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"title": "California is Phasing Out Fossil Fuels; Trump Wants to Expand Drilling. Something's Gotta Give",
"headTitle": "California is Phasing Out Fossil Fuels; Trump Wants to Expand Drilling. Something’s Gotta Give | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Two announcements with implications for California’s oil industry whizzed past each other in recent weeks, revealing starkly conflicting visions for energy development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a five-year hiatus on auctions for oil-drilling rights on federal land, Washington \u003ca href=\"https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/lup/67003/20005020/250005892/Record_of_Decision_CCFO_RMPA-Final_EIS_508.pdf\">finalized a plan\u003c/a> to allow them\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>on more than 700,000 acres in 11 Central California counties. A more significant proposal to include parcels on more than 1 million acres in the Bakersfield area is due in the next few months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, California’s oil and gas regulator announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.conservation.ca.gov/index/Pages/News/California-Establishes-Moratorium-on-High-Pressure-Extraction.aspx\">a range of measures\u003c/a> including a moratorium on certain types of well injections, more oversight of hydraulic fracturing — fracking — and an independent audit of the state’s process for granting drilling permits. After a flurry of activity at the beginning of the year, the state has not approved any fracking permits since June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The policy divergence\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>underscores the difference between state and federal views on the future of fossil fuels in California: The state is moving to ramp down oil production while Washington is \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-executive-order-promoting-energy-independence-economic-growth/\">expediting\u003c/a> it. State officials are taking a closer look at the environmental and health threats — especially land, air and water contamination — posed by energy extraction, while Washington appears to have concluded that existing federal regulations\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>sufficiently protect its sensitive landscapes as well as public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed alignright is-type-rich is-provider-infogram embed -50\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\u003cdiv id=\"ig-d6b63a74-852e-f771-1ab4-d90fd4c8e42e\" class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"ff507a65-49f9-4c82-9df3-1d372ac7d1d4\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"california field production/oil 2\" data-processed=\"1\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It is unclear how this schism\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>will play out, beyond aggravating the already fraught relationship between the Golden State and President Donald Trump — though the federal plans date to the Obama administration.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Experts caution that even with nearly 2 million acres now open to drilling leases, there’s no certainty that energy companies will show any interest. Overall, oil production in California has \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpca2&f=a\">fallen by about 60%\u003c/a> since the mid-1980s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Trump administration has moved federal agencies’ policies toward aggressive expansion of fossil fuel development on public lands,” California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said in an email. “The Newsom administration disagrees with this direction….The governor has been clear that we need to reduce our reliance on oil and gas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, in a plainly worded statement last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state was taking its steps “as we phase out our dependence on fossil fuels and focus on clean-energy sources.” He stopped short of a fracking ban, which he said he supported during his campaign. Environmental groups \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2019/04/activists-want-california-fracking-ban-newsom/\">have lobbied\u003c/a> to outlaw fracking, but many nevertheless applauded the state’s moves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They derided the federal plans, which could allow\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>drilling\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>at the edges of such treasured landscapes as the Carrizo Plain National Monument in San Luis Obispo County and near Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks in the Central Valley. A few of the potentially affected parcels overlap the Pacific Crest Trail, a popular hiking route that traces California’s spine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kassie Siegel is director of the Climate Law Institute\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group whose 2013 lawsuit halted federal leasing of land for oil and gas exploration in parts of\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>California. She said the state’s slowdown is necessary to achieve its greenhouse-gas-reduction goals and\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>eventually run the state without fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really good news for California and is globally significant,” she said. “This is the first governor of a major oil-producing state to launch the phase-out of fossil-fuel extraction. This is really a watershed for California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit was settled in 2017, forcing federal agencies to review the environmental effects of fracking. With that done, the plans were revived, with the same footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is the nation’s sixth-largest oil producer, but because of geology and regulation it operates differently from many other energy-producing states. For example, fracking takes place in nearly two dozen states and gets a lot of attention, but the process is used on only about 1 in 5 oil wells in California. The controversial practice has been blamed for fouling water and air in communities around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, the process of injecting steam, water and other chemicals into wells at high pressure is common, particularly given the heaviness and viscosity of California crude oil. Steam softens the crude, and the pressure pushes it to well bores to be extracted. These high-pressure injections have been put on hold while the state studies the hazards that accompany them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ideally, federal and state land-use plans would be harmonized for consistency and efficiency. But that is rarely achievable in California’s checkerboard of