than air and holds heat much better than the atmosphere. It takes a much longer time for the oceans to either cool down or heat up, especially given that they cover more than 70 percent of Earth’s surface.

“If you want to know how fast the Earth is warming, you have to measure the oceans,” Rasmussen said. “Since most of the global warming heat ends up in the oceans, we like to say that ‘global warming is ocean warming.’

Hawaii-based climate solutions needed now

January 11, 2022/1 Comment/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Update: Jan. 11th, 2022

Hawaii Legislature Update on Climate Issues

According to House Finance Committee Chair Sylvia Luke, “now that we have more revenues coming in, we need to make commitments. We need to make money commitments in order for us to address climate change.”

The Environmental Legislative Caucus, a group formed in 2020 to encourage legislative action on environmental issues, plans to introduce a package of measures including visitor green fees, habitat conservation, carbon pricing, health initiatives and more.

Similarly, the Hawaii Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission, a legislative advisory group composed of state and county officials, plans to prioritize ground transportation reduction and adaptation to sea level rise.

Originally Published: Jan. 7th, 2022

Hawaii’s Political Inertia

Hawaii’s District 8 Representative and Chair of the House Energy and Environmental Committee, Nicole Lowen, recently wrote in Civil Beat… “We do not need to look far to see how the climate crisis is shaping life in Hawaii. Climate change is fueling extreme weather across our state, including wildfires and floods.”

Rep. Lowen gets it, which is more than can be said for many of her colleagues in Hawaii’s House and Senate.

There is no way around it, the state, the country, and the world must undertake with all vigor meaningful action to more than just cut fossil fuel emissions, and as a community of islands engage in a true transformation into a sustainable and self-sufficient lifestyle.

For Hawaii, this means greater emphasis on accountability in grand legislative goals with far reaching deadlines, e.g., the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) for conversion to a statewide clean and renewable energy transformation by 2045 – a policy which trades present day fossil fuel dependencies for renewable energy replacements.

This far reaching and insightful statewide energy strategy was born in the 1990’s and has been designed to advance and enable zero emissions clean energy sources, e.g., solar and wind (Hawaii’s natural energy assets). At the same time, the same renewable energy policy allows in costly and polluting fossil fuel energy substitutes, some which directly contribute to, rather than mitigate, climate change impacts. One current example of this mix and match energy policy is Honua Ola (aka Hu Honua) — a costly (in terms of energy replacement costs to the environment and climate), and takes the form a cutting and burning trees-for-energy replacement strategy in partnership with the HECO.

Thwaites; Glacier Meltdown

What’s the hurry you ask, we’ve got time to work out all this climate stuff — well, not really. The climate clock is ticking down to zero hour faster than many people recognize or choose to admit. Never before has the saying …think globally, act locally, applied so well to Hawaii’s future.

Hawaii’s geographic isolation is not a Climate Change solution, nor is this a problem confined to the mainland or far off countries and cultures. Weather, climate, social and economic climate changes are global. Certainly, swaying palm trees, sunrises and sunsets which may momentarily take your breath away are small comfort or relief from a human-induced and runaway climate change experiment now impacting the entire planet.

One example of faraway global changes with local consequences was news of the little known Thwaites Glacier, a West Antarctic Ice Sheet glacier which scientists describe as the cork in the bottle which is holding back rapid sea level rise.

The Thwaites Glacier is size of Britain, and is retreating rapidly as a warming ocean erases its ice from below, leading to faster flow, more fracturing and collapse, according to an international team of scientists. This one glacier currently contributes to over four percent of annual global sea level rise.

“Thwaites is the widest glacier in the world,” according to Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). “It doubled its ice-to-water outflow speed within the last 30 years, and the glacier in its entirety holds enough water to raise sea level by over two feet. This will lead to even more sea-level rise, up to 10 feet, if it draws the surrounding glaciers with it. If Thwaites were to collapse, it would drag most of West Antarctica’s ice with it,” said Scambos.

Scientists, recently speaking at the American Geophysical Union sponsored event, reported that the keystone Antarctic glacier will likely collapse in the next five to ten years. This is by far the most aggressive science-driven projection of a predicted collapse. Fractures that span more than 40 kilometers across nearly the entire Thwaites Glacier and ice shelf are showing signs of an impending collapse. What does have to do with Hawaii.., plenty.

