Federal Government is Longtime Supporter of Fracking

The following is cross posted with www.DCBureau.org, which you can read here. 

By Nick Cunningham, September 5, 2013

Friday August 23 marked the end of the public comment period for the Department of Interior’s draft “fracking rule” on public lands. The rule, originally proposed by Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in May 2013, has three main components: it would require drillers to disclose the chemicals used in fracking on public lands; it would setup standards for well integrity to safeguard against groundwater contamination; and it would require drillers to have a plan in place to deal with flow back.

Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX)

The oil and gas industry have put up stiff resistance with cries that regulation will kill off any hopes of “energy independence.” House Republicans oppose the measure, and as Greenwire reported, Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) put forth legislation that would block BLM’s fracking rule. Flores, the former CEO of Phoenix Exploration, an oil and gas company, argued at a subcommittee hearing in July, “[t]he Bill before us today is about empowering local self-government in placing a check on the growth of an out-of-control, one-size-fits-all federal government.” Congressman Flores seemed to have not realized (or more likely willfully ignored) that BLM’s rule applies to federal lands, not state lands.

Despite vociferous rhetoric from Republicans in Congress and the oil and gas industry to the contrary, the federal government has long-been in bed with the industry.

In 2005 President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act into law (then Senator Obama supported the bill) with a provision that specifically exempted fracking activities from certain provisions in the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act. The provision is known as the “Halliburton loophole” as it was included at the request of then Vice President Dick Cheney. The loophole has successfully removed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate fracking.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)

Some members of Congress have since fought to close the loophole, without success. Rep. Diane DeGette (D-CO) sponsored The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act in 2009 that would have repealed the Halliburton loophole, but it died in committee.

When Barack Obama took office in January 2009, there was new hope that the oil and gas industry would no longer receive such favorable treatment. In 2009 the EPA began sampling wells in Pavillion, WY in response to complaints from local residents near drilling sites that their well water appeared to be dark and dirty, and smelled of petroleum. EPA officials ran tests in areas fracked by Encana Oil & Gas in what would become a closely watched study because of its potential impact on future regulation of the industry.

In 2011 the EPA issued a draft report with results from Wyoming that discovered the presence of synthetic chemicals used in the fracking process. It also found benzene in quantities above what is considered safe, as well as high levels of methane. The report was the first significant and official link between fracking and groundwater contamination. The industry disputed the findings, arguing that the report was flawed, but the study was seemingly a watershed moment in the unfolding fracking narrative.

Yet, on June 20, 2013, EPA dropped its investigation and handed it over to the state of Wyoming.

The decision came only five days before President Obama laid out his plan to fight climate change in a major speech at Georgetown University, which relied heavily on natural gas. Environmental groups are outraged over what they see as a calculated political move by the White House, directing the EPA to stop work on the study.

Because natural gas theoretically emits only half of the greenhouse gases compared to coal, President Obama made increased natural gas production a central pillar of his plan, stating, “Sometimes there are disputes about natural gas, but let me say this: We should strengthen our position as the top natural gas producer because, in the medium term at least, it not only can provide safe, cheap power, but it can also help reduce our carbon emissions.”

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY)

By favoring natural gas, the President seemed to be providing cover for other parts of his climate plan, which may over time force the shutdown of many of the nation’s existing coal plants. He is using natural gas to kill off coal.

This is why, some think, the EPA was pressured into backing off its fracking study, handing over responsibility to the state of Wyoming. The study will be funded by Encana, the company that owns the wells in the area.

Industry supporters cheered, as did Wyoming’s congressional delegation. In a press release, Senator John Barrasso (R) said, “EPA’s decision to not rely on premature conclusions in its 2011 draft report is a positive and wise step.” Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis (R) added, “Today they finally recognized that the very best place for their report on fracking in Pavillion is in the dust bin of history.”

Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)

The fact that the administration seems to be fully embracing natural gas does not bode well for rigorous regulatory oversight. And for the first time, industry is looking to lease Eastern national forests. While the oil and gas industry may oppose BLM’s proposed fracking rule for fear of burdensome regulation, if history is any guide, they have little reason to worry.

