Obama Requires Federal Agencies to Reduce Greenhouse Gases
On January 29, 2010, President Obama announced that the Federal Government will reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 28% by 2020. Reducing and reporting GHG pollution, as called for in Executive Order 13514 on Federal Sustainability, will ensure that the Federal Government leads by example in building the clean energy economy. Actions taken under this Executive Order spur clean energy investments that create new private-sector jobs, drive long-term savings, build local market capacity, and foster innovation and entrepreneurship in clean energy industries.
As the single largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy, the Federal Government spent more than $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel in 2008 alone. Achieving the Federal GHG pollution reduction target will reduce Federal energy use by the equivalent of 646 trillion BTUs, equal to 205 million barrels of oil, and taking 17 million cars of the road for one year. This is also equivalent to a cumulative total of $8 to $11 billion in avoided energy costs through 2020.
Federal Departments and Agencies will achieve greenhouse gas pollution reductions by measuring their current energy and fuel use, becoming more energy efficient, and shifting to clean energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal. Examples of agency actions that are underway can be found here.
NASA: Last Decade was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years
A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.
Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years—1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007—for the second warmest on record.
“There’s always interest in the annual temperature numbers and a given year’s ranking, but the ranking often misses the point,” said James Hansen, GISS director. “There’s substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycle. When we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated.”
January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Looking back to 1880, when modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present, although there was a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s.
In the past three decades, the GISS surface temperature record shows an upward trend of about 0.36 degrees F (0.2 degrees C) per decade. In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 1.5 degrees F (0.8 degrees C) since 1880.
“That’s the important number to keep in mind,” said GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt. “The difference between the second and sixth warmest years is trivial because the known uncertainty in the temperature measurement is larger than some of the differences between the warmest years.”
The near-record global temperatures of 2009 occurred despite an unseasonably cool December in much of North America. High air pressures from the Arctic decreased the east-west flow of the jet stream, while increasing its tendency to blow from north to south. The result was an unusual effect that caused frigid air from the Arctic to rush into North America and warmer mid-latitude air to shift toward the north. This left North America cooler than normal, while the Arctic was warmer than normal.
“The contiguous 48 states cover only 1.5% of the world area, so the United States’ temperature does not affect the global temperature much,” Hansen said.
GISS uses publicly available data from three sources to conduct its temperature analysis. The sources are weather data from more than a thousand meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperatures, and Antarctic research station measurements.
Other research groups also track global temperature trends but use different analysis techniques. The Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom uses similar input measurements as GISS, for example, but it omits large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic where monitoring stations are sparse.
Although the two methods produce slightly differing results in the annual rankings, the decadal trends in the two records are essentially identical.
“There’s a contradiction between the results shown here and popular perceptions about climate trends,” Hansen said. “In the last decade, global warming has not stopped.”
EPA Publishes Final Rule on Endangerment Finding of GHGs under the CAA
In a final rule, published in the December 15, 2009, Federal Register, EPA’s Administrator Jackson formalized EPA’s finding that six greenhouse gases (GHGs) taken in combination endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations. As part of the rule, EPA has announced that the combined emissions of these GHGs from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the GHG air pollution that endangers public health and welfare under CAA section 202(a). The findings are based on careful consideration of the full weight of scientific evidence and a thorough review of numerous public comments received on the proposed findings published April 24, 2009. The findings of this final rule are effective on January 14, 2010.
Pursuant to CAA section 202(a), the Administrator finds that GHGs in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare. Specifically, the Administrator is defining the “air pollution” referred to in CAA section 202(a) to be the mix of six long-lived and directly-emitted GHGs: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).
The Administrator has determined that the body of scientific evidence compellingly supports this finding. The major assessments by the U.S. Global Climate Research Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC) serve as the primary scientific basis supporting the Administrator’s endangerment finding. The Administrator reached her determination by considering both observed and projected effects of GHGs in the atmosphere, their effect on climate, and the public health and welfare risks and impacts associated with such climate change.
The transportation sector is a major source of GHG emissions both in the United States and in the rest of the world. The transportation sources covered under CAA section 202(a)—the section of the CAA under which these findings occur—include passenger cars, light- and heavy-duty trucks, buses, and motorcycles. These transportation sources emit four key GHGs: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons. Together, these transportation sources are responsible for 23% of total annual U.S. GHG emissions, making this source the second largest in the United States behind electricity generation.
EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171. All documents in the docket are listed on the www.regulations.gov Web site. For additional information regarding these findings, go to the Web site: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html.
(From the Environmental Resource Center)
Department of Energy Catalogues Impacts of Climate Change
Two recent compendiums of climate change science compiled by leading climate scientists show that the impacts of climate change are happening sooner and at a greater magnitude than previously thought. The two reports are the latest attempts to update the climate science since the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Fourth Assessment Report, which was released in 2007. The first new report, released in late September by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is titled “Climate Change Science Compendium 2009,” while the second, released in late November by 26 climate researchers, is called “The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science.” Both are based on published, peer-reviewed climate science.
Both reports reach the same conclusions, namely, that Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and contributing to sea level rise at an increasing rate; that Arctic sea ice has melted far beyond the expectations of climate models; and that global sea-level rise may well exceed 1 meter by 2100, with an upper limit of 2 meters now considered to be the upper range for sea-level rise by 2100. Both reports also note that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were 40% higher in 2008 than they were in 1990. The increasing emissions are causing the window in which to reduce emissions to narrow.
According to the reports, if emissions are maintained at today’s levels for the next 20 years, the possibility of limiting global warming to less than 2°C will disappear. Climate scientists generally concur that a global temperature rise of 2°C or more will lead to disastrous consequences. The comprehensive UNEP report also warns of ocean acidification, melting mountain glaciers, and the possibility that “tipping points” in the climate could soon be reached. See the UNEP report, which was updated in late October.
Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has found that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are continuing to increase. The WMO’s “Greenhouse Gas Bulletin 2008,” released in late November, finds that the “radiative forcing,” or greenhouse effect, caused by all long-lived greenhouse gases increased by 1.3% from 2007 to 2008, and has increased by 26% since 1990. The globally averaged concentration of carbon dioxide in 2008 was 385.2 parts per million (ppm), an increase of 2 ppm from 2007, while methane increased to 1,797 parts per billion (ppb), an increase of 7 ppb above 2007 levels. After staying stable from 1999 to 2006, methane concentrations showed significant increases in both 2007 and 2008. Nitrous oxide and refrigerants are also on the rise. The report is troubling in light of the “Carbon Budget 2008,” a report released in mid-November by the Global Carbon Proj ect, which found that carbon emissions are now overwhelming the natural “sinks” that absorb carbon, such as the ocean. See the WMO and report and the Carbon Budget 2008.
