Category:Climate Policy

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Over Five Decades of Atmospheric/Earth Science, Climate Activism

A Whole Earth Point of View -- http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Whole_Earth


Five Decades in the Making: Why It Took Congress So Long to Act on Climate


Via the NY Times

August 7, 2022

GreenPolicy360: The following opinion article from the New York Times paints a broad brush of U.S. climate-related activism since the late 1960s. As we at GreenPolicy360 have detailed, an environmental movement and global warming politics is a product of science, political leaders, students and events that somehow here, in the Times article, go unmentioned. So for the record, let us add a number of links to help the NY Times and article writers Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman more accurately describe the beginnings of this profoundly important, even existential, green politics.


WASHINGTON (August 2022) — In 1969, President Richard Nixon’s adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a memo describing a startling future. The increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by burning oil, gas and coal, Mr. Moynihan wrote, would dangerously heat the planet, melt the glaciers and cause the seas to rise. “Goodbye New York,” Mr. Moynihan wrote. “Goodbye Washington, for that matter.”

Fifty-three years later, Congress is on the cusp of finally responding to what Mr. Moynihan termed “the carbon dioxide problem.”

On Sunday, Senate Democrats muscled through a $370 billion bill designed to move the country away from fossil fuels and toward solar, wind and other renewable energy. If the House passes the legislation later this week as expected, it will be the nation’s first major climate law, coming as scientists warn that nations have only a few remaining years to make deep enough cuts in carbon dioxide to avoid planetary catastrophe.

Once enacted, the new law is projected to help cut the nation’s greenhouse pollution by roughly 40 percent below 2005 levels by the end of this decade. That’s not enough to avert the worst impacts of a warming planet, but it would be a sizable down payment and the largest climate action ever taken by the United States.

“Finally, now we have crossed a major threshold,” said former Vice President Al Gore, who as a lawmaker held the first congressional hearings on the subject in 1982 and shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with climate scientists for their joint efforts to spread awareness about climate change. “I did not for a moment imagine it would take this long...”

In interviews, Mr. Gore and other veterans of the nation’s failed attempts at climate legislation pointed to several reasons that a climate bill is about to become law at last — passing the Senate by a razor-thin majority of 51 to 50, with the tie breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.

All said that the incontrovertible evidence that climate change has already arrived— in the form of frighteningly extreme wildfires, drought, storms and floods afflicting every corner of the United States — has helped build political support. Increasingly, the sheer volume of real-time data has overwhelmed the well-financed, multidecade strategy of oil, gas and coal companies to sow doubt about the severity of climate change.

A major 2017 scientific report, the National Climate Assessment, detailed the economic cost of climate change, from record wildfires in California, crop failures in the Midwest and crumbling infrastructure in the South.

Over the past five years the United States has experienced 89 weather and climate disasters with damage of more than $1 billion each, costing the nation a total of $788 billion and 4,557 lives, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last summer was the hottest on record in the contiguous United States, but it is on pace to be outstripped this summer.

By and large, Republicans stopped denying the planet is warming and instead objected to climate action on economic grounds.


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Christina Korp Earth Day and Apollo 8.jpg
Steven Schmidt, GreenPolicy360 Siterunner....
DYK? Yes, we do, we remember the beginnings !


Beginnings of the Modern Environmental Movement

 

August 2022


"My friend George"

George E. Brown Jr


By Steven Schmidt / GreenPolicy360 Siterunner

As a high school student, I met George Brown in the mid-1960s and we began to work, purposefully and closely, to make environmental protection a political reality. He changed the direction of my life and was integral to the founding of Earth Day in 1971 as he helped to set in motion my lifetime of environmental activism. George was looking forward to the 21st century, and especially to the challenges of environmental and earth science programs that he led in Congress for decades, until suddenly he passed away in 1999. George was an amazing man, a visionary who was a mover in the U.S. Congress for four decades, beginning in the 1960s when we began our friendship and work together on a political journey. Let me dedicate this GreenPolicy360 page to George E. Brown as both a biography and memorial. George will always be an influencer for me and his work and legacy is key to understanding my generation...