If Thwaites Glacier, and other critical neighboring glaciers such as Pine Island Glacier, cannot hold back the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which holds the equivalent of 3.3 meters (10.8 feet) in sea level, it will affect coastlines across the world, and most certainly islands throughout the Pacific, including the Hawaii.

The submerged mountain of ice, the size of Florida, presently serves as a sea barrier for the massive Antarctic ice flow — in effect, Thwaites is the a cork in a bottle for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Thwaites Glacier (the melting tongue, aka cork in the bottle)

What does this mean for Hawaii?

To start… the corresponding sea level rise from a Thwaites Glacier meltdown will likely result in a new norm for Hawaii’s famous beaches, coastline properties and commercial assets, including ports and airports, projected impacts previously acknowledged by internal state studies.

Rising sea levels will also bring with them not only flooding, but saltwater invasion of fresh water supplies across the island chain.

Fisheries and coral reefs are already facing human-induced climate stressors. The livelihoods they support are also threatened by escalating ocean temperatures and ocean acidification, with sea level rise just one more disruptive component tied to ever growing state of global climate heating. It’s no wonder that economic and social consequences of climatic change now underway will not exempt Hawaii from these transformational changes.

The U.S. Pacific Islands are culturally and environmentally diverse, and treasured by the 1.4 million people who call Hawaii home.

As a region, the Pacific islands are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts due to their exposure and isolation, small size, low elevation (in the case of atolls), and concentration of infrastructure and economy along the coasts.

In multiple assessments lead by Department of Commerce / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in a “Nati0nal Climate Assessment” various participating federal government agencies agree on several common conclusions as to global heating impacts specific to Hawaii and other Pacific island communities:

“Sea level rise will disproportionately affect the tropical Pacific, potentially exceeding projected global sea level rise estimates”.

The impacts of sea level rise in the Pacific include coastal erosion, episodic flooding, permanent inundation, heightened exposure to marine hazards, and saltwater intrusion to surface water and groundwater systems.

The Federal strategy towards addressing climate changes for the Pacific region has been summed up this way:

“Across the region, groups are coming together to minimize damage and disruption from coastal flooding and inundation as well as other climate-related impacts. Social cohesion is already strong in many communities, making it possible to work together to take action. Early intervention can lower economic, environmental, social, and cultural costs and reduce or prevent conflict and displacement from ancestral land and resources.”

What Can Hawaii Do?

We can start by addressing with our own contributions to the problem…

We can develop local and proactive solutions that include, but are not limited; corrective measures which support environmental-climate friendly economic opportunities based on sustainable economics and business practices.

As this new year gets underway a coalition statewide groups have joined together to contribute their ideas and expertise to the challenges facing Hawaii. The coalition’s mission is to provide representative solutions to the public and politicians as Hawaii Environmental Change Agents (HECA). The coalition’s priorities for 2022 and beyond has been summed up this way:

“The extreme weather caused by climate change is becoming more severe and more pervasive throughout the world,” according to Charley Ice, a member of the event planning committee…” “Climate change is such a large and complex issue that a multi-faceted approach is needed. We will explore Hawaii’s most effective, practical alternatives…”

A diverse set of citizen groups comprise Hawaii Environmental Change Agents, their agenda focus for Hawaii’s 2022 legislative session reflects the diversity of the working group and includes, but is not limited to;

Carbon Pricing
Visitor Impact Fee (Green Fee)
Green Constitutional Amendment
Decarbonization of Transportation
Decarbonization of Buildings
Carbon Sequestration
Renewable Clean Energy Reforms
Wastewater and Cesspool Reforms
Hawaii Reef, Reef fish, and Ocean Protections
Climate Justice

There are an estimated 300 environmental organizations currently active in Hawaii.

Energy Reforms; Essential to Hawaii’s Decarbonization Goals

January 7, 2022/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Key to Climate mitigation measures are the state’s on-going and overdue transition to clean, renewable, and self-sufficient energy generation. BeyondKona has reported extensively on the energy and its linkage to all aspects of life in Hawaii. Designed to power Hawaii’s economy, transportation, and telecommunications infrastructures, this statewide energy transition is essential on Hawaii’s path to sustainability.

