Litigants can’t come to terms on letting part of the law proceed
Environmental justice groups say California's carbon trading program would make pollution worse for communities near major polluters. (Photo: Alison Hawkes)
Prospects for full implementation of California’s 2006 climate change law turned a darker shade of gray this week. Environmental justice groups walked away from negotiations with state officials. The talks were intended to allow certain portions of the plan to move forward even as the carbon trading program remained tied up in litigation.
That means implementation of AB 32 is effectively at a standstill.
After two failed attempts, California is moving ahead with the most aggressive renewable energy goal in the country. Today the State Assembly passed SB 2x, a bill that requires utilities to get 33% of their electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind, by 2020.
By all accounts, utilities will need to add an unprecedented amount of renewable energy to meet the goal. Peter Miller of the Natural Resources Defense Council says that will spur new technology and green job opportunities. “There’s worldwide competition to lead this industry, which is the growth industry of the 21st century,” said Miller. “And this moves us, I believe, to the front of the pack.”
If the 33% renewable portfolio standard (RPS) doesn’t sound new, that’s because it isn’t. The goal was originally set by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a 2008 executive order. Supporters knew that an executive order could be overturned by a future governor, but two previous bills aiming at cementing the goal failed to make it into law. Continue reading CA Moves Forward with Renewable Goals→
A sign along Highway 101 in Crescent City marks the tsunami hazard zone. Officials say they can evacuate the hazard zone in about two hours. (Photo: Craig Miller)
Of course, after facing down 34 tsunami events in the past 100 years, I suppose they should have it down. When I was there to cover the aftermath of the March 11 event that pretty much took out the working harbor, it was clear that the possibility of a seismically-triggered surge is never far from the public consciousness in Del Norte County.
“It’s here with us from the names of buildings to the names of the businesses,” Cindy Henderson told me. “Tsunami is our world. So yeah, it is a very big threat,” said Henderson, who heads emergency services for the county. “We do have others we have to prepare for but in the backs of our minds, we are always thinking about tsunamis — every time there’s a big earthquake.” Continue reading How “Tsunami-Ready” Are You?→
“Climate Watch Conversations” is a series of television interviews with experts from California’s climate change community. Below are the interviews we’ve done to date. All originally aired on KQED’s weekly public affairs program This Week in Northern California.
May 4, 2012
Threats posed by rising sea levels and extreme weather patterns are changing the way California’s coastal communities plan for the future. Senior Climate Watch editor Craig Miller talks with National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Margaret Davidson about the impact of climate change on Bay Area shoreline, most visibly along San Francisco’s Ocean Beach.
February 17, 2012
Climate Watch Senior Editor Craig Miller hears Jared Blumenfeld’s take on the top climate change challenges for the Environmental Protection Agency in Northern California. Blumenfeld also discusses his recent visit to San Francisco’s Mission Motors, an electric motorcycle company seen as a poster child for the Obama administration’s focus on renewable energy and “green” jobs it creates.
December 16, 2011
Heavy precipitation, brutal storms, and devastating drought will continue to afflict the planet in the coming decades. That’s according to the latest report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But where’s all this climate science leading us if governments aren’t acting upon it? Climate Watch Senior Editor Craig Miller discusses the impact of the report with Chris Field, a leading scientist with the IPCC.
June 24, 2011
Climate Watch Senior Editor Craig Miller discovers why Jon Jarvis, Director of the National Park Service calls climate change “the greatest threat” to our national park system. With rising temperatures, extended fire seasons and foreign plant species threatening some of California’s most treasured parks, Jarvis discusses actions underway to respond to the crisis.
May 13, 2011
Climate Watch Senior Editor Craig Miller talks with Mindy Lubber, president of the Boston based nonprofit Ceres. The organization works to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change and water scarcity. This week, it held a conference in Oakland at which environmentalists, executives and investors from around the world gathered to consider ways for business to adopt environmentally sustainable practices.
April 8, 2011
European Union Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard speaks with Senior Editor Craig Miller about working with California leaders on climate policy. The Commissioner met with Gov. Brown and business executives at a conference on climate related issues and policy.
March 18, 2011
Climate Watch Senior Editor Craig Miller talks with Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board about implementing AB 32, the state’s renewable energy goals and promoting alternative transit.