Memories on the Road to the First Earth Day

By Steve Schmidt

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day_Memories_on_the_50th_Anniversary
• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Earth_Day


Update: 2022


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* https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-democrats-fend-off-amendments-430-bln-climate-drug-bill-2022-08-07/


August 7, 2022


Steve Schmidt / GreenPolicy360: It took 45+ yrs to pass real climate action called for in the 1970s with the first National Climate Act. Our #GreenPolicy360 network thanks Rep George E. Brown, a main mover at the beginning, who'd be smiling now if he were here ...


Five Decades in the Making: Why It Took Congress So Long to Act on Climate


Bookmark Climate Policy @GreenPolicy360


The 2022 'Earth and Politics' US Legislation Carries Forward a Large Vision and Agenda

(Via Axios)

The bill invests roughly $370 billion into initiatives to promote clean energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, likely becoming the most important climate bill in U.S. history.

It gives tax credits to clean energy technologies, like existing nuclear power plants and advanced nuclear technologies, clean hydrogen, carbon capture and storage as well as wind and solar power.

It gives buyers who purchase North American-built electric vehicles a up to $7,500 in federal tax credits to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles while jump-starting America's electric vehicle industry.

It creates a methane fee program to fine corporations that emit the powerful greenhouse gas above federal limits.

Democrats have said the bill's climate provisions put the U.S. on a path to reduce its carbon emissions by up to 40% based on 2005 levels by 2030.


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Oh, Dr. Volts, What's the Latest?

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk in the energy world about the minerals needed by clean-energy technologies and whether mineral supply problems might pose a threat to the clean-energy transition.

To hold warming beneath 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels, the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. To do that, it must radically ramp up production of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric vehicles (EVs), electrolyzers for hydrogen, and power lines.

David (Dr. Volts) Roberts: Volts is a podcast about leaving fossil fuels behind. I've been reporting on and explaining clean-energy topics for almost 20 years


Minerals used in clean energy technologies ....


The IEA estimates that a 'concerted effort to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement (2015) would mean a quadrupling of mineral requirements for clean energy technologies by 2040. An even faster transition, to hit net-zero globally by 2050, would require six times more mineral inputs in 2040 than today.'


Net Zero Energy Policy



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* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Intended_Nationally_Determined_Contributions


National Climate Pledges Must Be Enforced

How to turn each nation's climate pledges into 'effective climate action'

Promises & pledges of international climate summits in Paris (2015) & Glasgow (2021) now require & demand 'climate plans enforcement'
Measuring & monitoring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with satellite missions can become a cooperative climate tool 'working nation-by-nation'



GreenPolicy360:

Climate Plans Enforcement Must Be Our Priority


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Earth Flag-2.png Climate News
Time to act to make a positive difference


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Climate Plans Enforcement - Resources


2022

Via GreenPolicy360


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* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:UN_NDC_Registry_-_website_database.png


United Nations

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) | Climate Plans

View your country's official plans and pledges for climate action


(U.N. Climate Plans Database as of 2022)


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March 28, 2022


Announcement from GreenPolicy360 & Strategic Demands


Stay tuned as GreenPolicy360 launches a new 'Climate Plans Enforcement Project'. Now, internationally, is the time to move from climate plan promises to climate action reality.


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Earth and Space, Politics


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Thin Blue Layer

Look at how thin our atmosphere is


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Extreme temperatures over the decades - NASA-GISS data as of Feb 2021.jpg


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Green New Deal


A Green New Deal (by another name) Moves Forward

March 23, 2021

Via Axios

Driving the news: President Biden is considering using budget reconciliation two more times this year to pass up to $3 trillion in spending aimed at core priorities, including infrastructure, climate change, education, taxes and health care, Axios' Hans Nichols and Alayna Treene report for Axios.

Why it matters: Biden campaigned on big investments in areas like EV charging, grid modernization and boosting R&D, but specifics of his proposals have yet to emerge.

And while a legislative strategy is still taking shape, using reconciliation would enable Democrats to bypass Senate filibusters.