Key Energy Facts for the State

Hawaii was the first state to set a deadline for generating 100% of its electricity from renewable energy sources, which is required to be achieved by 2045.
Despite being among the five states with the lowest total energy consumption, Hawaii uses about 11 times more energy than it produces. More than four-fifths of Hawaii’s energy consumption is petroleum, making it the most petroleum-dependent state.
In 2019, solar power provided more than half of Hawaii’s total renewable electricity generation, primarily from small-scale, customer-sited solar panel systems, which have roughly tripled in capacity since 2015.
The amount of Hawaii’s coal-fired generation in 2019 was the lowest since 1992, and coal fueled 12% of the state’s electricity generation. The state’s one coal-fired power plant is scheduled to be retired in 2022.
Hawaii has the highest average electricity retail price of any state, in part because it relies on imported petroleum for more than 60% of its electricity generation.

Hawaii’s Transition to a Clean Energy Economy

Hawaii’s successful transition to a clean energy economy, one which is fully decarbonized, will require all stakeholders participation. Missing from this conversation has mostly been the general public. Traditional stakeholder roles have been primarily limited to the state’s two electric utilities, their energy suppliers, one or two advocacy participants, and Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

Beyond Hawaii’s stranglehold dependency on imported fossil fuels to run its economy, the public policy focus has been on switching Hawaii’s energy fueling priorities to locally generated energy sources. This has been no small task for the key stakeholders, Hawaii’s two principal utilities, one private and publicly-traded Hawaiian Electric (HECO), and the other, Kauai’s energy cooperative, KIUC.

David…

Beyond the obvious ownership, size, and business model differences between Hawaii’s two electric utilities, there is the question of good faith compliance by the two utilities in meeting the state’s far out and far reaching transformational energy goals.

It is also a David and Goliath comparison between KIUC (Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative) and Hawaiian Electric (HECO).

Kauai’s local energy cooperative has demonstrated nimble innovation in its deployment of advanced zero emissions energy replacements (solar and battery storage) for what was a primarily fossil-fueled grid. KIUC’s aggressive conversion to utility scale solar energy, coupled to its leadership in utility scale battery deployments, is not only impressive, but demonstrates a good faith compliance with state’s renewable energy goal, and at the same time has proven to be beneficial to KIUC ratepayers — all in the name of decarbonization of electricity at a utility scale.

… and Goliath

Over 20 years into the state’s renewable energy mandate the state’s largest utility, HECO, has made some progress towards its 100% conversion to renewable energy, but has focused its limited efforts on fringe energy options also allowed under the state’s current (all-in) renewable energy portfolio standard, largely ignoring solar, wind, and renewable energy storage options. These utility scale misfires recently culminated in the utility’s awaking of the long anticipated and state-mandated shutdown of the state’s only coal-fired power plant, AES, located in Oahu.

Last week, HECO asked its customers on Oahu “to conserve energy especially between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m”, because the AES coal plant is now operating at less than half its capacity, and five other generators are offline, along with operational other issues. The utility has also been lobbying for an extension of AES operations beyond the 2022 shut down mandate deadline.

Hawaii’s RPS law is not a state secret. The problem HECO faces is bigger than any specific event, rather it is one of the utility’s own making. The utility has had years to plan and to take action, yet as recently as 2020, HECO’s own Management Audit summed things this way, “… the Company’s planning assumptions and business strategy must reflect a 100% renewables future. In addition, it is anticipated that much of the new renewable generation will be provided from third party developers through PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements) rather than by the Company”.

This awaking statement by HECO management could easily be interrupted as a response to … so we failed to take RPS compliance actions, wasted time and ratepayer savings, let clean and renewable solar and wind energy replacement opportunities come and go in recent years. So can fix all this by outsourcing the problem to third parties through PPA’s. After all, that may not be a bad strategy for Goliath of a utility not known for taking innovative and bold steps forward while clinging onto a business model vested in the past.

Hawaii, a National Leader in Solar Power?

The current RPS, under § 269-92, Hawaii Revised Statutes (“HRS”), requires electric utilities in the State to generate at least the following amounts of electricity from renewable sources as a percentage of electricity sales by year:

2010 10%
2015 15%
2020 30%
2030 40%
2040 70%
2045 100%

Recent state energy history revealed an interesting lesson for regulators and the regulated. Leave the state’s clean energy goal to market forces and technology, and all things become possible.

Case in point; Net Metering (NEM), an experiment in market forces, which by some utility sector interpretation, turned utility customers with roof top solar installations into utility competitors.

Hawaii’s original NEM program represented many things to many people, but it did accomplished a significant and sustainable transition off Hawaii’s oil and coal-fired power generation plants to the state’s most abundant and clean energy asset: sunlight.