Air board will appeal ruling on implementation of AB 32
Environmental justice advocates will tell you they never intended to shut down the state’s whole climate law, when they filed suit against it. But a broadly-worded court decision could put some or all implementation of AB 32 on hold.
Waste gases are burned off at the ConocoPhillips refinery in Rodeo. (Photo: Craig Miller)
The ruling, which was rendered last Friday by a state superior court in San Francisco and made public yesterday, finds that in putting together its implementation (scoping) plan, the California Air Resources Board failed to give adequate weight to potential alternatives to cap & trade.
Judge Ernest Goldsmith issued the ruling:
“…enjoining any further implementation of the measures contained in the scoping plan until after (the Air Board) has come into complete compliance with its obligations under its certified regulatory programs and CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act).
Environmental groups are criticizing the Obama Administration’s new proposed rules for managing the country’s nearly 200 million acres of national forest, arguing that they weaken current standards for protecting wildlife and watersheds.
More than 100 organizations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Defenders of Wildlife, signed on to a letter sent to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on Monday, arguing that the proposal “fails to provide critical, concrete protections for the most precious resources of our forests — water and wildlife,” and that it “weakens the strong standards for safeguarding water quality and wildlife viability first issued in 1982 by the Reagan Administration and currently still in place.” Continue reading New Rules May Put National Forests at Risk→
My experiment in audience participation falls short
I had the chance to sit down for a few minutes with California’s top air regulator today. Mary Nichols, who chairs the state’s Air Resources Board joined us by satellite from Sacramento. The seven-minute interview will air on KQED’s This Week in Northern California, Friday evening.
Nichols after a day-long public hearing in December of last year. (Photo: Craig Miller)
On Wednesday, blogger Jon Brooks posted a call for questions on “News Fix,” the KQED News blog. It was a worthwhile experiment but the results speak to the extent to which Nichols has become a lightning rod for opponents of environmental regulation in general and cap & trade in particular — and to some degree the state of public policy discourse in America today. The comments, some emailed and some posted on the comments thread at News Fix were largely a stream of invective directed at Nichols and the Air Board. Some questions were a bit technical for a seven-minute TV interview. Others were valid but off-topic. As the latest installment in our series of “Climate Watch Conversations,” I tried to keep to the climate-related business of the Board (with one exception: I felt I needed to have her address events unfolding in Japan and concerns here about radioactive drift).
Remains of a flooded village in Pakistan in December 2010 (Photo: RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP/Getty Images)
It’s not so much the planet we need to worry about, it’s each other. And ourselves.
That’s the message of the documentary Climate Refugees, which aims to portray “the human face of climate change.” The film takes viewers to flooded disaster zones in Bangladesh and China, to tiny island nations like Tuvalu under threat from sea level rise, and to the desert wastelands of Sudan, where, according to the UN, the devastating war in Darfur has been driven partly by climate change.
Business group says delays are costing thousands of jobs, billions in lost economic benefits
The US Chamber of Commerce says it’s taking too long to green-light energy projects — not just in California but across the US — and that it’s putting a drag on economic recovery.
Map shows energy projects that are facing permitting or court challenges, 31 in California. (Image: US Chamber of Commerce)
The pro-business group issued a report that attempts to quantify the opportunity cost of projects that were in permitting or litigation limbo during March of 2010. That “snapshot” includes 31 projects in California. Continue reading Report: “Stalled” Energy Projects Costing Us→
Give incentives, don’t inflict guilt, repackage the climate message
A forest ablaze in Brazil. (Photo: Haroldo Castro/Conservation Int'l)
Arnold Schwarzenegger has some advice for his successor as governor of California, Jerry Brown: “The important thing is for California to stay in there and continue the things that we started.” The former governor was talking to actor Harrison Ford at a recent fundraiser for the non-profit Conservation International (CI), about advancing the environmental and climate agenda.
“Concentrate on giving incentives to companies because in the end it’s technology that will save us all,” Schwarzenegger told the group of several hundred CI donors at San Francisco’s Four Seasons Hotel last week.
Ford, who was moderating the on-stage dialog, expressed frustration that apathy toward climate change is “a daunting obstacle to overcome.” Continue reading Arnold’s Advice to Jerry→
Environmental groups are criticizing the Obama Administration’s 