land ownership, a complex blend of federal, tribal, state, local and private property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government controls nearly 46% of the land in California, though its mineral rights extend far beyond that under a longstanding land-use doctrine. In the Bakersfield area alone, the feds control about 1.2 million acres of mineral rights. In total, the U.S. government holds about half the mineral rights in California, including rights\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>to oil, gas and mined minerals. But few of those resources are being explored, officials said. Federal lands produce less than 10% of California’s oil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Bureau of Land Management is required to offer leases quarterly if there is an expression of interest from the energy industry. Leases are awarded to the highest bidders and are good for 10 years. But officials said they don’t expect a rush of new leasing; companies prefer to rework wells that already exist, and there has been little interest expressed in undeveloped areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would not anticipate that we would see a large uptick on new … leases,” said John Hodge, associate field manager for the bureau’s Bakersfield office, adding that most of the recent permitting on federal land has been in areas already leased and in production for decades or more. Companies have been congregating in established fields in Kern County, he said, because “they’ve got the infrastructure in place and the oil is there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the federal leasing plan for its Central California properties anticipates at most a few dozen applications over the next 20 years. There are no immediate industry expressions of interest in the area, Hodge said, and the agency has no current plan to offer a lease sale there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oil is a commodity, and energy companies make decisions based on the price of a barrel of oil, said Rock Zierman, Chief Executive Officer of the California Independent Petroleum Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s some interest,” he said of the proposed new lease areas. “But in our business, you are going to invest your dollars where you can get the best return.” The leases are exploratory, so “there’s less certainty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://calmatters.org/\">\u003cem>CalMatters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> is a non-profit journalism venture dedicated to exploring state policies and politics.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Two announcements with implications for California’s oil industry whizzed past each other in recent weeks, revealing starkly conflicting visions for energy development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a five-year hiatus on auctions for oil-drilling rights on federal land, Washington \u003ca href=\"https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/lup/67003/20005020/250005892/Record_of_Decision_CCFO_RMPA-Final_EIS_508.pdf\">finalized a plan\u003c/a> to allow them\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>on more than 700,000 acres in 11 Central California counties. A more significant proposal to include parcels on more than 1 million acres in the Bakersfield area is due in the next few months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, California’s oil and gas regulator announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.conservation.ca.gov/index/Pages/News/California-Establishes-Moratorium-on-High-Pressure-Extraction.aspx\">a range of measures\u003c/a> including a moratorium on certain types of well injections, more oversight of hydraulic fracturing — fracking — and an independent audit of the state’s process for granting drilling permits. After a flurry of activity at the beginning of the year, the state has not approved any fracking permits since June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The policy divergence\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>underscores the difference between state and federal views on the future of fossil fuels in California: The state is moving to ramp down oil production while Washington is \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-executive-order-promoting-energy-independence-economic-growth/\">expediting\u003c/a> it. State officials are taking a closer look at the environmental and health threats — especially land, air and water contamination — posed by energy extraction, while Washington appears to have concluded that existing federal regulations\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>sufficiently protect its sensitive landscapes as well as public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed alignright is-type-rich is-provider-infogram embed -50\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\u003cdiv id=\"ig-d6b63a74-852e-f771-1ab4-d90fd4c8e42e\" class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"ff507a65-49f9-4c82-9df3-1d372ac7d1d4\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"california field production/oil 2\" data-processed=\"1\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It is unclear how this schism\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>will play out, beyond aggravating the already fraught relationship between the Golden State and President Donald Trump — though the federal plans date to the Obama administration.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Experts caution that even with nearly 2 million acres now open to drilling leases, there’s no certainty that energy companies will show any interest. Overall, oil production in California has \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpca2&f=a\">fallen by about 60%\u003c/a> since the mid-1980s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Trump administration has moved federal agencies’ policies toward aggressive expansion of fossil fuel development on public lands,” California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said in an email. “The Newsom administration disagrees with this direction….The governor has been clear that we need to reduce our reliance on oil and gas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, in a plainly worded statement last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state was taking its steps “as we phase out our dependence on fossil fuels and focus on clean-energy sources.” He stopped short of a fracking ban, which he said he supported during his campaign. Environmental groups \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2019/04/activists-want-california-fracking-ban-newsom/\">have lobbied\u003c/a> to outlaw fracking, but many nevertheless applauded the state’s moves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They derided the federal plans, which could allow\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>drilling\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>at the edges of