Climate Point: COP26 climate deal to 'phase down,' not 'phase out' coal

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I'm Erin Rode in Palm Springs. 

COP26 is now wrapped up, and while negotiators struck a deal aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the pledges won't be enough to limit global temperature rise to the key 1.5 degrees Celsius target, USA Today reported. 

The text of the COP26 agreement requests that by the end of 2022, countries revisit and strengthen their goals for reducing carbon emissions to a target of limiting global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius. These targets were set by the Paris Agreement in 2015. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said the agreement "raises ambitions" and "we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." 

But climate advocates and experts criticized the agreement, and said that some proposals were watered down — for example, a coal clause was weakened from "phase out" to "phase down" at the insistence of China and India. 

"In a major blow to the credibility of these talks, the final language throws a lifeline to climate-killing fossil fuels through carbon capture technologies and continued subsidies to oil, gas and coal. We need more than weak gestures towards 'low-emission' energy. To have any hope of preserving a livable planet, we need to ignite a zero-emission revolution now. We’re waiting for world leaders, especially President Biden, to break this destructive pattern and finally put people over fossil fuels," said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity nonprofit organization.

Several separate pledges were made by governments during the two-week conference in Glasgow, including an agreement between seven countries to end new oil and gas exploration and production, Grist reported. Costa Rica and Denmark are the founding members of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, which also includes France, Greenland, Ireland, Sweden, Wales and the Canadian province of Quebec. 

Some other stories of interest: 

Must-read stories

Buried study. Back in 2016, a High Country News investigation found that the National Park Service has failed to protect workers from sexual misconduct for decades. After the investigation, the National Park Service promised to address the problem, and hired outside experts to investigate the issue. Human resources consultant Fran Sepler of Sepler & Associates compiled the Voices Tour Report in 2018 after hearing from at least 1,249 employees, according to a new High Country News story this week. 

The Voices Tour Report describes how women, LGBTQ+, and Black, Indigenous and people of color are treated within the National Park Service, and how they are unprotected by leadership. But Lyndsey Gilpin at High Country News found that the agency never released the study to the public or widely shared it with employees, and apparently hasn't taken significant action to address the issues raised in the report.

Civilian Climate Corps. President Joe Biden's Build Back Better bill includes a proposal for a new federal program called the Civilian Climate Corps, loosely modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps that provided jobs building parks and infrastructure during the Great Depression. 

The bill includes up to $30 million to hire hundreds of thousands of people over the next five years to fight climate change in a variety of ways, from planting trees to helping communities transition to clean energy. Ledyard King reports on what the new program would look like for USA Today. 

"The pollution here has always been a major issue," said Maricruz Ramirez, a 29-year-old from Bakersfield, California. "And seeing how California suffers from these different issues – wildfire, drought, pollution – it always seems to be getting worse. So that's why I thought the idea of the CCC is so intriguing."

Political climate 

Planes, trains and (electric) automobiles. President Joe Biden signed into law the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill on Monday, marking the largest investment in the country's infrastructure in decades, USA Today reported. 

"Today, we're finally getting this done," said Biden at the signing ceremony. "My message to the American people is this: America is moving again, and your life is going to change for the better.”

The funding includes $66 billion to improve Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line and other routes, $65 billion to modernize the electrical grid, $39 billion to expand public transportation systems, $55 billion for water and sewage systems, $25 billion to renovate airports, and $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations. 

Chaco Canyon. New oil and gas leasing within 10 miles of Chaco Culture National Historic Park in New Mexico will be prohibited for the next two years while officials consider whether to withdraw federal land in the area from development for a 20-year period, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced Monday. 

Some Native American tribes, environmentalists and Democratic politicians have called on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to protect the site, which is a Word Heritage site and contains structures built by ancestral Pueblo people as early as 850 A.D. But much of the land around Chaco belongs to the Navajo Nation and individual Navajo allottees, and Navajo leaders have raised concerns about the income they could lose if a 10-mile buffer is created around the park. 

Water in the West

Lake Mead. Water officials from California, Arizona and Nevada are discussing a new plan to take less water from the shrinking Colorado River in order to prevent Lake Mead from reaching dangerously low levels, Ian James reports for the Los Angeles Times. These discussions come after the states agreed to mandatory cutbacks in 2019.

Underachieving. In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom asked California residents to voluntarily reduce water use by 15% this year — and so far, Californians aren't coming close to this goal. Californians reduced water use by just 3.9% in September, down from 5.1% in August, reports Adam Beam for the Associated Press. 

Hot takes

White gold rush begins. Drilling for lithium — or white gold — has begun in the California desert near the southern shore of the Salton Sea, Sammy Roth reported for the Los Angeles Times. 

Booming cities, spike in ozone. The West's "boom cities," like Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Albuquerque, are seeing a spike in harmful ozone. Colorado's Front Range, which stretches from Fort Collins through Denver and Colorado Springs, has some of the highest ozone levels in the country, Jim Robbins reported for Kaiser Health News. 

Open or close? That's the question some are pondering after new study from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that keeping the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant open longer could help California meet its climate change goals, Rob Nikolewski reported for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Diablo Canyon, located near San Luis Obispo, is the state's last remaining nuclear power plant and is set to close in 2024. 

And another thing

Animal crossing. The infrastructure package has been all over the news for us humans recently, but the $1.2 trillion bill also includes $350 million for infrastructure for animals. This will help fund wildlife crossings, which allow animals to go over or under busy roads, Ben Goldfarb reports for Vox. Roadkill rates are on the rise, and around 12% of North American wild mammals die on roads. In addition to the threat of becoming roadkill, the roads that cross wildlife habitats make it more difficult for animals to find food and mates.

These crossings are expensive, hence the need for funding. In Southern California, an $87 million wildlife crossing is currently in the works that would bridge the eight-lane Highway 101 to help save an isolated mountain lion population from extinction. 

That's all for this week. For more climate, energy and environment news, follow me @RodeErin. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here.