Where it stands: Stories Monday in the New York Times and Washington Post provide some broad-brush numbers on climate and energy pieces of the much wider — and preliminary — White House plans.

Via the Washington Post...

"The infrastructure component of the proposal includes $400 billion in spending to combat climate change, including $60 billion for infrastructure related to green transit and $46 billion for climate-related research and development. The plan also would aim to make electric-vehicle charging stations available across the country." And the NYT notes...

"Documents suggest it will include nearly $1 trillion in spending on the construction of roads, bridges, rail lines, ports, electric vehicle charging stations, and improvements to the electric grid and other parts of the power sector."


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World's Energy Sources Chart


As the U.S. Congress increasingly turns its attention to infrastructure and economic recovery

Infrastructure/clean-renewable energy/climate/transportation
March 15, 2021


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Tracking Biden's Environmental Record - WaPo listing - Feb 2021.jpg


U.S Rejoins International/Paris Climate Accord


Biden, in a Burst of Climate Orders, Rejoins the Paris Agreement

The president also canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and ordered federal agencies to begin the process of reinstating environmental regulations reversed under the Trump administration.

Via the New York Times

Inauguration Day / January 20, 2021


WASHINGTON — President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday recommitted the United States to the Paris climate agreement, the international accord designed to avert catastrophic global warming, and ordered federal agencies to start reviewing and reinstating more than 100 environmental regulations that were weakened or rolled back by former President Donald J. Trump.

The moves represent a first step in healing one of the deepest rifts between the United States and the rest of the world after Mr. Trump defiantly rejected the Paris pact and seemed to relish his administration’s push to weaken or undo major domestic climate policies...


2021


First-ever International Climate 'Envoy' to Join National Security Council with Presidential Cabinet-level Status


GreenPolicy360 & Strategic Demands applaud this historic, critically important shift in the U.S. policy and vision

For years GreenPolicy360 and StratDem have advocated Climate Policy become a U.S. National/Global Security priority


New Definitions of National & Global Security


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Kerry, as former secretary of state, oversaw U.S. negotiations on Paris climate accord for Obama administration

Kerry's role as special presidential envoy for climate does not require Senate confirmation


Kerry: Paris climate deal alone 'is not enough'

Biden will name a White House climate policy coordinator next month who will "lead efforts here in the U.S. to combat the climate crisis and mobilize action to meet this existential threat."


John Kerry, tapped by President-elect Joe Biden to serve as climate czar, said Tuesday (Nov. 22) the incoming administration would look to retake a leadership role on the international stage when it comes to fighting climate change.

"Mr. president-elect, you've put forward a bold transformative climate plan. But you've also underscored that no country alone can solve this challenge," Kerry said as Biden publicly introduced his national security team during remarks in Delaware.


"You're right, to rejoin Paris on Day 1," he added, referring to the Paris Agreement. The Trump administration formally withdrew from the multinational climate pact earlier this month.

"And you're right to recognize that Paris alone is not enough."


Biden introduces leadership team - Nov 24 2020.jpg


Biden has proposed a $2 trillion climate plan that would push the U.S. to net-zero emissions by 2050. But Kerry noted on Tuesday that the U.S., which is responsible for about 15 percent of all emissions, will have to help other countries meet similar targets - a move that presents an opportunity to boost jobs and sell U.S. technology.

"Failure is not an option. Succeeding together means tapping into the best of American ingenuity and creativity and diplomacy, from brain power to alternative energy power," Kerry said.

"No one should doubt the determination of this president [and] vice president. They shouldn't doubt the determination of a country that went to the moon, cured supposedly incurable diseases, and beat back global tyranny in World War Two. This kind of crisis demands that kind of leadership again," he added. "And President Biden will provide it."