such treasured landscapes as the Carrizo Plain National Monument in San Luis Obispo County and near Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks in the Central Valley. A few of the potentially affected parcels overlap the Pacific Crest Trail, a popular hiking route that traces California’s spine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kassie Siegel is director of the Climate Law Institute\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group whose 2013 lawsuit halted federal leasing of land for oil and gas exploration in parts of\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>California. She said the state’s slowdown is necessary to achieve its greenhouse-gas-reduction goals and\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>eventually run the state without fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really good news for California and is globally significant,” she said. “This is the first governor of a major oil-producing state to launch the phase-out of fossil-fuel extraction. This is really a watershed for California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit was settled in 2017, forcing federal agencies to review the environmental effects of fracking. With that done, the plans were revived, with the same footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is the nation’s sixth-largest oil producer, but because of geology and regulation it operates differently from many other energy-producing states. For example, fracking takes place in nearly two dozen states and gets a lot of attention, but the process is used on only about 1 in 5 oil wells in California. The controversial practice has been blamed for fouling water and air in communities around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, the process of injecting steam, water and other chemicals into wells at high pressure is common, particularly given the heaviness and viscosity of California crude oil. Steam softens the crude, and the pressure pushes it to well bores to be extracted. These high-pressure injections have been put on hold while the state studies the hazards that accompany them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ideally, federal and state land-use plans would be harmonized for consistency and efficiency. But that is rarely achievable in California’s checkerboard of land ownership, a complex blend of federal, tribal, state, local and private property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government controls nearly 46% of the land in California, though its mineral rights extend far beyond that under a longstanding land-use doctrine. In the Bakersfield area alone, the feds control about 1.2 million acres of mineral rights. In total, the U.S. government holds about half the mineral rights in California, including rights\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>to oil, gas and mined minerals. But few of those resources are being explored, officials said. Federal lands produce less than 10% of California’s oil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Bureau of Land Management is required to offer leases quarterly if there is an expression of interest from the energy industry. Leases are awarded to the highest bidders and are good for 10 years. But officials said they don’t expect a rush of new leasing; companies prefer to rework wells that already exist, and there has been little interest expressed in undeveloped areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would not anticipate that we would see a large uptick on new … leases,” said John Hodge, associate field manager for the bureau’s Bakersfield office, adding that most of the recent permitting on federal land has been in areas already leased and in production for decades or more. Companies have been congregating in established fields in Kern County, he said, because “they’ve got the infrastructure in place and the oil is there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the federal leasing plan for its Central California properties anticipates at most a few dozen applications over the next 20 years. There are no immediate industry expressions of interest in the area, Hodge said, and the agency has no current plan to offer a lease sale there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oil is a commodity, and energy companies make decisions based on the price of a barrel of oil, said Rock Zierman, Chief Executive Officer of the California Independent Petroleum Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s some interest,” he said of the proposed new lease areas. “But in our business, you are going to invest your dollars where you can get the best return.” The leases are exploratory, so “there’s less certainty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://calmatters.org/\">\u003cem>CalMatters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> is a non-profit journalism venture dedicated to exploring state policies and politics.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Attorneys representing a coalition of 364 advocacy organizations filed a legal \u003ca href=\"https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/plastic-production/pdfs/19-12-3-NSPS-Petition.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">petition\u003c/a> with the Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday calling for new regulations on the U.S. plastic industry. The group says plastic manufacturing is polluting the air and worsening climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The petition calls for requirements on manufacturers to power their facilities with renewable energy and to improve air quality monitors, record keeping, and public access to information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Plastic production is polluting,” said petition author Lauren Packard. “It’s poisoning our communities. It’s littering our oceans, and it’s dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Packard, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, rallied in support of the petition with other advocates Wednesday in front of the EPA’s regional office in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/JasonPfeifle/status/1201937352056168449?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The petition was co-signed by a coalition of major environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, as well as public health, social justice, labor, faith and indigenous rights organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Margot Perez-Sullivan, a spokeswoman with the EPA’s Pacific Southwest regional office, said the agency received the petition and will meet with the group’s leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We value input from all stakeholders,” Perz-Sullivan said in an emailed statement. “The petition calls for national rulemaking actions and has therefore been shared with the agency’s national leadership. EPA will review the petition and continue to work with stakeholders to address environmental and public health concerns.