Red, Green, and Blue

[Originally published at ecopolitology] More than one hundred wind energy representatives are traveling to Washington D.C. this week for a special lobbying effort to push for a national renewable energy standard.  Industry representatives will hold over 70 meetings with lawmakers on Wednesday, March 10 in an event dubbed, “Wind Power on Capitol Hill”, to urge passage of a national renewable energy standard that will give the wind energy industry the kind of stable policy foundation for long-term industry growth.

At the state level, the renewable energy standard has become the preferred policy mechanism in the U.S. for spurring commercial-scale wind energy development, with states like California and Colorado showing that setting high requirements on renewable energy generation for investor owned utilities can be a significant driver in new facilities coming on line. Yet while most states have some sort of renewable energy standard on the books, the lack of a national standard means that a  handful of states are way behind the curve, having developed few renewable energy projects of any considerable scale.

“We need to drive demand in a stable, predictable way,” said Vic Abate, Vice President for Renewables, GE Energy, the largest supplier of wind turbines in the U.S. “For the jobs to grow the renewable electricity standard is critical.”

But, as Chris Madison points out at the American Wind Energy Association’s Into the Wind Blog, it won’t be smooth sailing for the wind industry on Capitol Hill this week. Madison writes: “Armed with a series of specious and superficial reports, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York—the home of GE and a state that is eight in total wind installations—has called on Congress to suspend any stimulus funds to companies that use foreign parts in their turbines.”

The report found that as much as 75% of clean energy grant money in the economic stimulus package passed in 2009 will not go to American companies.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jon Tester of Montana asked the secretary to put a ‘buy American’ provision on the clean energy grant program because it is doing very little to create jobs here–and now–in the U.S.

“We cannot sit idly by while China races to the forefront of clean energy production at the expense of U.S. manufacturing, U.S. jobs, and U.S. energy independence,” said Senator Sharred Brown (D-Ohio).

But both the wind energy and federal government are not taking the criticism lying down, rather, they are insisting that the renewable energy grant money creates the kind of long-term market infrastructure and industry stability that the renewables sector needs to take root in the U.S.

Denise Bode, CEO, American Wind Energy Association said, “A national RES will result not just in new installations, but also in new manufacturing. The RES is the most important buy-American policy we can do.”

And the feds are taking a similar position. “The Recovery Act has doubled the pace of investment in America’s wind industry — including helping attract more than $10 billion of foreign investment to create U.S. jobs,” Stephanie Mueller, news media secretary at the Energy Department, recently told the New York Times.

“Manufacturers are chomping at the bit to come to the U.S.,” said Donald Furman, Senior Vice President, Iberdrola Renewables. “And it would be a tragedy if this investment were to stop. The RES is the missing link.” Furman added that the discussion about the ‘buy American’ clause is having “a chilling effect on existing American jobs.”

What do you think? Should there be ‘buy American’ clauses in these clean energy grants or do you buy the argument that the long term result will be more wind industry jobs in the U.S. if there is no such requirement?

Tim Hurst is the former editor of Red, Green and Blue and current executive editor of LiveOAK Media. Follow him on twitter @ecopolitologist.

American Farm Bureau takes hard-line stance against climate legislation, EPA

At the opening of the four-day American Farm Bureau Federation convention in Seattle, Washington over the weekend, AFBF president Bob Stallman pushed for a tough stance against climate legislation currently being debated in Congress. Stallman called called for American farmers and ranchers to “aggressively respond to extremists” and “misguided, activist-driven regulation,” adding that “the days of their elitist power grabs are over.”

And when the AFBF’s first policy session began on Tuesday, delegates took that message to heart, approving  a special resolution against both cap-and-trade legislation and the regulation of carbon by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA’s recent endangerment finding sets the stage for the agency to regulate all greenhouse gas emissions under its existing power.

“As Congress returns to the issue of cap-and-trade this year, the message of Farm Bureau will continue to be: ‘Don’t Cap Our Future’ agricultural productivity and food security,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman in a written statement. “We will now send that message even more strongly.”

The resolution passed by the Farm Bureau states that cap-and-trade legislation would raise farmers’ and ranchers’ production costs, and the potential benefits of agricultural offsets are far outweighed by the costs to producers. Due to these and other concerns, the delegates voted to strongly opposed “cap and trade proposals before Congress” and to support “any legislative action that would suspend EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”

“Congress should focus on renewable energy that is better for the environment and our domestic energy security,” said Stallman, “but it should not tie the hands of U.S. producers, whose productivity, historically, has provided the world’s food safety net. We should not shrink U.S. agriculture at the very time when many are concerned about how to feed a growing global population.”

The group is skeptical about climate legislation currently being batted around Congress, despite the fact that a recent study showed the agricultural industry would have more to gain than to lose if the House version of the climate bill were passed.

The American Farm Bureau was formally created in 1919 and has about 2,800 county farm organizations which in turn elect representatives to state farm bureaus.

Tim Hurst is the founding editor at ecopolitology. You can follow him on twitter @ecopolitologist
Photo: mike 138 via flickr/Creative Commons

A new Zogby poll showing declining concern about climate change in the Unites States also shows that those who are least able to afford rising energy prices–the kind of upward movement brought on by climate legislation–are the most likely to support climate and energy policies that would have that effect.