In reality, Hawaii’s short lived experiment with its highly successful NEM program of economic equity between utility customers (as both consumers and power producers), and the utilities holding all the cards in partnership, unfortunately did not last. The NEM experiment demise was not unique to Hawaii. Its popularity and market force changes made it just too disruptive for traditional utilities to adapt.

The original NEM did supercharge a statewide roof top solar adoption renaissance, the most notable period to date in state’s RPS transition off of imported fossil fuels.

The solar adoption boom years of 2012 -2015 also produced an economic boom with the creation of thousands of good paying solar jobs within the state. But perhaps the lasting effect of the brief and highly successful experiment was the sustainable and rapid transformation of the state’s energy dependency from a sole source utility grid provider to a highly efficient and distributed power generation and usage environment.

Equally important, the original NEM program laid the foundation for the recent and expanding adoption of energy management and storage at the point of consumption, free from grid dependencies and accompanying power uncertainties.

But all things must pass, including Hawaii’s successful and equitable NEM problem. HECO, like other for profit electric utilities around the country systematically and successfully lobbied the shutdown of what was for Hawaii at least, a remarkably statewide success, only to be replaced with NEM replacements laden with roof top solar adoption road blocks and economic disincentives.

Solar power provides a significant boost to Hawaii’s efforts to build a clean energy future. By the end of 2015, Oahu residents had nearly 41,600 rooftop solar systems with a capacity of 343 MW, significantly more than the largest conventional HECO generator on the island.

Distributed roof top solar couple to battery storage offers several benefits to Hawaii’s residential and commercial buildings. For one, energy security advantages not otherwise available through today’s utility-controlled and vulnerable centralized power generation and distribution grid system.

Aligning energy efficiency strategies with longer term renewable energy goals effectively increases the share of renewables in the generation portfolio. Unless the rising demand for energy is addressed, and that’s not fully possible with the added demand for power in the electrification of transportation now underway in that state and beyond.

Summary

Increases in the rapid statewide adoption of non-polluting, emissions free renewables can no longer be relegated to some future vision with arbitrary deadlines. A fact of life that we must all address as power consumers and producers. The Climate Change bill for the past 150 years of polluting energy dependencies has finally come due; both globally and locally. The state legislature should no longer delay in making meaningful changes and corrections to an outdated RPS law, and provide clear guidance to the state’s two electric utilities to focus on ‘proven” clean and renewable energy replacements options.

The Climate clock is ticking down to zero hour, and 2045 may be too late for Hawaii to mitigate the most serious of social, climate, and economic impacts. And as interesting as unproven and experimental energy replacement options may represent, the need for local, reliable, cost effective, and zero emissions energy replacement options is now. The good news is these clean energy replacement options are available today to Hawaii’s electric utilities.

The course for the state’s energy future was set in late 1990’s. As the state struggles to transition off its primary energy dependence of imported fossil fuels to power the grid, there is a wrinkle to meeting a statewide goal by 2045 for 100% renewable energy generation — that is, the state’s recent policy shift and market changes towards the electrification of public and private ground transportation – an impact which is now only being considered for its cause and effect relationship to the state’s 100% renewable energy timetable.

Edward O Wilson; the real Ant Man

January 1, 2022/0 Comments/in Environment /by Bill Bugbee

…his insights will be missed

Edward O Wilson, a US naturalist known to some as the “modern-day Darwin”, died on Sunday at the age of 92 in Massachusetts. Alongside the British naturalist David Attenborough, Wilson was considered one of the world’s leading authorities on natural history and conservation.

Wilson had warned many times that humans can not continue to use the land and resources of the planet absent of environmental and social consequences.

The insightful biologist was caught up in controversies at times during his career. Nevertheless, he warned that “we live in a delusional state” if we do not understand the burden that the western way of life imposes on Earth. A warning that rings true, especially as the consequences of human-induced climate change continue to increase.

Wilson has been called “the father of sociobiology” and “the father of biodiversity” for his environmental advocacy. Among his contributions to ecological theory is the theory of island biogeography (developed in collaboration with the mathematical ecologist Robert MacArthur), and has served as the foundation for conservation area design, as well as the unifying theory of biodiversity of Stephen P. Hubbell.

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” E.O. Wilson

Wilson came to think of nature as his favorite companion and spent hours prowling forests, streams and swamps, observing wildlife. A childhood fishing accident left his vision so impaired that he could not observe larger animals from a distance. Instead, he concentrated on smaller creatures, and foremost, ants. Wilson’s studies and findings revealed how nature’s smallest of creatures exist, and how their social hierarchy resembled humans in some ways, but also greatly differed in other ways, especially in living in balance with their natural environment.

