CCC to Co-Host U.S. Senate Briefing. CCC, July 8, 2009. "Effective Climate Policy with Direct Carbon Pricing," Monday, July 13, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m., Capitol Visitors Center, Room SVC 208-209. The briefing is on enacting meaningful climate legislation in the wake of the narrow plurality for the Waxman-Markey bill in the House and its uncertain prospects in the Senate. It will address the science, economics and politics of getting from the compromised House bill to a simpler architecture with brighter prospects for enactment that can gather broad support and be effective as part of an international carbon pricing system for preventing catastrophic climate change. Speakers: James Hansen, PhD: Director, Goddard Institute of Space Studies, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Robert Shapiro, PhD: Former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs; Janet Milne, JD:Professor of Law, Vermont Law School; author of The Reality of Carbon Taxes in the 21st Century. Cecil Corbin-Mark:Policy Director, We Act, New York City; Chair, Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change. Brent Blackwelder, PhD: President, Friends of the Earth. Moderator. Online registration: PriceCarbon.org.

The Need to Move on to Plan B - The Carbon Tax - Will Become Increasingly Apparent. Letter to the Editor by Steve Valk, NYTimes, July 3, 2009. "While it's encouraging to see Congress taking steps to reduce global warming, the approach championed at the moment -- cap and trade -- is fraught with perils and ineffectiveness. The biggest drawback is the creation of a trillion-dollar market in carbon futures and derivatives, a speculator's playground that has economic disaster written all over it... The bill that was passed in the House appears dead on arrival. A simpler, more effective and politically viable option is a tax on carbon, with revenues returned to Americans through income and payroll taxes to offset higher energy costs. Such proposals have already been introduced by both Republicans and Democrats in the House, making it a solution both parties appear willing to support. Come late fall, when the Waxman-Markey bill has languished in the Senate, lawmakers will see the need to move on to Plan B -- the carbon tax." Steve Valk is the communications director for Citizens Climate Lobby, a co-host with CCC and the Carbon Tax Center of the Senate briefing (above).

Obama Officials Urge Senate to Pass Climate Bill. By Darren Samuelsohn, Greenwire, July 7, 2009. "Four top Obama administration officials urged the Senate on Tuesday to pass sweeping climate and energy legislation that builds off momentum created last month by the Democrat-led House... 'Denial of the climate change problem will not change our destiny,' said Energy Secretary Steven Chu, moments after describing the recorded loss of half the summer Arctic polar ice cap since the 1950s, fast-rising seas and the prospect of a more than 10-degree-Fahrenheit increase in global air temperatures. 'A comprehensive energy and climate bill that caps and then reduces carbon emissions will,' Chu added. 'America has the opportunity to lead a new industrial revolution of creating sustainable, clean energy. We can sit on the sidelines and deny the scientific facts, or we can get in the game and play to win.' Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson also pushed the Senate committee to act on an issue that sits atop the president's domestic and international agenda... Several Republicans urged Boxer to write a more expansive bill that promotes domestic energy production. 'Why are we ignoring the cheap energy solution to global warming, which is nuclear power?' argued Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Republicans also demanded that Boxer hold more hearings on the specific legislative text she plans to hold a vote on... Six Senate committees are expected to play a role in crafting the climate and energy bill, including Boxer's panel. The others: Agriculture; Commerce, Science and Transportation; Energy and Natural Resources; Finance; and Foreign Relations."

G-8 Leaders Agree on Climate Target. By Charles Babington and Nicole Winfield, AP, July 8, 2009. "President Barack Obama joined other world leaders on Wednesday in backing new targets for battling global warming, a move the Bush White House had resisted. White House officials confirmed that Obama agreed to language supporting a goal of keeping the world's average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The agreement by the Group of Eight industrialized nations, meeting in Italy, marks a significant step in efforts to limit greenhouse gases blamed for the world's rising temperature. The G-8 previously had not been able to agree on that temperature limit as a political goal. It remains only a target, however, and it is far from clear that it will be met, especially as China, India and other rapidly industrializing nations generate and consume more energy from coal and other sources."

Top Polluting Nations Unable to Accommodate China and India in Setting Short-Term Emissions Goal. By Krittivas Mukherjee and Randall Palmer, Reuters, July 8, 2009. "The major polluting nations have failed to agree to a goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to a draft document prepared for Thursday's talks. China and India opposed setting a target... Major nations failed to agree on Wednesday to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, in a setback to efforts to secure a new U.N. climate pact. Talks involving officials from the 17-nation Major Economies Forum (MEF), whose members account for about 80% of global gas emissions, broke down overnight after China and India opposed any mention of the target, a source familiar with the talks told Reuters. However wealthy northern hemisphere countries in the Group of Eight issued a statement saying they were committed to reaching a comprehensive and ambitious climate deal at the U.N. conference in Copenhagen in December. The G8 leaders from the United States, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia, who are holding a three day meeting in central Italy, urged other nations to join the fight against global warming... Indian negotiators said there was no deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction targets because rich countries had refused to set mid-term goals or promise finance and technology. 'For any long-term goals there have to be credible mid-term goals in the range of 25-40%,' [said] Dinesh Patnaik, a top Indian negotiator who attended Tuesday's talks."

