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TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 20.08.2020
Clean energy is not to blame for California blackouts, state agencies tell governor

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News.

Clean energy is not to blame for California blackouts, state agencies tell governor
Reuters Read Article

There is widespread coverage and analysis of the blackouts that have affected California in recent days, with Reuters reporting that the state’s clean energy policies are not to blame, according to “the state’s energy agencies”. The agencies said they would analyse the causes of the outages, Reuters reports, including whether demand forecasts “need to account for more heatwaves due to climate change”. A second Reuters article reports that power companies in California are continuing to urge customers to conserve energy “to avoid more rotating outages as the brutal heatwave blanketing the state pushes the demand forecast”. Axios reports that President Trump has attempted to “weaponise” the power crisis in California “as a political cudgel against Democrats nationwide”. A comment for Utility Dive notes: “Already, some are trying to politicise the blackouts, blaming renewables and California’s aggressive energy transition. However, the situation is considerably more complex than this simplistic narrative.” The “proximate cause” of the blackouts were outages at two gas-fired power stations, it explains. But it adds: “California’s electric grid is grappling with how to maintain service at a time of very high air conditioning usage. Power sources, the state’s regulatory structure, institutional responses and market design are all factors.” Analysis in the Los Angeles Times looks at how the state can “keep the lights on while meeting its clean energy goals”. A comment for Slate argues that the blackouts show “the transition to renewable energy isn’t so simple”. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times runs under the headline: “No, California’s shift to green power isn’t to blame for rolling blackouts.” It describes attempts, including from President Trump, to paint the blackouts as a “cautionary tale” against efforts to clean up electricity grids as “hogwash”. Instead, it says: “The shift to tapping the sun, wind and waterways for power isn’t the root cause of the state’s rolling blackouts; it was the failure to adequately prepare for an entirely predictable scenario of a prolonged and widespread heatwave.” An editorial in the Wall Street Journal has the headline: “California’s green blackouts” and says: “If you eliminate fossil fuels, power shortages are inevitable.” The Washington Post runs a comment from columnist Henry Olsen arguing that the blackouts “should be a warning for renewable energy advocates”. He writes: “Ultimately, the real solution will have to come from extensive investment in battery storage…Climate activists may also have to bite the bullet and agree to significant expansion of nuclear power.”

Separately, the Washington Post reports that California “is on fire again” as a result of extreme heat and dryness. It notes that “Nine out of 10 of the largest California wildfires on record have occurred in the past two decades.” Reuters reports that hundreds of wildfires sparked by lightning have forced tens of thousands of residents of California to flee their homes. According to the Associated Press via ABC News, the state is facing multiple threats from “ wildfires, unhealthy smoky air, extreme heat, the looming possibility of power outages and an ongoing pandemic”. It adds: “Scientists said over the decades climate change’s warmer, drier weather is making much more of California burn.” A six-minute radio segment for NPR runs online under the headline: “Climate change may lead to more record heat and fires in California, experts warn.” The New York Times also covers the multiple crises facing California.

Climate change: Dams played key role in limiting sea level rise
BBC News Read Article

The construction of large-scale dams “almost stalled” rising seas in the 1970s, BBC News reports, “because of the amount of water they prevented from entering the oceans”. But it adds that “the influence of dams in holding back the waters began to fade in the 1990s” as fewer dams were built and climate change “spurred an increase in sea levels through increased ice loss from Greenland and greater thermal expansion of the waters”. The research shows sea level rise has accelerated over the past 30 years to 3.35mm per year, BBC News says. According to Ars Technica, the research solves a “nagging…mismatch” between expected contributions to sea level rise and estimates of what was actually measured in the first half of the 20th century. It explains: “There was apparently more sea level rise than we could explain in that time period,” but with the new research, “estimates are now consistent all the way back to 1900”.

Germany would have missed 2020 climate goal without Covid-19 emissions drop
Reuters Read Article

Germany is unexpectedly set to meet its 2020 target for cutting carbon, Reuters reports, adding that it “would have missed the goal if the economic havoc wrought by the coronavirus pandemic had not caused a large drop in greenhouse gas emissions”. The story is based on analysis from Germany’s environment ministry, which – according to Reuters – says the country would have cut emissions this year to just 37.5% below 1990 levels without the pandemic, against a target of 40%. The newswire notes that Germany will be steering EU talks this year on a new 2030 climate goal for the bloc, with the European Commission expected to next month propose raising the existing 40% target to 50% or 55%. Politico also covers Germany’s 2020 target, which it says is now “within reach” after emissions fell to nearly 36% below 1990 levels in 2019, up from just 32% in 2018. Separately, Reuters reports on a new study finding that Poland “could become climate neutral by 2056”, according to the Polish Economic Institute.

Comment.