There are thousands of different species of ant, no one is sure since most of them are unknown to science, and perhaps a hundred million billion of the creatures are alive at any one time living in colonies of elegant social complexity. Humanity still has lessons to learn from Earth’s smallest of creatures, and one outstanding lesson is working together to ensure the survival of the colony.

COP 26: What was accomplished?

November 23, 2021/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

In what many consider COP 26 as humanity’s moment for world leaders to correct a dangerous planetary course, national climate pledges are too weak to avoid catastrophic global warming. Most countries are on track to miss them anyway. The global effort to combat climate change boils down to this: Moving forward; or business-as usual and damn the consequences.

The in-depth study published earlier this week by the Center for International Climate Research (Cicero), concluded temperature outcomes based on countries’ climate pledges were full of uncertainties. Using data on goals set about a year ago, the world now is on a trajectory to warm anywhere between 1.7°C and 3.8°C by 2100 compared with pre-industrial levels. Other analyses that used the most recent data from COP26 came to similar conclusions.

In face of this facts and scientific conclusions, how much did the world accomplish at the Glasgow climate talks – and what happens now? The answer depends in large part on where you live.

In Pacific island nations that are losing their homes to sea level rise, and in other highly vulnerable countries, there were bitter pills to swallow after global commitments to cut emissions fell far short of the goal to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7°F).

Hawaii is far from exempt from climate consequences with the state’s major airports and ports at sea level, both representing the state’s connection to the outside world and its supply chain dependencies.

For large middle-income countries, like India and South Africa, there were signs of progress on investments needed for developing clean energy.

In the developed world, countries still have to internalize, politically, that bills are coming due – both at home and abroad – after decades of delaying action on climate change. The longer the delay, the more difficult the transition will be.

There were also signs of hope as coalitions of companies, governments and civil society and indigenous peoples groups forced progress on issues such as stopping deforestation, cutting methane, ending coal use and boosting zero-emissions vehicles. Now, those promises must be acted upon.

Here are five key elements to watch over the coming year as countries move forward on their promises.

Bending the curve to 1.5°C

Going into the Glasgow summit, countries’ commitments had put the world on a trajectory of warming about 2.9°C this century, well beyond the 1.5°C goal and into levels of warming that will bring dangerous climate impacts. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement in the first days (much to the surprise of Indian observers) that India would reach net zero emissions by 2070 and generate 50% of its energy from renewables by 2030 helped lower that trajectory to 2.4°C.

Countries agreed to return for the next round of climate talks in November 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with stronger commitments to put the world on track for 1.5°C.

U.S. Talking Points

That turns the spotlight back on national action. China reminded everyone, while throwing shade at the U.S., that goals must be backed with plans for implementation. U.S. Cabinet members and Congressional leaders had much to say in Glasgow about being “back,” after the previous administration withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. Yet they had little to offer in terms of the U.S. share of the finance, and the world cast a worried eye over its continued partisan politics.

Deals Done

While all countries are important for reaching the world’s climate goals, some are more important than others.

Countries that are high emitters and heavily dependent on coal will be a focus of international attention in the coming months, not just to phase down coal but importantly to fund a just transition to green sources of energy and the necessary electricity infrastructure.

The poster child for this approach is South Africa, where a presidential commission has worked for three years to develop a just transition plan and has been able to attract US$8.5 billion from the U.K., the EU, the U.S. and others to help them execute on it. That, coupled with guarantees and other financial aid that could help draw further private investment, could become a replicable model.

The key was national ownership. In the year ahead, look for plans to come together in Indonesia and Vietnam and other countries needing to fast forward away from coal.

Follow the Money

In the first week of Glasgow, the titans of the financial industry heralded the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero – the commitment by financial institutions representing $130 trillion in assets to accelerate the transition to a net-zero emissions economy. The shifts within financial markets away from exposure to carbon emissions was palpable. But without more detail, the announcement attracted cries of “greenwashing.”

Throughout Glasgow’s conference halls, officials complained that finance wasn’t flowing to help them succeed.

This isn’t just a climate finance problem. Many countries are also facing economic disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic and have chafed at the way international financial institutions fail to address issues of access to finance and trade. Advanced economies didn’t come to Glasgow ready to provide even the $100 billion a year in finance promised a decade ago, which shrank the landing zone for agreement on all issues.

