Climate Point: Code red for planet. Are U.S. cities fighting climate change or not?
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I'm Janet Wilson from Palm Springs, California. Well, we've done it. The United Nation's latest scientific report on climate change, released Monday, concludes unequivocally that humans are causing hotter weather, worse droughts and more severe storms and yes, that seas are rising faster due to ice melt.
"We are seeing the effects of climate change in every region of the planet, from the polar regions, to the tops of the highest mountains, to the bottom of the ocean," said Ko Barrett, a vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produced the report, its sixth in 30 years, based on hundreds of new research papers.
But "there's a ray of hope," she and other experts stressed in an online briefing with USA Today network reporters.
While the sheer mass of greenhouse gases we've already pumped skyward means at least three decades of worsening drought, fiercer wildfires and stronger storms, it's not too late to avoid the worst of it and stabilize the Earth's climate, they said — if we act swiftly to drive down emissions.
The ability of scientists to link disasters and extreme weather events, like this summer's deadly Pacific Northwest heat wave, to human-caused climate change has also improved sharply, notes lead author Jessica Tierney, a University of Arizona paleoclimatologist. Unique to this report also is an interactive atlas that allows governments to model future impacts at the regional level, helping them figure out what needs to be done.
With the U.S. often absent from international climate work for years at a time, more than 600 local governments have crafted climate action plans. So how are they doing? Not great so far, according to published research and interviews by USA Today network reporters with local officials across the country. Experts now say that many of those cities’ plans were aspirational at best, and they must work harder to help curb the warming trend.
Austin, for example, successfully cut its building emissions by 20% despite a booming population, but transportation emissions rose between 2010 and 2018. Phoenix reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by just 0.5% between 2012 and 2018, though its population grew by 12%. Palm Springs has met one of its goals, but feel short on another.
Brookings Institution researchers in 2020 found just 45 of the 100 largest U.S. cities had adopted a serious climate pledge, and two-thirds of those with plans have fallen short of their targets. They identified bright spots in Los Angeles and other locations, but said overall, less than half of 687 municipalities had made promised cuts needed to avoid ever worse impacts.
On that note, here are other stories that may be of interest.
MUST-READ STORIES
Raging. The Dixie Fire, one of California's largest wildfires ever, continues to roar through half-dead forests and small towns, destroying nearly 900 structures and a historic Gold Rush hamlet, as Christal Hayes reports for USA Today. Sweltering temperatures and bone dry conditions — exactly the types of climate change impacts identified by UN scientists — are adding to firefighters' woes.
No reprieve until winter. Dry, hot and windy conditions have already fanned more than half a dozen major fires across the state, and more than 100 across the American West. Now the weather outlook is so bad experts predict some will likely burn until winter rains arrive.
"We have angry fire on a landscape that makes it very difficult to contain," said Rocky Opliger, an incident commander on the Dixie Fire.
California's 2021 fire season is on pace to explode past 2020, which was a record-setting year with 4.3 million acres burned, write David Benda and Mike Chapman with the Redding Record Searchlight.
Possible cause. PG&E line suspected in Dixie fire was set to be buried.
Whale tales. Something is killing California gray whales in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of North America, perplexing scientists who have long considered them hardy and resilient, "the jeeps of the ocean," as a retired federal researcher told Susannah Rust with the Los Angeles Times. They're now scrambling to figure out what is killing these 40-foot-long marine mammals.
Some believe there may be too many whales for the population to sustain itself. Others point to a gantlet of hazards that grays now face — ecosystem alteration, ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, plastics pollution, disease, ocean acidification and loss of kelp forests. The package also features stellar visuals by Carolyn Cole.
Right place, wrong time. Off the East Coast, there are fewer than 400 north Atlantic right whales left, and new research shows they are changing their migration and feeding habits — staying year-round in watery sites of the nation's first planned marine wind farms off Martha's Vineyard. It was previously thought the critically endangered whales were only there from late winter to early spring, and the main developer agreed to avoid those months. Now environmentalists say more study needs to be done. Doug Fraser with Cape Cod Times reports.
POLITICAL CLIMATE
At last. A rare bipartisan coalition in the Senate, including GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, on Tuesday approved a $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan that is a cornerstone of President Joe Biden's agenda. About $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations is included, but clean transportation advocates say the package, which includes more billions for highways, doesn't go far enough to spur green transportation like public transit and biking.
But not yet. A day later, Senate Democrats moved an ambitious $3.2 trillion "blueprint" for everything from massive investment in electric vehicles to child care subsidies. Both face obstacles to final passage, but leaders in the House have said without the blueprint reconciliation bill becoming law, they won't act on the infrastructure plan.
Feral pork barrel. From Missouri to California, Senators are again requesting billions in "earmark" projects for their home states. In Arkansas, Republican Sen. John Boozman wants $650,000 to mitigate feral swine.
No go. Congress shuts down attempt to fast-track the Lake Powell pipeline.
ENERGY CLEAN AND DIRTY
If you build it. California on Thursday passed mandates to require builders to include solar power and energy storage in high-rise residential projects and many commercial structures. The energy commission also passed the nation's first building code to require highly efficient heat pumps that can be used for heat and air conditioning.
Gassy. Federal officials are moving at home and abroad to try to address concerns about rising energy prices. National security adviser Jake Sullivan called on OPEC to speed up pre-pandemic levels of oil production, angering some enviros, while National Economic Council adviser Bian Deese urged the Federal trade Commission to monitor the U.S. gasoline market for any illegal price gouging.
Mining Greenland. Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are backing a mining firm that wants to explore Greenland for minerals used in electric vehicles. Guess with the melting ice sheet, they might have an easier time.
Funny math. Energy companies are pitching the idea that planet-warming natural gas can be erased by paying villagers to protect forests. But experts can’t make the numbers work, according to this in-depth report by Bloomberg Green.
AND ANOTHER THING
Everything old is new again. Sixty years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation dammed pristine Glen Canyon and created Lake Powell, a reservoir's reservoir for which, as Elizabeth Kolbert with the New Yorker chronicles, no one can quite pinpoint the reason. Now, with epic, climate-fueled drought evaporating much of Lake Powell, side stretches and fingers of the Glen Canyon watershed are re-emerging. Kolbert journeyed through the region by boat and on foot to document the past and present.
That's all for this week. Think globally, act locally and see you next week. And for more climate, energy and environment news, follow me @janetwilson66. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here.