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Around Our World
Green Stories of the Day 🌎
Climate News 🌎
Earth and Space, Politics 🌎


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Net Zero Policy

Climate: Planning Solutions @GreenPolicy360


NetZeroPolicy.com
Climate Problems, Climate Solutions
Planet Citizen Action


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"Losing Earth"

Over Decades, How the Oil Industry Played Politics With the Planet's Fate


"The global climate catastrophe gets short shrift, largely because powerful fossil fuel producers still have enormous political clout, following decades-long campaigns to sow doubt about whether anthropogenic emissions are really causing planetary warming."

-- Robert N. Proctor, professor of the history of science at Stanford University

NYT, November 19, 2016



Climate Change Deniers and Doubters Have Deep-Pocket Funders

We now live in a world where ignorance of a very dangerous sort is being deliberately manufactured...


Merchants of Doubt


Sea-Level Rise Across the Globe

Then there are the doubting politicos saying 'build, build, build' -- with a sea-side view

Let us cast an eye to Florida, one of the most vulnerable regions of the world, and let's look at 'Sunny Isles' in Miami


Sea-Level Rise


Estates at Acqualina - Sunny Isles Miami.jpg



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Thin Blue Layer


"It is all connected, it is all interdependent...

You look out the window, and in my case, I saw the thinness of the atmosphere, and it really hit home, and I thought, 'Wow, this is a fragile ball of life that we're living on.'

It is hard for you to appreciate that until you are outside of it." - Astronaut Sandra Magnus


It's All Related

The Physics of Climate Join Us All Together


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Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. -- United Nations


World map


Planet Citizens
New Definitions of National Security


New Definitions of National Security demanded - January 2022.png


Strategic Demands: New Definitions of National and Environmental Security

The Thin Blue Layer protecting the home planet


Look How Thin Our Atmosphere Is

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Climate Refugees, Climate-Related Migrants

By 2050 over one billion people are at threat of being displaced

Drought, war, civil violence, economic disruption -- the costs of climate change are coming into view


Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and disaster displacement one of its most devastating consequences. Entire populations are already suffering the impacts, but vulnerable people living in some of the most fragile and conflict-affected countries are often disproportionately affected.

Refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs) and the stateless are on the frontlines of the climate emergency. Many are living in climate “hotspots”, where they typically lack the resources to adapt to an increasingly hostile environment.


The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has issues warnings, “Urgent steps needed now to mitigate climate impact on displaced people”. They continued: “The climate crisis is a human crisis. It is driving displacement and makes life harder for those already forced to flee.”



UN Global Refugees Social Media Accounts


(2020)

The Institute for Economics and Peace (2020): Over one billion people at threat of being displaced by 2050 due to environmental change, conflict and civil unrest.


The Ecological Threat Register (ETR), that measures the ecological threats countries are currently facing and provides projections to 2050. The report uniquely combines measures of resilience with the most comprehensive ecological data available, to shed light on the countries least likely to cope with extreme ecological shocks.

Key results

- 19 countries with the highest number of ecological threats are among the world's 40 least peaceful countries including Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Chad, India and Pakistan.

- Over one billion people live in 31 countries where the country's resilience is unlikely to sufficiently withstand the impact of ecological events by 2050, contributing to mass population displacement.

- Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa are the regions facing the largest number of ecological threats.

- By 2040, a total of 5.4 billion people – more than half of the world's projected population – will live in the 59 countries experiencing high or extreme water stress, including India and China.

- 3.5 billion people could suffer from food insecurity by 2050; which is an increase of 1.5 billion people from today.

- The lack of resilience in countries covered in the ETR will lead to worsening food insecurity and competition over resources, increasing civil unrest and mass displacement, exposing developed countries to increased influxes of refugees.


Climate refugee or climate migrant?

The terms refugee and migrant have been repeatedly used as political weapons by various political parties and governments, and the connotations of these labels can be contentious. The term ‘refugee’, according to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the State of Refugees, is “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion”.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that language is important in order to offer legal protection to individuals. They caution that:


“This is not just semantics—which definition becomes generally accepted will have very real implications for the obligations of the international community under international law. Forced climate migrants fall through the cracks of international refugee and immigration policy—and there is considerable resistance to the idea of expanding the definition of political refugees to incorporate climate ‘refugees’. The term ‘climate migrant’ can also be a loaded term, with the implication that the ‘pull’ of the destination rather than the ‘push’ of the original country is the primary factor for an individual to move.”