The Chinese calculate the value of growth lost through a few measures, such as floods and heat. Unsurprisingly it amounts to trillions of dollars. It may be a useful exercise whenever a government balks at the “cost” of climate action.

In the end, governments agreed to reach the $100 billion annual climate finance target within the next two years and agreed that adaptation funding should double. But with the U.N. Environment Program estimating that adaptation funds will need to quadruple by 2030 from today’s $70 billion, there’s a long way to go.

Climate action is a three-legged stool – mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage.

Loss and damage was mentioned an unprecedented 12 times in the final Glasgow texts, but without commitments to funding or mechanisms to secure funding. Loss and damage, or reparations, can be understood this way: you broke it (or endangered it), you pay for it. But, afraid of lawsuits in international courts – which the U.S. does not belong to – or afraid of the costs, developed countries have opposed progress on the issue in recent years.

Developing countries left Glasgow disappointed, but there was no escaping the debate. Although a wonky subject for climate change watchers, future progress is needed towards establishing a global mechanism to help pay for climate-induced losses and damages. With the next year’s U.N. climate conference will be held in Africa, the subject will then likely move to center stage on go-forward agreements between developing and developed countries.

.. recommended additional reading: COP26 — Success or Failure?

Going All Electric Takes Flight, and breaks speed record

November 22, 2021/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Just two months after its maiden flight, Rolls-Royce’s “Spirit of Innovation” has hit a top speed of 387.4 MPH, tentatively smashing the speed record for electric airplanes.

It also claimed the top speed of 345.4 MPH over a 3 kilometer (1.86 mile) course and lowest time to a 3,000 meter (9,843 feet) altitude (202 seconds). The records have yet to be certified, but if the 345.5 MPH speed stands, it would beat the current record of 213 MPH — held by a Siemens-powered Extra 330LE — by an impressive 132 MPH.

Rolls-Royce (the aviation, not the car company), conducted the tests on November 16th. To have the records certified, it’s submitting the trials to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the body in charge of world aviation records. If confirmed, the speeds would be pretty impressive considering that the plane only made its maiden flight in September — suggesting that with more time, it could go even faster.

The Spirit of Innovation is an old-school “tail-dragger” airplane (steering at the rear) with the canopy pushed way back, and looks as fast as it goes. It’s powered by a 400 kW (535 HP), 750 volt motor. Rolls-Royce said it uses the “most power-dense propulsion battery pack ever assembled in aerospace,” with 6,480 cells.

Presently, electric airplanes aren’t yet full practical in terms of range, since current batteries are 50 times less energy dense than jet fuel. Their introduction holds great promise for shorter commuter runs, of less than two hours flying time, ideal of Hawaii’s interisland air routes. And unlike non-turbocharged ICE engines, electric motors retain full power as an airplane climbs, making them ideal for time-to-altitude record attempts — as the Spirit of Innovation has just shown.

Other E-Plane Examples

For $140,000, you can fly your own electric airplane. The Slovenian company Pipistrel sells the Alpha Electro, the first electric aircraft certified as airworthy by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2018. It’s a welterweight at just 811 pounds (368 kilograms), powered by a 21 kWh battery pack—about one-fifth the power of what you’d find in a Tesla Model S. For about 90 minutes, the pilot training plane will keep you and a companion aloft without burning a drop of fossil fuel.

Those of us without a pilot license will have to wait longer for emissions-free flight—but not much. For all its challenges, 2020 has proven to be a milestone year for electric aviation. Electric aircraft set new distance records, replicated short commercial flight paths, won over the US military, and attracted buyers from big airlines.

And in June, European regulators granted another of Pipistrel’s aircraft, the Velis Electro, the world’s first electric “type certification,” deeming the entire aircraft design safe and ready for mass production (airworthiness only certifies individual aircraft). Much more is coming. Within two years, you’ll be able to watch Air Race E, a circuit that pits eight electric-powered airplanes against each other, zooming just 32 feet (10 meters) off the ground at 280 mph (450 kph). Electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) leaders Archer, Joby, and Beta are reading their battery-powered flights on the question for certification.

Half of all global flights are shorter than 500 miles. That’s the sweet spot for electric aircraft. Fewer moving parts, less maintenance, and cheap(er) electricity means costs may fall by more than half to about $150 per hour (smaller airplanes like Pipistrel’s cost just a few dollars). For airlines, this makes entirely new routes now covered by car and train possible (and profitable) thanks to lower fuel, maintenance, and labor costs.