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plastic and Climate Change\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coalition of groups that petitioned the EPA says natural gas production is booming and that the glut has contributed to an explosion in plastic production over the last two decades. In the U.S., natural gas is the leading source of raw material for plastic production, according to the U.S Energy Information Administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6\">site\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Chemical Council argues that abundant natural gas creates a competitive advantage for U.S. chemical manufacturing and leads to job growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But advocates say they are concerned about both the release of benzene, formaldehyde, and other toxic air pollutants from the plastic-making facilities that use natural gas, as well as greenhouse gases released during the plastics manufacturing process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Packard says EPA should strictly regulate the industry to protect public health and to fight climate change. “This dirty industry spews greenhouse gases at every step, from leaky gas wells to the plastic pollution degrading in our oceans and landfills,” she said. “That has to stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re calling on EPA to update its outdated regulations that apply to plastics production facilities,” Packard said. “Plastics are a huge problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Attorneys representing a coalition of 364 advocacy organizations filed a legal \u003ca href=\"https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/plastic-production/pdfs/19-12-3-NSPS-Petition.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">petition\u003c/a> with the Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday calling for new regulations on the U.S. plastic industry. The group says plastic manufacturing is polluting the air and worsening climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The petition calls for requirements on manufacturers to power their facilities with renewable energy and to improve air quality monitors, record keeping, and public access to information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Plastic production is polluting,” said petition author Lauren Packard. “It’s poisoning our communities. It’s littering our oceans, and it’s dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Packard, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, rallied in support of the petition with other advocates Wednesday in front of the EPA’s regional office in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The petition was co-signed by a coalition of major environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, as well as public health, social justice, labor, faith and indigenous rights organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Margot Perez-Sullivan, a spokeswoman with the EPA’s Pacific Southwest regional office, said the agency received the petition and will meet with the group’s leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We value input from all stakeholders,” Perz-Sullivan said in an emailed statement. “The petition calls for national rulemaking actions and has therefore been shared with the agency’s national leadership. EPA will review the petition and continue to work with stakeholders to address environmental and public health concerns.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plastic and Climate Change\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coalition of groups that petitioned the EPA says natural gas production is booming and that the glut has contributed to an explosion in plastic production over the last two decades. In the U.S., natural gas is the leading source of raw material for plastic production, according to the U.S Energy Information Administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6\">site\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Chemical Council argues that abundant natural gas creates a competitive advantage for U.S. chemical manufacturing and leads to job growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But advocates say they are concerned about both the release of benzene, formaldehyde, and other toxic air pollutants from the plastic-making facilities that use natural gas, as well as greenhouse gases released during the plastics manufacturing process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Packard says EPA should strictly regulate the industry to protect public health and to fight climate change. “This dirty industry spews greenhouse gases at every step, from leaky gas wells to the plastic pollution degrading in our oceans and landfills,” she said. “That has to stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re calling on EPA to update its outdated regulations that apply to plastics production facilities,” Packard said. “Plastics are a huge problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "U.N. Chief Presses Developed Countries to Step Up Climate Change Fight",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sunday that the world’s efforts to stop climate change have been “utterly inadequate” so far and there is a danger global warming could pass the “point of no return.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Speaking before the start Monday of a two-week \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/4a37cff987f846a6b0f3d6d17f147037\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">international climate conference\u003c/a> in Madrid, the U.N. chief said the impact of rising temperatures — including more extreme weather — is already being felt around the world, with dramatic consequences for humans and other species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">He noted that the world has the scientific knowledge and the technical means to limit global warming, but “what is lacking is political will.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">“The point of no return is no longer over the horizon,” Guterres told reporters in the Spanish capital. “It is in sight and hurtling toward us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Delegates from almost 200 countries will try to put the finishing touches on the rules governing the 2015 Paris climate accord at the Dec. 2-13 meeting, including how to create functioning international emissions trading systems and compensate poor countries for losses they suffer from rising sea levels and other consequences of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Guterres cited \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/e5687657f8544c30b42f0c8641a4f7db\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mounting scientific evidence\u003c/a> for the impact that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are already having on the planet, including record temperatures and melting polar ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">But he insisted that his message was “one of hope, not of despair. Our war against nature must stop and we know that that is possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Countries agreed in Paris four years ago to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), ideally 1.5C (2.7F) by the end of the century compared with pre-industrial times. Already, average temperatures have increased by about 1C, leaving little room for the more ambitious target to be met.