When it comes to the personal changes that may be required as part of a national plan of action to address climate change, Zogby says that 44 percent of Americans believe the U.S. government should act to reduce energy use in the U.S. even if that means significant personal lifestyle changes. Read the rest of this entry »

In this space last week, I wrote a column that I thought might draw the ire of some greens for its cynical outlook on Copenhagen. Instead, it drew a fair amount of attention from readers concerned that I had glossed over the significance of “Climategate.” Like that column, this one is not about Climategate in the broader sense, but about its impact on the goings-on this week in Denmark. And, as we look back at week one of COP-15, last week’s column looks to have been borne out in that context. Join me for this more complete review of the political freeze that has taken over the warming talks.

Climategate is Good as Gone…For Now – As expected, Climategate disappeared as fast as it rose to the top of Google’s search rankings. Worldwide, media reports are focusing on the very compelling, very well-packaged stories about climate change impact and emerging technologies that were in the can as this conference approached. The email controversy may well reemerge at the conclusion of the conference; and, as I noted in comments responding to reader comments to last week’s piece, Climategate may ultimately be seen as the sort of watershed moment that was needed to reignite some passion in this debate. But, at least in the world-within-the-world at Copenhagen this week, Climategate-stoked doubt about climate change is not the issue.

US Fizzles- After months of pressure and rhetoric in US politics, marked by doomsday scenarios that would befall the world should the US not have a climate change bill on the President’s desk before Copenhagen, the US delegation arrived with the following: an EPA declaration that was inevitable and had been dramatically undersold in favor of pushing for legislation; and, a December 10 announcement by a tri-partisan (including an independent) group of Senators, which purported to “outline the basics” for a domestic climate bill that might come to the floor in the spring. In a week when the President of the United States delivered what has to be the most impassioned defense of war in the history of Nobel Peace Prize acceptances, his delegation at the climate conference tried to claim leadership in a very tricky geopolitical negotiation after having failed to clear the relatively less complex partisan, political and special interest hurdles at home.

China Sizzles, But Where’s the Steak?- China is the Donald Trump of climate change action. Big promises, high-dollar investments. Big, big, big! 800 turbines in three gorges? Bring it on! Planting enough new trees to cover all of Norway? Why not! Just don’t ask them to cut emissions. First, it is not practical to do so, their growth makes it impossible. Second, they don’t have the money to pay for it (probably because it is all on loan to the US, but that is another column for another blog). And, the reports coming from state-controlled media do not offer much comfort. Long term, China looks like a promising green partner for the world. They are going to continue to develop clean energy technologies domestically and will continue to flood the global market with low-cost, Chinese-fabricated panels, blades and batteries.

Right now, the Chinese would be foolish to have fabricators sell those products to domestic buyers and capture the revenue in yuan when they could be sold overseas for more valuable dollars, Euros and pounds. Will they ever reach a tipping point where some of those items will stay in country instead of being produced exclusively for export? That tipping point appears to be approaching for jeans, TVs and other Chinese-made goods, but clean energy technology? Don’t hold your breath.

For signs of success in week two, watch the tail numbers of planes at Copenhagen Airport – It will be interesting to see who actually shows up in Copenhagen next week. We know President Obama is en route, but will the Russians, Chinese or Indians keep their dates to have heads of state make the trip to town? Probably. Will it move the needle? I doubt it.

In the end, the problem with Copenhagen cannot be solved by next week, no matter who is at the table. That problem can best be discerned in the verb tense most-often used in speeches, discussions and negotiations there: the future. For thirty-five years, the public (including skeptics) have been hearing about what WILL happen to the planet and about the technologies that WILL emerge to make clean energy affordable. The urgency has not come yet. The world is not ready. Let us hope that by the time we are, it is not too late.

Mean Joe Green #82: Sarah Palin’s HUGE Bus and Private Jet Book Tour

The other day I came across this post (‘Is Sarah Palin’s Book Tour Killing the Planet?’) on Wend Magazine’s blog. My response after reading the headline but before reading the article was “I’m SURE it is.” But after reading the article and thinking on it a bit more, there has to be a better explanation to the reason why she is touring the country on a GIGANTIC tour bus AND a private jet plane.

Well, ENN (Earth Nightly News) broke the news on the REAL reason…

Follow Mean Joe Green on Twitter at @GreenCartoons

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In the week leading up to the Copenhagen climate change conference, skeptics and political opponents are seizing on the emails leaked from the Climate Research Unit in an attempt to short circuit global action on carbon emission reductions. Given that COP-15 is a conference that brings together lead CLIMATE NEGOTIATORS from around the world, it is unlikely that all this noise on the “climate change racket” will have a discernable impact on what kind of agreement emerges.

Alas, Copenhagen is destined for a spot near the top of the ever-lengthening 2009 squandered opportunities list, but it will not because of efforts by climate change deniers who have nary a seat at the negotiating table. Sure, opponents may be able to queer domestic adoption of any deal that comes out of Copenhagen, but that fact was never in doubt — even before Climategate.