Electric propulsion nearly solves another problem for aviation: carbon emissions. Aviation emits more than 2% of the world’s CO2 emissions, and it may reach nearly a quarter by mid-century. With no alternative fuel ready to leave the ground, and the number of air passengers set to double by 2035, electricity may offer the industry its best way forward in a climate-constrained world.

Fossil Fuel Propaganda and Lobbying, So Far Successful

November 4, 2021/1 Comment/in Climate /by BeyondKona

(newly updated, originally published October 30th)

ExxonMobil and Chevron are the world’s most obstructive organizations when it comes to governments setting climate policies, according to research into the “prolific and highly sophisticated” lobbying ploys used by the fossil fuel industry.

The biggest US oil companies, as well as American Petroleum Institute, a lobby group, were found to be the worst offenders in a global report by lobbying experts at the thinktank InfluenceMap. It concluded that companies were manipulating governments to take “incredibly dangerous paths” in their approach to climate action.

Oil giants have mounted “intense resistance” to Joe Biden’s green agenda, according to the report, as the US president’s administration attempted to shift the country away from fossil fuels.

The report was published on Thursday before talks at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. It also came a week after ExxonMobil’s chief executive, Darren Woods, was accused of lying to the US Congress when he denied that the company had covered up its own research about oil’s contribution to the climate crisis.

The report said corporate lobbying tactics in part explained why regulators in some countries such as Australia have struggled to build support for more ambitious climate policy in the lead-up to Cop26 and were increasingly viewed as “a road block in global negotiations”.

The United Nations COP26 summit is bringing fresh scrutiny to the spread of misleading climate information online, with critics of social media giants like Facebook unleashing a wave of studies they say show companies are amplifying and profiting off climate change denial.

On Tuesday, the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate(CCDH) released a report that found a small group of publishers plays an oversized role in pushing content on Facebook that undermines climate science, including the far-right website Breitbart.

And on Thursday, the “Stop Funding Heat” campaign is unveiling a new study they claim “shows Facebook’s climate misinformation problem is not only bigger than the company suggests, but that it stands to get even worse.”

The group said it found at least 113 ads on Facebook between January and mid-October that misrepresented or undermined climate science, and estimated based on how frequently users interacted with the messages that they had been seen millions of times. And they found that a sample of 41 pages and groups that they identified as frequent posters of climate misinformation saw user engagements rise substantially from earlier this year.

The actions arrive as global leaders including President Biden gather in Glasgow, Scotland, to hash out their plans to slow climate change, and as lawmakers on Capitol Hill consider climate provisions in their reconciliation talks.

Climate misinformation was also a focus during a high-profile hearing with CEOs from top fossil fuel companies last week, where Democratic lawmakers grilled the executives about their messaging on social media platforms.

During one exchange, Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) questioned ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods about a reported uptick in their spending on Facebook ads since June, while lawmakers on Capitol Hill have considered major funding boosts for climate initiatives.

Casten asked why the company would suddenly spend more on “a platform that’s designed to amplify disinformation.” Woods said at the time that he did not have the spending data available.

In anticipation of the COP26 summit, which began Sunday and runs through Nov. 12, social media companies, including Facebook and Twitter, announced new initiatives aimed at curbing misinformation and surfacing authoritative news about climate change.

Facebook global affairs chief Nick Clegg said the company planned to expand its hub for “factual resources” on climate change to more than 100 countries and increase the number of countries in which they apply informational labels to posts on climate, doubling them from eight to 16.

Twitter, meanwhile, unveiled a plan to “pre-bunk” climate misinformation by directing users to online hubs containing “credible, authoritative information” on the topic that will appear across several of the platform’s features.

A YouGOV poll revealed this week that 60% of Americans say oil firms are to blame for the climate crisis.

Yet, in light of the evidence presented before a House congressional hearing last week, culminating in overwhelming evidence that fossil fuel companies participated in a decades long coverup of the facts as to the dangers of Global Warming, 40% of Americans are apparently ready to give the fossil fuel industry a pass; ignoring the evidence linking fossil extraction, production, and consumption to an unregulated global experiment in hubris and global climate modification.

In fact, even when it was revealed that oil and gas companies knowingly misled the public about their products which are driving climate change, most Republicans in the national poll said the public and the government should not hold those companies accountable. At the same time, nearly two in three Republicans believe oil and gas companies are at least somewhat responsible for the climate crisis.