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Guterres said growing demands from citizens, particularly \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/e83d6b502d1443ac9d2ce5af8464f29a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">young people\u003c/a>, have shown there is widespread desire for climate action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">“What is still lacking is political will,” he said. “Political will to put a price on carbon. Political will to stop subsidies on fossil fuels. Political will to stop building coal power plants from 2020 onwards. Political will to shift taxation from income to carbon. Taxing pollution instead of people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Guterres noted that some 70 countries — many of them among the most vulnerable to climate change — have pledged to stop emitting more greenhouse gases by 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">“But we also see clearly that the world’s largest emitters are not pulling their weight. And without them, our goal is unreachable,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">The U.N. chief said he hoped the meeting in Madrid would see governments make more ambitious pledges ahead of a deadline to do so next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">He also said that creating a worldwide market for emissions, which is a key element of the sixth article of the Paris accord, remained one of the most contentious issues for negotiators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">“We are here to find answers for article 6, not to find excuses,” Guterres said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Guterres also announced that outgoing Bank of England governor Mark Carney will become his new special envoy on “climate action and climate finance” from next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Organizers expect around 29,000 visitors, including some 50 heads of state and government for Monday’s opening, as well as scientists, seasoned negotiators and activists during the two-week meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Some of the world’s largest carbon emitters — the United States, China and India — will be represented by ministers or lower-level officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">The U.S. administration of President Donald Trump, which has announced the intention to withdraw from the Paris agreement, is represented by Marcia Bernicat, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to the talks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">More than 5,000 police officers are charged with keeping the summit safe, Spain’s Interior Ministry said Sunday. Although authorities have stepped-up border controls and cybersecurity measures, authorities have kept the country’s terror alert one level under the highest, where it has been ever since extremist attacks in Tunisia and France in mid-2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Follow AP’s climate coverage at \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/Climate\">https://www.apnews.com/Climate\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sunday that the world’s efforts to stop climate change have been “utterly inadequate” so far and there is a danger global warming could pass the “point of no return.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Speaking before the start Monday of a two-week \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/4a37cff987f846a6b0f3d6d17f147037\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">international climate conference\u003c/a> in Madrid, the U.N. chief said the impact of rising temperatures — including more extreme weather — is already being felt around the world, with dramatic consequences for humans and other species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">He noted that the world has the scientific knowledge and the technical means to limit global warming, but “what is lacking is political will.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">“The point of no return is no longer over the horizon,” Guterres told reporters in the Spanish capital. “It is in sight and hurtling toward us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Delegates from almost 200 countries will try to put the finishing touches on the rules governing the 2015 Paris climate accord at the Dec. 2-13 meeting, including how to create functioning international emissions trading systems and compensate poor countries for losses they suffer from rising sea levels and other consequences of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Guterres cited \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/e5687657f8544c30b42f0c8641a4f7db\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mounting scientific evidence\u003c/a> for the impact that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are already having on the planet, including record temperatures and melting polar ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">But he insisted that his message was “one of hope, not of despair. Our war against nature must stop and we know that that is possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Countries agreed in Paris four years ago to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), ideally 1.5C (2.7F) by the end of the century compared with pre-industrial times. Already, average temperatures have increased by about 1C, leaving little room for the more ambitious target to be met.