Obama's International Climate Strategy. By David Roberts, Grist, July 7, 2009. "International climate negotiations have primarily been channeled through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but many in the international community are losing faith in that process, or at least in its monopoly on negotiations. Getting 192 countries to sign on to a meaningful treaty is nigh impossible; the lowest common denominator among 192 wildly diverse countries turns out to be pretty damn low. Oddly, it was the Bush administration that first saw a way around the thicket. In May 2007 it announced a series of Major Economies Meetings on climate and energy security. The idea was that the largest greenhouse gas emitters could more easily find areas of agreement working directly with one another, and that what consensus they could find would help break the logjam in the UNFCCC process. The sincerity of Bush's effort was widely doubted -- he (in)famously advocated for purely voluntary measures -- but the basic wisdom of the strategy is apparent to, among others, the Obama administration. In fact Obama seems to be taking it even farther, working not only with smaller groups like the Major Economies Forum (MEF) and the G8, but bilaterally with other large emitters. What shape these smaller deals take could vary, from shared targets to technology R&D agreements, but again, the idea is to show that big emitters are finally acting, taking real steps. This will, it is hoped, cut through the Gordian you-go-first knot sure to bedevil the Copenhagen climate talks."

Chu and Locke Headed to China. By Doug Palmer, Reuters, July 6, 2009. "Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu will travel together to China next week to boost U.S. clean technology exports, the U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday. 'As China confronts climate change, there will be opportunities for American green technology companies to fill a critical need, creating jobs here and helping to curb pollution in China -- a win-win for both counties,' Locke said in a statement announcing the July 14-17 trip... Locke, a former governor of Washington state with close ties to China... Both are the first Chinese-Americans to hold their current jobs. 'Clean energy will drive the economy of the future, both in the United States and around the world,' Chu said."

Climate Change and Hunger. By John Vidal, Guardian (UK), July 5, 2009. "Hunger may become the defining human tragedy of the century as the climate changes and hundreds of millions of farmers already struggling to grow enough food are forced to adapt to drought and different rainfall patterns, a report warns. Oxfam International, in a comprehensive look at the expected effects on people of climate change, says some of the world's staple crops will be hit and the implications for millions could be disastrous. 'Climate change's most savage impact on humanity in the near future is likely to be in the increase in hunger… the countries with existing problems in feeding their people are those most at risk from climate change,' the report [Suffering the Science: Climate Change, People and Poverty, PDF, 61 pp] warns. 'Millions of farmers will have to give up traditional crops as they experience changes in the seasons that they and their ancestors have depended on. Climate-related hunger [may become] the defining human tragedy of this century.' The report, published as world leaders prepare to meet for the G8 summit in Italy, says that farmers around the world are already seeing changes in weather patterns which are leading to increased ill-health, hunger and poverty."

Heat Wave Forces French to Shut Down Nuclear Plants and Import U.K. Electricity. By Robin Pagnamenta, London Times, July 3, 2009. "France is being forced to import electricity from Britain to cope with a summer heatwave that has helped to put a third of its nuclear power stations out of action... Fourteen of France's 19 nuclear power stations are located inland and use river water rather than seawater for cooling. When water temperatures rise, EDF is forced to shut down the reactors to prevent their casings from exceeding 50C."

Plant Shutdown Reignites German Nuclear Controversy. By Geir Moulson, AP, July 6, 2009. "Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-left rivals made it clear Monday they will make nuclear power a major issue in the September national election, following a weekend shutdown at a troubled German nuclear plant. The plant at Kruemmel, near Hamburg, shut down automatically on Saturday following a short-circuit in a transformer. The plant had reopened only last month after a two-year closure that followed a fire in another transformer in 2007. That offered the center-left Social Democrats -- currently the conservative Merkel's partners in a 'grand coalition' of Germany's biggest parties that both hope to end in Sept. 27 elections -- a chance to highlight a key policy difference. The Social Democrats have fiercely defended the decision by Germany's previous government, which they led, to phase out Germany's 17 nuclear power plants by 2021. Merkel's Christian Democratic Union opposes abandoning nuclear energy and wants to extend some reactors' lives."