So, why will a compromise deal inevitably emerge before the need to compromise is present? Why is it that even with the world’s most passionate climate change honks all together in one room, the world still will not agree on collective action that takes us much beyond Kyoto?

Answers are found in these three persistent, irresolvable conflicts among those parties that are at the table:

Green In-Fighting – Is clean coal legitimate or a lark? Should we subsidize solar? If we do, can Chinese-fabricated PV claim the cash? Questions like these continue to dog greens in US legislation.

When the House passes a climate bill that is opposed by Greenpeace, that is all the evidence one needs to illustrate the fissures that have deepened in the clean energy and conservation communities. With no consensus, the US never got the comprehensive climate change bill that everyone insisted was a necessary prerequisite to Copenhagen – IF President Obama wanted to claim a credible mantle of leadership.

Those divisions only broaden on the global scale. There remains very public disagreement on the growth and sharing of civil nuclear technology. Other differences informed by national interest will mark the discussions and hamstring any chance of adopting hard targets that are actually backed by unified global strategies on renewable generation.

Developed versus Developing – China and India have mouths to feed – more every day. And, increasingly, those traditionally agrarian, subsistence economies are not only becoming energy-intensive manufacturing and service economies, but their citizens are expecting a higher quality of life. To deny these growing economies the chance to blossom is both hypocritical of the West and unrealistic, since reducing emissions in Asia would stagnate Western economies that rely on consumption of goods produced there.

China, India and others also argue that the West owes a “debt of pollution” that should be paid not only by reducing their own emissions, but also by directing resources to fund developing world emission reduction efforts. Proposals call for aid to come in the form of cash and transfer of emergent technologies. An extension of either is really politically palatable on a large scale for the US.

At What Cost? - One of the more compelling storiesthat will inevitably emerge in the mainstream media from the Copenhagen conference is that of Maldives. The tiny nation – an archipelago barely above sea level – not only faces cataclysmic consequences if global warming persists, it faces the possibility of total annihalation in the next century. While nations have been conquered and carved up throughout history, changing names and changing shapes frequently even in the years since World War II, humankind has never had a sovereign nation wiped off of the map. For Maldives, the question of Copenhagen is: “at what cost do we delay bold action on climate change?”

Maldives may have a compelling story, but it will not have much influence in Copenhagen. Ultimately, whatever agreement emerges will be the work of large countries that are only beginning to feel the hurt of climate change. Rich Western nations, emerging industrial countries in the former Eastern Bloc and Africa, and booming economies throughout Asia. If one of these countries were looking at climate change impacts manifest so vividly, there might be movement; but, for now, they are left to ponder ”at what cost to growth and consumer prices can we justify bold action on climate change?”

Not Enough ‘Energy’ in the ‘Environment’

“Climategate” will fade from the front pages — the emails won’t mean much once COP-15 gets underway. And, knowing that they are going home to face certain opposition from some factions anyway, you might think that delegates would show up in Copenhagen prepared to do something splashy. Especially given that much of the action needed will be undertaken at the national level, the more progressive states should be pushing for an agreement that will give them good aspirational benchmarking for domestic legislation, even if they know it cannot get ratified back home by some other attendees.

But, neither Western European noblesse oblige nor US self-interest (take your pick: green jobs, national security, environment) will be enough to overcome the competing interests that will confound consensus even among the climate change evangelists assembled in Copenhagen. And, from uncertainty follows inertia. It is not a hopeful holiday sentiment, but it is a realistic one. And, without some action soon, Christmas may not come to Maldives at all.

The White House has officially announced that president Obama plans on attending the COP15 climate change conference held next month in Copenhagen from December 7th to the 19th.

Obama will give a speech at the conference on December 9th on his way to Norway to pick up his Nobel Peace Price on the 10th.

Obama had not committed to making an appearance at COP15, saying he would attend only if his presence would help lead to a successful outcome.

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A federal court ruling handed down last week charged the Army Corps of Engineers with “gross negligence” that led to the catastrophic flooding in New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina.
U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. minced no words in issuing his ruling, saying that the corps failure to properly maintain the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MRGO) shipping channel directly contributed to the breaching levees that swamped much of New Orleans in 2005, a disaster from which many residents have yet to recover.
In his ruling, Judge Duval said that Corps of Engineers “shoddy oversight” of the shipping channel located southeast of New Orleans caused much of the flooding of St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward, two areas hit hardest flooding after Katrina smashed into the gulf coast.

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Mean Joe Green #80: Wind Turbine Syndrome Will Kill Us All!…If it Were Real.

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Call it the Obama effect or a last minute face saving tactic but the Obama Administration made it clear that it is willing to include national mitigation measures announced by the advanced developing countries in the international climate treaty to be discussed at Copenhagen next month.

In a joint statement the US and Chinese officials announced that the new climate treaty should be based on ‘common but differentiated responsibility’. This is the first time that the United States has agreed for different climate goals for developed and developing countries.

[B]oth sides believe that, while striving for final legal agreement, an agreed outcome at Copenhagen should, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, include emission reduction targets of developed countries and nationally appropriate mitigation actions of developing countries.

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