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Guterres said growing demands from citizens, particularly \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/e83d6b502d1443ac9d2ce5af8464f29a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">young people\u003c/a>, have shown there is widespread desire for climate action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">“What is still lacking is political will,” he said. “Political will to put a price on carbon. Political will to stop subsidies on fossil fuels. Political will to stop building coal power plants from 2020 onwards. Political will to shift taxation from income to carbon. Taxing pollution instead of people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Guterres noted that some 70 countries — many of them among the most vulnerable to climate change — have pledged to stop emitting more greenhouse gases by 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">“But we also see clearly that the world’s largest emitters are not pulling their weight. And without them, our goal is unreachable,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">The U.N. chief said he hoped the meeting in Madrid would see governments make more ambitious pledges ahead of a deadline to do so next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">He also said that creating a worldwide market for emissions, which is a key element of the sixth article of the Paris accord, remained one of the most contentious issues for negotiators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">“We are here to find answers for article 6, not to find excuses,” Guterres said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Guterres also announced that outgoing Bank of England governor Mark Carney will become his new special envoy on “climate action and climate finance” from next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Organizers expect around 29,000 visitors, including some 50 heads of state and government for Monday’s opening, as well as scientists, seasoned negotiators and activists during the two-week meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">Some of the world’s largest carbon emitters — the United States, China and India — will be represented by ministers or lower-level officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">The U.S. administration of President Donald Trump, which has announced the intention to withdraw from the Paris agreement, is represented by Marcia Bernicat, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to the talks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-99 Component-p-0-2-92\">More than 5,000 police officers are charged with keeping the summit safe, Spain’s Interior Ministry said Sunday. Although authorities have stepped-up border controls and cybersecurity measures, authorities have kept the country’s terror alert one level under the highest, where it has been ever since extremist attacks in Tunisia and France in mid-2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Follow AP’s climate coverage at \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/Climate\">https://www.apnews.com/Climate\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Greenhouse gas emissions have steadily risen for the last decade despite the current and future threat posed by climate change, according to a new United Nations report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The annual report compares how clean the world’s economies are to how clean they need to be in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change — a disparity known as the “emissions gap.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, this year’s report describes more of a chasm than a gap. Global emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gasses have continued to steadily increase over the last decade. In 2018, the report notes that global fossil fuel CO2 emissions from electricity generation and industry grew by a mammoth 2%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no sign of [greenhouse gas] emissions peaking in the next few years,” the authors write. Every year that emissions continue to increase, “means that deeper and faster cuts will be required” in order to keep the Earth from warming more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/655360909/grim-forecast-from-u-n-on-global-climate-change\">1.5 to 2 degrees\u003c/a> Celsius above pre-industrial levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Earth is \u003ca href=\"https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2865/a-degree-of-concern-why-global-temperatures-matter/\">already\u003c/a> more than 1 degree warmer than it was before industrialization, and that is driving more frequent and severe storms, droughts, heat waves and other extreme weather. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/1/\">2018 National Climate Assessment\u003c/a>, if global emissions fail to fall in the coming decade, it will slow economic growth and cause serious damage to infrastructure and property in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is urgent, but we can do it,” says Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a climate policy think tank in Washington, D.C. The annual emissions gap report “heightens even further the public and political pressure on governments to do their utmost,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The United States is currently not on track to meet its greenhouse gas reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement, which the United States ratified and is technically still part of until its withdrawal takes effect in November 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. emissions have decreased in the last decade as appliances and vehicles get more efficient and the economy moves away from pollutant-heavy energy sources, such as coal. However, a strong economy paired with regulatory rollbacks have \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-estimates-for-2018/\">pushed emissions\u003c/a> back up in recent years, slowing the country’s downward emissions trend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the new report, six other major economies are also lagging behind their commitments, including Canada, Japan, Australia and Brazil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, China’s greenhouse emissions have continued to grow, although they appear to be \u003ca href=\"https://newclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Report-Global-Climate-Action-from-Cities-Regions-and-Businesses_2019.pdf\">on track to peak\u003c/a> before 2030, which is the target date that Beijing set for itself. The new U.N. report points out that per capita emissions in China are now “in the same range” as the European Union. China has also invested heavily in renewable energy such as solar and wind, and leads the world in \u003ca href=\"https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/these-countries-are-leading-the-charge-to-clean-energy/\">electric vehicle infrastructure\u003c/a>, although such investments have \u003ca href=\"https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-chinas-renewable-energy-transition-is-losing-momentum\">slowed\u003c/a> in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report lays out recommendations for how the world’s top economies could cut emissions in the next decade. For example, countries could ban new coal-fired power plants, require all new vehicles to be CO2-free by 2030, expand mass transit and require all new buildings to be entirely electric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report comes just a few weeks before world leaders meet in Madrid for the annual Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, where they will discuss whether to make bolder national promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. The report warns that countries must promise to reduce emissions three to five times more than they already have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Greenhouse+Gas+Emissions+Are+Still+Rising%2C+U.N.