Pickens Shelves His Texas Wind Farm Plan. By Andrew Clark, Guardian (UK), July 8, 2009. "The billionaire energy tycoon T Boone Pickens has scrapped a $10 billion plan to build the world's largest windfarm in the panhandle of Texas, dealing a setback to a broader effort to wean the US off its dependence on foreign oil. Pickens blamed technical problems in transporting power between the proposed site of the system, which was to be in agricultural land hundreds of miles north-west of Dallas, and major population centres. The demise of the project leaves Pickens, 81, with a challenge in dealing with an initial load of 687 giant wind turbines, already on order from General Electric and due for delivery from 2011. He hopes to build a series of smaller power generation farms instead of a single enormous one. 'My garage won't hold them,' said Pickens. 'They've got to go someplace.'"

The Pickens Plan: One Year Later. Commentary by T. Boone Pickens, Politico, July 8, 2009. "On July 8, 2008, oil prices were in the range of $140 a barrel, the economy was showing its first cracks of weakness and both major political parties had effectively chosen their nominees -- yet no one was talking about the economic, environmental or national security issues that our growing addiction to foreign oil were presenting. So I developed and introduced the Pickens Plan. And then I hit the road. In the past year, we've been on the road for 163 days, doing 170 events in 74 cities in 35 states, including 22 town hall meetings. When we started, the United States was on pace to spend $700 billion a year on foreign oil. That was in the same range as the $787 billion stimulus package adopted in February 2009. The difference is, even with oil now about half the price it was last July, we are spending more than $350 billion -- not just as a one-time expenditure, but every year -- to pay for imported oil that will not create a single new job in America... The vast majority of the oil we import goes to gasoline and diesel for our 250 million cars and light trucks and our 6.5 million heavy trucks. Only one fuel can replace diesel for 18-wheelers: natural gas... We have plenty of natural gas. The huge amounts of natural gas contained in the shale deposits under Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Appalachia have helped drive America's natural gas reserves to more than a century's worth... President Barack Obama has stated on several occasions that within 10 years, we will no longer import oil from the Middle East. The Pickens Plan is the only plan on the national agenda to meet that goal, immediately reduce our dependence on foreign oil and buy ourselves the time to develop more advanced renewable fuels."

Unions Warn Senate to Keep Climate Bill Trade Protections. By Matthew Murray, RollCall, July 8, 2009. "Organized labor this week is warning Senate Democrats not to renege on trade protection included in House climate change legislation that would buffer domestic manufacturers from cheap consumer products made in China and elsewhere. 'We need to have global warming legislation that makes sure we don't create perverse incentives that encourage these energy-intensive industries to leave the United States and invest elsewhere in the world where they don't have the same environmental costs,' said David Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance. The Blue Green Alliance is a coalition of unions and environmental groups including the Sierra Club, the Communications Workers of America, the Service Employees International Union and the Laborers' International Union of North America."

Big Four Accounting Firms Among Climate Bill Winners. By Nathaniel Gronewold, ClimateWire, July 7, 2009. "Having helped companies explore Europe's labyrinth of greenhouse gas regulation, the Big Four auditing and accounting firms are moving quickly to build climate and carbon shops in the U.S. that could one day rival tax compliance and financial disclosure."

Concentrating Photovoltaic Power. By Katie Howell, Greenwire, July 6, 2009. "As the race to create clean, renewable power heats up, the solar industry is focusing on a technology in hopes of producing utility-scale energy. Concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) solar power -- which marries traditional solar photovoltaic technology to large-scale concentrated solar power plants -- could ramp up utility-scale solar production, advocates say, especially in niche markets. But as with all developing technologies, the effort faces significant hurdles. CPV technology involves magnifying the sun's energy hundreds of times via lenses or mirrors and focusing it onto small, extremely efficient photovoltaic cells. By magnifying the solar energy, the technology can reduce the amount of semiconductor material needed for the photovoltaic cell... Nancy Hartsoch, [of] SolFocus, a California company [said their design] 'uses 4 gallons of water per megawatt-hour of electricity produced -- most of that to clean the panels -- compared with about 850 gallons per megawatt-hour at a solar thermal plant.'"

UPS Vows to Slash Emission. By Michael Burnham, Greenwire, July 7, 2009. "United Parcel Service Inc. aims to cut its airline fleet's greenhouse gas emissions 42% from 1990 levels during the next decade by using less fossil fuel in its jets. UPS currently operates the world's ninth-largest private airline fleet, with 228 jumbo jets in service and 314 more chartered aircraft. The Atlanta-based company said in a sustainability report today that it plans to invest in more fuel-efficient aircraft models, introduce biofuels, reduce runway idling and optimize flight routes, among other things, to slash its fuel costs and emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases."