Climate Capsule Week of January 26

Monday, January 26, 2009

(National Wildlife Federation)Week of January 26

Highlight of the Week
Obama Administration Helping Auto Industry Turn The Corner

 

Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of National Wildlife Federation, joined President Barack Obama Monday at the White House as President Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to grant state waiver requests to strengthen tailpipe emissions standards.

 

The requests from California and 13 other states as well as the District of Columbia had been turned away by the Bush administration. President Obama also instructed his administration to develop new fuel-efficiency guidelines for the auto industry covering 2011 model-year cars.

"President Obama has demonstrated again today that change is coming to America. This is a distinct call to action, driven by the facts of a warming planet and an economy in crisis. Today's decision provides the kind of sound direction the auto industry needs to once again lead and build the kind of cars not only America needs, but the world needs. Our energy policies will no longer be based on denial and delay but instead on sound science that tells us we don't have to choose among efficient vehicles, jobs and a healthy environment,” Schweiger said Monday.

 

"With these new standards and President Obama's proposed new green investments, we can advance cutting-edge technology that will restore America's place as a world leader in the auto industry, save consumers money, and reduce our global warming pollution. President Obama has sent a clear message that America is leaving behind our failed fossil fuel policies that leave consumers at the mercy of wild swings in prices at the pump.

 

"The National Wildlife Federation will put all our efforts behind supporting legislation that invests in the technologies and builds the infrastructure that will create new jobs and protect the environment. Congress must take the first step now, passing a green economic recovery package to repower America's economy. Looking forward, the most important thing America can do in 2009 to galvanize investment in clean energy technology is to enact a cap-and-invest plan that invests in clean energy technologies, reduces global warming pollution, and protects our natural resources."

 

Report: All Antarctica Warming

 

Antarctica is warming rather than cooling, according to scientists analyzing half a century of temperatures on the continent.

A review by U.S. scientists of satellite and weather records for Antarctica, which contains 90 percent of the world's ice, showed that freezing temperatures had risen by about 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1950s.

"The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that's not the case," said Eric Steig of the University of Washington, lead author of the study in the journal Nature, according to Reuters.

The average temperature rise was "very comparable to the global average," Steig told a telephone news briefing, as reported by Reuters.

Until this study, scientists have generally said that warming has been restricted to the Antarctic Peninsula beneath South America. "The area of warming is much larger than the region of the Antarctic Peninsula," scientists wrote.

Rising temperatures in the west were partly offset by an autumn cooling in East Antarctica. "The continent-wide near surface average is positive," the study said.

Happening This Week

Tuesday, January 27:

House Transportation Committee Hearing on Energy Reduction and Environmental Sustainability in Surface Transportation, 10 a.m., 2167 Rayburn House Office Building

 

Wednesday, January 28:

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on “Addressing Global Climate Change – The Road to Copenhagen,”  10 a.m., 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building

 

Briefing on Green Jobs: A Foundation for the New American Economy? 2 - 3:30 p.m., 385 Russell Senate Office Building

 

Now through January 31:

Residential-Scale Wind Turbines on Display at U.S. Botanic Garden

 

February 20: Deadline to join Planet Forward, the new web-to-TV debate, for the chance to have your submission featured on PBS. Can we move rapidly away from fossil fuels? What’s the energy formula for our future? Take a stand. Voice your view. Make your case at http://www.publicagenda.org/planetforward/index.html.

Quote:


“[O]ur transportation system and the development it enables must be sustainable. We must acknowledge the new reality of climate change. This has implications for all areas…Sustainability must be a principle reflected in all our infrastructure investments, from highways and transit to aviation and ports. [President] Obama is committed to this principle and so am I.”

 

—Opening statement at nomination hearing for Representative Ray LaHood to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Economic Message of the Week

Economist, Groups: Make Global Warming High On Agenda

The United States must move swiftly toward addressing global warming on a variety of fronts, according to a major bank’s leading economist.

Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist with Deutsche Bank, emphasized growing evidence that global warming may quickly regain its prominence on the agenda of the Obama administration.

“The idea that [Obama] might somehow tie climate change into the economic stimulus plan would be very attractive to both parties in Congress,” Sieminski said in an energy outlook report delivered at Deutsche Bank's Houston energy trading office. “If you listen to statements by his picks for cabinet positions like [Energy Secretary] Steven Chu, they want to move on this.”

Siemenski said that if the economy turns up in late 2009 as predicted and global energy demand begins to return to pre-recession levels, it could mean a quick return to triple-digit prices for a barrel of crude oil.

“We could be setting ourselves up for a bad situation in three or four years,” Sieminski said.

 

In addition, a group of 44 investors managing more than $1.7 trillion in assets called on Congressional leaders this week to include significant funding for energy efficiency, clean energy and clean transportation in the economic stimulus bill being debated in Congress.

In a letter coordinated by Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk, U.S. and European investors called on Congress for longer-term green economic incentives, including extending the renewable energy Production Tax Credit; providing substantial funding for energy efficiency programs, such as retrofitting buildings; and modernizing the aging and inefficient electric power grid.

Groups Press Obama For Tribe-Friendly Renewables

 

A network of Native American tribal groups is asking President Barack Obama to support tribally owned and operated renewable energy projects, along with economic development initiatives that could reduce dependence on fossil fuels.


“The Obama economic stimulus plan that incorporates a green economy and green jobs portfolio must include provisions for access of these resources by our Native nations, our tribal education and training institutions and Native organizations and communities,” according to a policy statement released jointly last month by the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, the Indigenous Environmental Network, the International Indian Treaty Council and the Honor the Earth environmental group.

 

The groups represent approximately 250 grassroots tribal organizations and tribes that want to ensure American Indian participation and prosperity in the green economy of the future.

 

The statement says that federal government subsidies for the nuclear, coal, gas and oil industry should be rapidly phased out with a proportional ramp up of subsidies for renewable technologies and locally administered conservation and efficiency improvements.