The poll findings suggest that much of the marketing campaigns that fossil fuel companies have released to paint themselves in a positive light have worked.

Big oil has bankrolled multimillion-dollar campaigns for decades which downplay the climate crisis and were designed to misled the public with misinformation campaigns and tactics, that included rebranding the scientific description of fossil fuel impacts on the environment from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change”, primarily because the term was less alarming to the public, previously validated through Big Oil financed focus groups. Repositioning reality, Big Oil for decades convinced a large segment of the public and policy makers that Global Warming was only a theory, not based in scientific fact. The same companies financing the media influence campaigns, knew better, as their own internal scientific studies continue to provide alarming evidence and conclusions linking fossil fuel emissions directly to global warming.

The same poll suggests the industry’s media efforts were especially effective with Republican voters, who were heavily influenced by misleading anti-science climate stories promoted through extreme conservative channels, e.g. Fox News and Newsmax.

Big Oil’s Message Contradicts its Own Research

The fossil fuel majors Exxon, BP, Shell message strategy was simple enough, change the narrative from Big Oil to individuals who are responsible for climate change, not corporations invested in fossil fuels. The poll revealed these media efforts were and are working – even with Democrats. The idea of a “carbon footprint” was introduced by fossil fuel companies to encourage individuals to reduce their emissions, and framed Earth’s runaway emissions as a problem that can be changed simply by changing consumer habits. But consumers are only a small part of the problem, rather, it is the dirty energy economy upon which the world depends which must change in order for the world to successfully mitigate the worst effects of a century of ever increasing global warming emissions on the climate.

For decades oil and gas companies ignored their own scientists who told them their products were harmful to people and the environment as early as the 1970s.

As early as 1958, the oil industry was hiring scientists and engineers to research the role that burning fossil fuels plays in global warming. The goal at the time was to help the major oil conglomerates understand how changes in the Earth’s atmosphere may affect the industry – and their bottom line. But what top executives gained was an early preview of the climate crisis, decades before the issue reached public consciousness.

What those scientists discovered – and what the oil companies did with that information – is at the heart of two dozen lawsuits attempting to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for their role in climate change.

Many of those cases hinge on the industry’s own internal documents that show how, 40 years ago, researchers predicted the rising global temperatures with stunning accuracy.

ClientEarth lodged a complaint in 2019 alleging that BP’s advertising campaigns had misled the public by focusing on the company’s low carbon energy products, when more than 96% of its annual spend was on oil and gas. BP withdrew the ads before the complaint was assessed. ClientEarth said it was now putting other fossil fuel companies on notice over greenwashing adverts.

“We’re currently witnessing a great deception, where the companies most responsible for catastrophically heating the planet are spending millions on advertising campaigns about how their business plans are focused on sustainability,” said Johnny White, one of ClientEarth’s lawyers. “We need to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, but instead of leading a low-carbon transition, these companies are putting out advertising which distracts the public and launders their image. Our research shows these adverts are misrepresenting the true nature of fossil fuel companies’ businesses, of their contribution to climate change, and of their transition plans.”

Big Oil’s Scientific Findings on Global Warming Were Correct

Dr Martin Hoffert, 83, physicist and Exxon consultant from 1981 to 1987, put it this way. “When I started consulting for Exxon, I had already begun to understand that the Earth’s climate would be affected by carbon dioxide. There were only a small number of people in the world who were actively working on this problem because the global warming signal had not yet manifested itself in the data.

We were doing very good work at Exxon. We had eight scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals, including a prediction of how much global warming from carbon dioxide buildup would be 40 years later.

We made a prediction in 1980 of what the atmospheric warming would be from fossil fuel burning in 2020. We predicted that it would be about one degree celsius. And it turned out to about one and half degrees celsius.

It never actually occurred to me that this was going to become a political problem. I thought: “We’ll do the analyses, we’ll write reports, the politicians of the world will see the reports and they’ll make the appropriate changes and transform our energy system somehow.”

I’m a research scientist. In my field, if you discover something and it turns out to be valid, you’re a hero. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to convince people, even when they saw objective evidence of this happening.

The Big Oil Justifies its Decades Old Campaign of Hiding the Truth

In a covert recording released by Greenpeace earlier this year, the Exxon lobbyist Keith McCoy is heard on camera saying the company is actively fighting the Biden administration’s efforts on climate change, and admits that Exxon pushed back against climate science.

“Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing, there’s nothing illegal about that,” he says in the recording. “We were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders.”