In its conclusion, they note that formal recognition is the critical first step.

“Meanwhile, large-scale migration is not taken into account in national adaptation strategies which tend to see migration as a ‘failure of adaptation’. The international community needs to acknowledge formally the predicament of forced climate migrants.”


The IPCC also highlight that numbers of displaced persons may be significantly under-counted owing to large-scale displacement within countries. “Given that the majority of people displaced by climate change will likely stay within their own borders, restricting the definition to those who cross international borders may seriously understate the extent of the problem”. National borders may seriously understate the extent of the problem”.

...with the lack of a secure definition under international law, climate migrants can fall between the cracks in asylum law, with no institution or country responsible for providing them with basic services. This, in turn, has the potential to be the biggest humanitarian disaster ever recorded – with hundreds of millions of people at risk of climate displacement.


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Loading map...


(As of 2016)

Paris Climate Summit 195 Nations Challenged INDCs.png


GreenPolicy360: Visit Individual Countries / Climate Plans


World Resources Institute (WRI): Climate Watch... Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Data


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Climate-Related Laws/Statutes, Ordinances, Regulations, Rules | Law Making & Rules Making

Visit Environmental Laws @GreenPolicy360 -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Environmental_Laws


GreenLaw360.com - Climate Plans Enforcement (Climpe.com database in dev)
GreenLaw360.com - Climate Plans Enforcement (Introduction/Resources)


Environmental Law 360 - @GreenPolicy360
Climate Change Laws Around the World
Climate Change Laws via Grantham Institute (Current)
Trends in Climate Change Legislation (2017)


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Climate Analysis Indicators Tools (CAIT) - WRI Update 2022)


Climate Watch Pathways

Via World Resources Institute


Data Lab - https://www.wri.org/data/data-lab

Data Platforms - https://www.wri.org/data/data-platforms

Open Data Portal - https://datasets.wri.org/ - https://datasets.wri.org/dataset

Resource Library - https://www.wri.org/resources/type/data-52

Permissions & Licensing - https://www.climatewatchdata.org/about/permissions


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Paris Climate Summit 195 Nations Challenged INDCs.png


Paris Climate Agreement Tracker / CAIT Climate Data Explorer


Click on the Map for the Latest Country-by-Country News


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The Commons


"Thin Blue"

Protecting the Commons


Earth in Our Hands


TinyBlueGreen


"Tiny Blue-Green", Oxygen in the Atmosphere, Food Source of the Seas


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Planet Citizens



Your Own Climate Impact

Your Carbon Footprint


Discover

Citizen Science


Act

Planet Citizen Action


Climate Policy / Green Policy Over the Decades


Each of us can make a positive difference ....


Earth in Human Hands.jpg


Planet Citizen Action
Earth in Our Hands
Climate Problems, Climate Solutions


National Climate Program Act (1978)

US Public Law 95-367.png


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Green Stories of the Day


Green New Deal


New Definitions of National Security


En.wikipedia.org-wiki-Noctilucent cloud - Hadfield 2013.jpeg


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As the ice retreats in the Arctic...


What happens in the North doesn't stay in the North


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What happens in the South doesn't stay in the South


Thwaites.jpg

Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica


March 2022

It’s 70 degrees warmer than normal in eastern Antarctica

‘This event is completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system.’

The coldest location on the planet has experienced an episode of warm weather this week unlike any ever observed, with temperatures over the eastern Antarctic ice sheet soaring 50 to 90 degrees above normal. The warmth has smashed records and shocked scientists.


What happens in the East and West, North and South, connects us all ... climate is our atmosphere, our 'thin blue', life-enabling atmosphere

The ocean, the land, the forest, the rivers, the eco-systems, the biosphere -- they all connect us on our living planet


Ecoregions of the World terrestrial-wiki.jpg


Planet Citizens, Planet Scientists, here we are....


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Climate 101 (From GreenPolicy friend Andrew Revkin


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