Civil Disobedience and the Keystone XL Pipeline

by Duncan Gromko

More than 100 people showed up at the State Department early Monday morning to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama and the State Department have been considering the approval of the pipeline since 2011, repeatedly delaying their decision. In a recent speech, Obama said that the pipeline will not be approved if it has a significant impact on climate change.

The protestors were planning to block the entrance to the State Department and risk arrest from the Washington, D.C. metro police. In the past, Keystone critics have been arrested and these arrests brought attention to the environmental risks of the pipeline. However, on Monday, the police did not oblige and the protest received little attention.

Nearly a month ago, 54 people were arrested inside the lobby of the D.C.-based firm Environmental Resources Management (ERM). The group was protesting the consulting firm’s involvement in putting together the State Department’s report on the environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline. The report found that the pipeline would not lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that the tar sands moved by the pipeline would be extracted whether or not the pipeline is approved (here is the best analysis I’ve seen on the possible impact of the pipeline).

In addition to challenging the content of ERM’s report, the protestors claimed that ERM did not acknowledge a conflict of interest. Analysts that worked on the ERM report had previously worked for TransCanada – the company building the pipeline. The Department of State is now conducting an inquiry into whether or not that conflict exists.

As a supporter of more aggressive steps to address climate change, I’ve been thinking about the effectiveness of these actions while reading “Waging Nonviolent Struggle,” a tome by Gene Sharp on the history of civil disobedience. Sharp considers the history of nonviolent social movements, different tactics used, and their effectiveness. I think his key point is the following: “The persons who are at any point the rulers do not personally possess the power of control, administration, and repression they wield. How much power they possess depends on how much power society will grant them.” According to Sharp, nonviolent action is a movement’s way of taking back that power.

These Keystone protests and the climate movement in general sometimes differ from many of the nonviolent case studies in Sharp’s book: the Russian Revolution, Indian Independence Campaign, California Grape Worker’s Strike and Boycott, Ending Bus Segregation in Montgomery, etc. The actions taken in Sharp’s examples tend to directly express the protestors’ vision of the change they would like to see. In India, for instance, people collected and traded salt in defiance of British law. Grape pickers in California refused to work. Pipeline opponents have been arrested for actively blocking the construction of the pipeline. In comparison, the protestors at the ERM building were arrested for unlawful entry.

Indians wanted independence from the British, so they protested their laws. The situation for climate advocates is more complicated. Their goal is not to overthrow Obama. Instead, they want to change a carbon-based energy infrastructure on which we all depend. To get to the climate protests, activists drive, take trains, and even fly – all acts that emit carbon and work counter to their end goal. These actions do not undermine their cause. They simply illustrate our country’s total dependence on energy from carbon sources and the absence of alternative transportation choices.

The ideal climate nonviolent struggle would be an economic boycott of carbon (like the divestment push), where participants refused to use energy from carbon sources. Doing so would directly reduce emissions and take away power from fossil fuel interests that profit from carbon consumption. Some people have chosen this route, and I’m sure that most of the arrestees consciously reduce their carbon impact. But it’s nearly impossible to participate in American society without using carbon. For the millions living in suburbia and rural areas, cars are a necessity. Every time I turn on a light (or the computer used to write this blog), the electrons come primarily from carbon generating sources. In most cases, giving up carbon would mean withdrawing from society. Plus – and perhaps more importantly – no one would notice the act of not emitting carbon.

So climate advocates are left with options for nonviolent action that are less illustrative of their goals than those in Sharp’s book. A lunch counter sit-in actively demonstrates the change the protestor wishes to see by breaking the law he or she wants to remove. Being arrested at ERM shows protestors’ anger at the company’s role in encouraging the pipeline to move forward, but the act itself doesn’t illustrate what the protestors want. The law being broken – unlawful entry – isn’t the one they want repealed.