What changed – and what didn't – in Democrats' climate platform
Scott Waldman, E&E News via Scientific American Read Article

Many outlets cover this week’s US Democratic national convention, with E&E News via Scientific American looking at how the party’s climate platform has changed since the last version in 2016. The 2020 edition is “their strongest in history”, it notes, adding: “but any celebration from the left was soured by news that party officials had removed a provision that called for an end to subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuel companies”. E&E looks at six notable changes between 2016 and 2020, including on the fossil fuel subsidy language. Other changes are a shift to supporting net-zero emissions by 2050, rather than the 80% by 2050 target from 2016. It also has a focus on creating a clean energy jobs boom in “front line communities” hit hardest by climate impacts, whereas the 2016 platform leant more towards jobs for “energy producing” regions, E&E News notes. BloombergPolitico and the Hill all cover the fossil fuel subsidy debate around the 2020 party platform. According to columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writing in the Daily Telegraph, Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s support for a green new deal is “really a loaded weapon for trade war against China”. He adds: “The global arms race in green technology is escalating fast. The Democrats’ $2tn blitz on clean energy is as much a bid for superpower supremacy as it is about climate change. It is aimed directly at China.” In the Washington Post, however, columnist George F. Will writes of Democratic support for a green new deal: “Historical data seems powerless to dent progressive nostalgia for the New Deal’s fictitious triumph of economic revival through job creation. And, now, this nostalgia has seeped into climate policy: Democrats advocate a Green New Deal, invoking the now-talismanic phrase first publicly spoken by Roosevelt 88 years ago when accepting his party’s presidential nomination.”

According to the New York Times rolling coverage, the Democratic convention “put a spotlight on climate change, hoping to appeal to younger voters”. For InsideClimate News, however, after two nights of speeches, activists are asking “hey, what about climate change?”, with the topic making “only a glancing appearance in the first days” of the event. Reuters is among the outlets covering President Obama’s speech to the convention. It notes: “For Obama and [Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Joe] Biden, the election is a chance to help secure their administration’s legacy, including the restoration of dozens of policies on immigration, climate change and healthcare that Trump has systematically sought to dismantle.”

Writing in the Independent, billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer – who was also briefly a candidate for the Democratic nomination – writes: “After my conversations with Joe Biden, I’m now sure we can win this election.” He adds that he believes climate change to be “the biggest threat to our people, our country, and our world” and, consequently: “Under no circumstances can we afford four more years of Donald Trump.” For the New Yorker, veteran climate activist Bill McKibben asks if Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, will “act boldly on climate change”. He writes: “Her defenders point to a number of powerful statements that she made over the course of her presidential primary campaign…If there’s a rub, it’s that, to date, she hasn’t been that eager to really stand up to power on this issue.”

Finally, in other news from the US, the Hill reports that the state of Louisiana “will aim to achieve net-zero emissions statewide by 2050 under a new executive order signed by the state’s Democratic governor”. The New York Times reports that New Mexico’s Democratic governor used a convention speech endorsing Joe Biden’s candidacy to say that “time is running out to save our planet”.

The Guardian view on coronavirus and the climate crisis: seize this chance
Editorial, The Guardian Read Article

Early in the coronavirus pandemic “many people urged that societies could not and should not return to business as usual afterwards”, says a Guardian editorial. It continues: “Coronavirus not only confronted us with danger, but showed what was possible.” Yet there is “little sign” that these “lessons have been learned”, it says. Reflecting on this and the article published in the Guardian yesterday by Greta Thunberg, the paper looks back to how the world missed the chance to respond to the global financial crisis in 2008-09 with a “Green New Deal” and now “looks set to repeat its mistake”. The editorial concludes that there is “still time to act” and argues for the UK to direct pandemic response spending to “those parts of the economy that can reduce global heating, not worsen it”. (Carbon Brief has been tracking how “green recovery” plans around the world – including the UK – are aiming to cut CO2 emissions.)

Science.

The causes of sea-level rise since 1900
Nature Read Article

New research reconciles the different contributions to sea level rise since 1900, implying “that no additional processes are required to explain the observed changes in sea level”. Using a “probabilistic framework to reconstruct sea level since 1900 using independent observations”, the researchers find that “ice-mass loss – predominantly from glaciers – has caused twice as much sea-level rise since 1900 as has thermal expansion”. The acceleration in sea level rise since the 1970s “is caused by the combination of thermal expansion of the ocean and increased ice-mass loss from Greenland”, the research finds. The study closes the “sea-level budget” for 1900 onwards, the lead author says in a Twitter thread.

The financial impact of fossil fuel divestment
Climate Policy Read Article

Divesting from fossil fuels “does not result in financial harm to investors”, a new study suggests, “even when fossil fuels continue to play a dominant role in the energy mix for some time”. Using an international sample of almost 7,000 companies and study period of forty years, the researchers find that “the investment performance of portfolios that exclude fossil fuel production companies does not significantly differ in terms of risk and return from unrestricted portfolios”. This finding holds “even under market conditions that would benefit the fossil fuel industry”, the researchers note.

Irreversibility of marine climate change impacts under carbon dioxide removal
Geophysical Research Letters Read Article

Overshooting 2C of global warming and then using carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques to come back down to 2C would leave “irreversible” impacts on the marine environment, a new study warns. While changes in sea surface temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen concentration in overshoot scenarios are largely reversible, “changes in average ocean values of these variables are not reversible centuries after the overshoot is removed”, the study finds. This results in “substantial impacts on the marine environment for centuries with potentially detrimental effects for marine ecosystems”, the authors say.

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