David Roberts

Climate change advocates are working in a complicated, complex setting. A great article I read last week expressed how nearly impossible it is to evaluate advocacy. Change from advocacy is non-linear – little or nothing might happen for decades, followed by a huge breakthrough (see marriage, gay). David Roberts writes a lot about the importance of social proof – demonstrating to the general public that it is socially acceptable to have a particular opinion – and these protests provide that proof. Keeping climate in the news cycle changes minds and generates interest.

And advocates have made huge strides. The pipeline decision still sits on Obama’s desk, years after it became an issue. The President released an ambitious climate plan in a speech where he explicitly encouraged climate advocates (by using the word “divest”). The integration and importance of carbon in our lives means that it’s likely to be a long, uphill fight.  But in Sharp’s words, advocates are slowly taking back power from the fossil fuel industry.

Population Projection Revised Upwards...Again

by Duncan Gromko

The following was cross-posted with the Public Education Center's DC Bureau, which you can find by clicking here.

The UN now estimates that there will be 9.6 billion people by 2050, which is a revision upwards from their 2010 estimate of 9.3 billion. For some environmentalists, this is a scary thought. A simplistic take on natural resource use suggests that more people mean more consumption and more pollution.

Estimating global population, let alone projecting population two generations from now, is a tricky business. While some groups estimated that the world passed seven billion people on October 31, 2011, others thought that the milestone was passed in March of 2012. Even the world’s best censuses have a 1-2 percent margin of error.

Source: DSS Research

The 2050 projections have been revised upwards because of changing demographic trends in the developing world. Projections assume that global fertility rates will converge to 2.1 children per woman and a stable population. However, fertility rates have remained higher than projected in many countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Below is a chart showing the countries with the largest upward projections (as a percentage of their population).

Source: New Security Beat

Accurately predicting population decades from now is difficult, but the multiple upward revisions in recent years make for a worrying trend. While growth in some countries is more or less reflecting demographers’ predictions, population growth in other countries continues to spiral upwards. Nigeria, which doesn’t even make the above chart, has had its 2050 projections revised from 289 million in 2008 to 390 million in 2010 to 440 million this year. What will the next projection be?

Most of this growth is happening in developing countries, as fertility rates have mostly stabilized in the developed world.

Source: Learner

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, I worked on family planning projects. Many of the women with whom I spoke struggled to access birth control on a consistent basis. What’s more, doctors often did not take the time to explain how to use birth control. One woman with whom my colleague spoke asked why the birth control pill her husband was taking wasn’t keeping her from getting pregnant.

While use of contraceptives has increased, access to birth control remains a huge barrier in many parts of the world. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 215 million women want to delay or cease childbearing – about one in six women of reproductive age – but do not have the means to use birth control. Helping these women would be a huge win not only for them, but also for the environment.

Slowing population growth could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 1.1 billion tons per year by 2050. Family planning is an inexpensive way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Climate scientists normally talk about the “abatement cost” of a particular technology or behavior change, i.e. how much each ton of greenhouse gas reduced will cost. For instance, the abatement cost of solar PV was estimated at around $15-20 per ton of CO2 by McKinsey in 2009. Tom Lovejoy estimates that the abatement cost of reducing carbon emissions through family planning is $4.50 per ton. If carbon pollution is all you care about, reducing population growth through family planning is cheaper than reducing per capita greenhouse gas emissions (although both are needed).

It’s important to note, however, that despite increasing populations in developing countries, these countries are largely not responsible for historical or future greenhouse gas emissions. The United States, China, and the European Union all have relatively stable populations, but are responsible for most of global emissions. The USA’s per capita emissions was around 17.2 tons per year in 2009, while Nigeria’s was 0.6 tons per year.

Of course, impact on climate isn’t the only environmental consequence of a growing world population. The areas with the highest rates of population growth also tend to have the greatest pressures on local natural resources. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are already facing challenges from water scarcity and deforestation with their existing populations. What’s more, much of this growth is happening in urban areas where infrastructure is overwhelmed by the growth explosion. Slums and urban poverty are the result.

Support for family planning and educating women – which is associated with lower fertility rates – has benefits for local populations and the earth. Giving women the tools and knowledge they need is an important goal that I think is often overlooked by many environmentalists.

Indiana Regulators Let BP Pollute Lake Michigan

By Nick Cunningham
The following was cross-posted with the Public Education Center's DC Bureau, which you can find by clicking here. 

The Indiana state government recently extended a deal with BP that allows it to continue to dump toxic waste into Lake Michigan. Back in 2007, it gave BP permission to increase discharges of toxic pollution into Lake Michigan as part of a $3.8 billion expansion of its Whiting, IN refinery. BP wanted to upgrade the facility to be able to process heavier crude oil, as Canadian tar sands began to flow southward in significantly larger volumes. Originally constructed in 1889 under John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, BP’s Whiting facility is one of the nation’s largest oil refineries, a massive complex located in Indiana near Chicago.

Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management granted an exemption from federal water protections to BP as part of its permit, which allowed to company to dump 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more toxic sludge into Lake Michigan. The permit also allowed BP to discharge 23.1 parts per trillion of mercury – 20 times the amount of mercury allowed under federal law. BP also consistently dumped other toxic chemicals such as benzene, lead, nickel and vanadium.

Mercury is known to cause brain damage, especially in children. However, Indiana regulators justified the exemption because the refinery expansion would provide “important social or economic benefits” – in this case, the project would create a few thousand temporary construction jobs and 80 permanent jobs.

Then Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels defended the decision. When asked if the giveaway would move forward, Daniels replied, “Yes. We’ve checked it and rechecked it. They’re in complete compliance with Indiana law, which is tougher than the federal law. The EPA has checked and rechecked it, and they have approved that permit more than once. To me, the public interest says it should go forward.

Former IN Gov. Mitch Daniels

“We’ve got thousands of jobs that will be at risk if it doesn’t go forward. And I would only point out that people who are upset about $3 gas now know why it’s that high. Reported as recently as last weekend, the No. 1 reason for $3 gasoline is the lack of refinery capacity in this country, and here’s one of the biggest steps forward for the Midwest and really the whole nation. And I don’t think it should be held up without a good scientific reason, and none has been provided.”

The 2007 deal exempted BP from federal water pollution limits for 5 years. Under the agreement, BP was required to conduct research into technology that would reduce mercury pollution it discharged into Lake Michigan. It worked with the Argonne National Lab to explore new technologies.

However, in 2011, as the original five year exemption neared expiration, Indiana regulators extended it because BP argued it would not be able to implement pollution control technology in time. Despite these assurances, pilot tests of new technologies found that mercury could be reduced to below federal limits. Yet BP asserts that the $21-$147 million price tag was too high – even though it expects to haul in an additional $1 billion in annual cash flow from the facility.

To make matters worse, a recent draft permit would once again extend the allowance – this time indefinitely. The permit would not require BP to actually implement mercury-reducing technology. Instead, BP said it would continue to do research and would merely report back in 2015 on its findings.

Meanwhile, BP finished its upgrade, allowing it to process an additional 250,000 barrels of crude per day. And it continues to pollute.

Obama's Big Climate Plan and Speech

by Duncan Gromko

President Obama gave a major climate change speech (full video and transcript here) and released a Climate Action Plan on Tuesday. It’s just one speech and there is a lot to work to implement the plan that he has laid out, but the plan and the speech far surpassed my expectations. There isn’t much more that the Executive Branch can do on climate change without help from Congress.


Here’s the biggest climate news from the plan and the speech: “I'm directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants, and complete new pollution standards for both new and existing power plants.” The rhetoric here – “dumping of carbon pollution” – is amazing because he’s talking about carbon in the same way that we normally talk about local pollutants. This is the single biggest step the administration can take without Congress; WRI estimates that such regulation can make up 48% of the emissions gap between business as usual and the administration goal of reducing emissions by 17% by 2020. So it’s a big deal. However, neither Obama’s speech nor his plan specifies how strict these new standards will be or how they will be implemented and there is sure to be legal and political challenges to the new standards. The specifics of the plan will end up determining the final climate impact, and Obama has not yet made this clear; all the plan says is: “The President has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to build on state leadership, provide flexibility, and take advantage of a wide range of energy sources and technologies including many actions in this plan.” If you’re curious on more details of how power plant regulation could work, here is an NRDC report on how this could work.

Source: change.gov

Regulating carbon pollution from power plants is just the start. For a full list of initiatives contained in the plan, see Wonkblog, Grist, or Climate Progress; I’m just going to list a few of the most important.

Supporting existing efforts, the plan promises to better measure methane emissions from natural gas extraction via the EPA. However you feel about how fracking could destroy local water sources, any climate benefits from switching from coal to natural gas (coal is much more carbon intensive than natural gas) could be lost if methane leakage is not controlled.

Obama declared a goal of doubling electricity fueled by renewable energy by 2020. This is tough for the President to affect with Congressional support, but Obama promised to approve permits for renewable energy on public lands that would supply 20 gigawatts of additional energy. He also said the federal government would set a new target of sourcing 20% of its energy from renewable sources (up from 7%).

Adaptation to climate change is another large component of the plan. Most of the concrete steps relate to planning continued research for specific vulnerabilities to climate change: learning from Hurricane Sandy and other tropical storms, resilience in the health sector, assessing agricultural vulnerability, managing drought, reducing wildfire risks, and preparing for future floods. Climate change is happening and the plan recognizes this reality.

Last (of the points that I’ll discuss) is a renewed effort to promote international action on climate change. One proposed way to do this is to combat short-lived climate pollutants such as methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which have sever climate impact and are much more prevalent in developing countries. Another focus point is reducing emissions from deforestation, which amount to as much as 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Last, Obama also said that the USA will not support coal fired power plants in developing countries (which would appear to be at odds with current World Bank policy).

The Really Surprising Stuff

In addition to these more mainstream actions, Obama discussed a few issues that are near and dear to the hearts of climate advocates. First, regarding the Keystone XL pipeline, Obama said: “Our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” I never expected him to mention Keystone and his statement Tuesday will make it difficult (but not impossible) for him to ultimately approve the Pipeline. Second, he spoke directly to climate advocates in the following sentences: “Convince those in power to reduce our carbon pollution. Push your own communities to adopt smarter practices. Invest. Divest. Remind folks there’s no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth…Make yourself heard on this issue.” Divestment from fossil fuels and the Keystone XL Pipeline have been two of the major issues adopted by 350.org and other climate advocates. With these remarks, Obama is speaking directly to those involved in advocacy and encouraging their actions. I think the subtext here is that he needs support to continue his climate initiatives. I was surprised.

A Couple Caveats

The big caveat is the lack of specificity as to how the plan will be implemented, particularly with EPA regulation of power plants. There are no specific standards mentioned and, although this aspect of the plan could have enormous impact, it could also have little impact if standards aren’t strict enough.

The other issue in the speech that makes me uneasy is the President’s full embrace of natural gas: “And, again, sometimes there are disputes about natural gas, but let me say this: We should strengthen our position as the top natural gas producer because, in the medium term at least, it not only can provide safe, cheap power, but it can also help reduce our carbon emissions.” I think the climate benefits of natural gas (and fracking) are debatable. And I think that there isn’t enough information about the impact of fracking on local water sources. Increased fracking will likely hurt some people. Nick and I are planning a big story on fracking and all its ambiguities, so I won’t get into them just yet.

All in All…

I was amazed by the ambition of the plan and the speech. It comes about five years later than I wanted and still isn’t going to be enough to allow the USA to meet emissions guidelines from the Kyoto Protocol (20% reduction of emissions from 1990 levels by 2020), but in the current political climate, I couldn’t have hoped for any more. I guess that’s a sign of how far expectations have fallen that I see doing less than the minimum as exceeding expectations.

I’m torn. On the one hand, this is a big step and Obama (as well as all the advocacy groups that have been pushing him for years now) deserves credit for making decisions that another president (e.g. Romney) wouldn’t have. I hope that he feels support from environmental groups to counterbalance all the negative things that will be said in the coming weeks by fossil fuel advocates. This speech and this plan should be celebrated. On the other hand, the devil is in the details with this plan and implementation will determine just how much it ends up cutting emissions. Obama needs to hear from green groups that climate can’t be something that he simply makes a big speech about every several months and then ignores. It’s also hard not to be disappointed that it’s come to this; that Obama had to work around Congress because Congress refused to address the issue. I can’t imagine a more ambitious plan, but it still isn’t ambitious enough.

World Bank Climate Predictions

by Duncan Gromko

With President Obama’s announcement of new climate change action on Tuesday, the World Bank has just released a report (written by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics) that projects how the climate will change over the coming century and how people will be affected. Spoiler alert: the news is pretty bad. How bad will depend on whether or not we get serious about limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

One big uncertainty is how much greenhouse gases humans will emit over the next century. The World Bank is basing its projections on “Representative Concentration Pathways” (RCPs), which are different scenarios for global greenhouse gas emissions levels and predicted impact on global temperature rise, shown below. RCP8.5 is the worst-case scenario, where there is no effort to decrease emissions. The other scenarios show moderate efforts to reduce emissions (RCP6 and RCP4.5) and successful effort to reduce emissions (RCP3).

If the world meets all the climate pledges it has currently made, there is a 20 percent chance of exceeding a four degree (centigrade) global temperature rise by 2100. If emissions continue as they are today, then the chances of exceeding four degrees by 2100 increases to 40%. Unless there is drastic and immediate reductions in emissions, it looks certain that we will top a two degree rise, with a reasonable chance of going over four degrees.

Compared to temperature rise, ocean acidification is something that gets much less attention. Considering the importance of coral reefs as nurseries for global fisheries, I think this is a huge oversight. As carbon is emitted into the atmosphere, the ocean also absorbs it, increasing ocean acidity. Under RCP8.5 and RCP6, there will be nearly complete die-off of coral reefs and a devastating impact on fisheries.

How will this affect us?

Temperature increase and ocean acidification will have many consequences for human well-being, including: rising sea levels, increased intensity of tropical storms, increased precipitation extremes (more droughts and floods), decreased agricultural productivity, and increase in vector-borne diseases (e.g. malaria and dengue fever).

One big takeaway from the report is how different parts of the world will be affected in very different ways. For instance, while drier conditions are projected for most regions close to the equator, including southern Europe, Africa, and much of North and South America, wetter conditions are projected for places at northern high latitudes: northern North America and northern Europe. Monsoon rains are expected to be more intense. Amazingly, even sea level rise is not uniform; in general, equatorial regions are likely to have higher sea level rise.

Close to the equator, crop productivity is expected to decrease, but at most northern latitudes, productivity will increase. Given that tropical countries tend to have the most food insecurity, this is just about backwards from the way you’d like the changes to happen. Globally, food production will increase as long as temperatures stay below a three degree increase, but at that point productivity will decrease.

But it’s not just the physical change that will be different across different world regions. Current and future wealth and investments will play an enormous role in who is most impacted by climate change. Wealthier nations will have a much easier time adapting to climate change. Wealthy cities like New York City can build sea walls to delay the negative impacts of sea level rise and increased storm intensity, but Dhaka Bangladesh will have a much harder time adapting, likely leading to millions of climate refugees.

Uncertainty

Even beyond all the uncertainty about emissions and how they will impact the climate, the models used in this report cannot capture “non-linear” events. There are feedback cycles, tipping points, and interactions between different variables that are just about impossible to model precisely. The problem is that non-linear events are exactly the kind you’d want to be able to predict. In the financial world, it was a similar kind of tipping point that ended up throwing the world into a financial crisis in 2007 and 2008.

The non-linear effect that is nearest and dearest to my heart is Amazon rainforest die-back The rainforest is so enormous that it generates and recycles much of the rain that falls in the Amazon basin. As deforestation continues, decreased tree cover may lead to less rainfall. A 2010 drought, which led to the death of billions of trees and an estimated release of 2.2 billion tons of greenhouse gases, may have been caused by decreased tree cover in the rainforest. Deforestation leads to drought, which leads to more deforestation. On top of this feedback loop, increased temperature in the Amazon due to climate change will exacerbate this effect: “there is a significant risk that the rain forest covering large areas of the Amazon basin will be lost” due to climate change. The Amazon is currently a global carbon sink, absorbing more carbon than it emits. If this die off occurred, it would very quickly become an enormous source of greenhouse gas emissions and completely outside of our control to stop.

This is just one example of a very harmful “non-linear” system and there are many others. The challenge for the World Bank and other policy and investment planners is that they would like to take steps now to adapt to climate change. While the projections in this report and other modeling can guide adaptation, the uncertainty makes it hard to plan. We know, for instance, that coastal cities will need protection when sea-levels rise. But should we plan for 1 meter of sea-level rise (the median estimate for 2100 under four degree warming) or more?

Trapped Tar Sands or Coal: Obama to Decide

By Nick Cunningham

The following was cross-posted with the Public Education Center's D.C. Bureau, which you can find by clicking here.

On June 14, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the Obama administration is planning on rolling out a climate package in July, which may or may not be coupled with his answer on the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama reportedly told a group of donors at a closed-door fundraiser that he will unveil a series of climate proposals in the coming weeks.

In his State of the Union address earlier this year, the president vowed to take executive action to reduce greenhouse gases if Congress failed to act. Congress has predictably done nothing, and so environmental groups have been urging President Obama to live up to his commitment.

Executive action would likely come through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, earlier this year, the EPA missed a deadline to finalize greenhouse gas limits for new power plants, which would have effectively banned new plants using coal. The EPA argued that it needed time to revise the rule in order to withstand legal challenges.

Businessweek reports that the upcoming climate proposals may include not only the previously proposed limits on new power plants, but also greenhouse gas limits for existing power plants – a much bolder course of action. After all, the EPA limits for new power plants would essentially confirm a fait accompi: it is increasingly difficult for utilities to build new coal-fired power plants anyway – even without EPA greenhouse gas limits – due to their cost.

Although new coal plants are expensive, the same is not true for existing power plants. Nearly three-quarters of all coal plants in the United States are at least 30 years old. Many of these plants are paid off, and so operating them is cheap. This creates the incentive for the utilities to run the plants as long as possible. Left to their own devices, the utilities would retire these plants gradually over time. EPA limits on existing plants could quickly and dramatically alter this equation by forcing many coal plants to shut down earlier than scheduled.

Huntington Power Plant, Utah (Photo: Utah Gov.)

The other sticky issue is the Keystone XL pipeline. Environmental groups have ratcheted up the pressure on the president to reject the pipeline. A recent report from Goldman Sachs concluded that the pipeline was key to the Canadian tar sands being economically viable. Without the pipeline, the tar sands could be “trapped in the province of Alberta.” In this scenario, RBC Capital Markets predicts that $9 billion in future investment over the coming decade would be deferred.

It is a no-win situation for the White House. Should the president approve the project, he will do irreparable harm to his support from environmentalists, but blocking it will raise the ire of the energy and gas lobby and its allies in Congress.

Based on the President’s comments to private donors, it seems his administration is leaning towards approving the pipeline but coupling it with the EPA limits on greenhouse gases. He may somehow seek to make one conditional on the other. However, this will likely spark a firestorm in Congress, as a group of 24 Republican senators sent a letter to the president in May warning against such a move. “We are concerned by recent proposals that you pair approval of the Keystone XL pipeline with enactment of new environmental regulations and energy taxes,” they wrote.

On balance, if the EPA can actually implement limits on carbon dioxide, the benefit to the climate may considerably outweigh the downsides of approving the pipeline.

Still, after years of putting climate change on the backburner, the president may be ready to make these issue a priority, or at least take some action to address them.