+Report+Says&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Greenhouse gas emissions have steadily risen for the last decade despite the current and future threat posed by climate change, according to a new United Nations report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The annual report compares how clean the world’s economies are to how clean they need to be in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change — a disparity known as the “emissions gap.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, this year’s report describes more of a chasm than a gap. Global emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gasses have continued to steadily increase over the last decade. In 2018, the report notes that global fossil fuel CO2 emissions from electricity generation and industry grew by a mammoth 2%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no sign of [greenhouse gas] emissions peaking in the next few years,” the authors write. Every year that emissions continue to increase, “means that deeper and faster cuts will be required” in order to keep the Earth from warming more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/655360909/grim-forecast-from-u-n-on-global-climate-change\">1.5 to 2 degrees\u003c/a> Celsius above pre-industrial levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Earth is \u003ca href=\"https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2865/a-degree-of-concern-why-global-temperatures-matter/\">already\u003c/a> more than 1 degree warmer than it was before industrialization, and that is driving more frequent and severe storms, droughts, heat waves and other extreme weather. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/1/\">2018 National Climate Assessment\u003c/a>, if global emissions fail to fall in the coming decade, it will slow economic growth and cause serious damage to infrastructure and property in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is urgent, but we can do it,” says Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a climate policy think tank in Washington, D.C. The annual emissions gap report “heightens even further the public and political pressure on governments to do their utmost,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The United States is currently not on track to meet its greenhouse gas reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement, which the United States ratified and is technically still part of until its withdrawal takes effect in November 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. emissions have decreased in the last decade as appliances and vehicles get more efficient and the economy moves away from pollutant-heavy energy sources, such as coal. However, a strong economy paired with regulatory rollbacks have \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-estimates-for-2018/\">pushed emissions\u003c/a> back up in recent years, slowing the country’s downward emissions trend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the new report, six other major economies are also lagging behind their commitments, including Canada, Japan, Australia and Brazil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, China’s greenhouse emissions have continued to grow, although they appear to be \u003ca href=\"https://newclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Report-Global-Climate-Action-from-Cities-Regions-and-Businesses_2019.pdf\">on track to peak\u003c/a> before 2030, which is the target date that Beijing set for itself. The new U.N. report points out that per capita emissions in China are now “in the same range” as the European Union. China has also invested heavily in renewable energy such as solar and wind, and leads the world in \u003ca href=\"https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/these-countries-are-leading-the-charge-to-clean-energy/\">electric vehicle infrastructure\u003c/a>, although such investments have \u003ca href=\"https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-chinas-renewable-energy-transition-is-losing-momentum\">slowed\u003c/a> in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report lays out recommendations for how the world’s top economies could cut emissions in the next decade. For example, countries could ban new coal-fired power plants, require all new vehicles to be CO2-free by 2030, expand mass transit and require all new buildings to be entirely electric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report comes just a few weeks before world leaders meet in Madrid for the annual Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, where they will discuss whether to make bolder national promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. The report warns that countries must promise to reduce emissions three to five times more than they already have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Greenhouse+Gas+Emissions+Are+Still+Rising%2C+U.N.+Report+Says&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=67&v=hjIRI4hbkmg&feature=emb_logo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003cem>In the InsideClimate News documentary project \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Climate\u003c/a>, reporter Neela Banerjee and videographer Anna Belle Peevey share the stories of people trying to rebuild lives splintered by three weather-related disasters. \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Explore the videos and essays here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Four months after the Camp Fire incinerated his home and the entire nearby town of Paradise, California, Randy Larsen sat on the steps of his RV and struggled to process what he’d survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">He remembered seeing the smoke and fire in Paradise across the canyon and the traffic streaming down the Skyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I still hadn’t pieced it all together,” he said. “I mean, I think I realized that there was an evacuation from Paradise, but I didn’t assume it was on fire. I assumed it—I don’t know what I assumed that day. The idea that the town had burned up … was nowhere in my imagination.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">His inability to comprehend the disaster he’d endured—a wildfire that jumped the length of a football field each second—was echoed by survivors of Hurricane Michael, the first Category 5 storm to hit the Florida Panhandle, and some of the most destructive flooding to inundate the Midwest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the year-long documentary project \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Climate\u003c/a>, InsideClimate News reporter Neela Banerjee and videographer Anna Belle Peevey found shared experiences in the aftermath of extreme weather and climate-related disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In dozens of interviews, victims and survivors used a \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/loss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">common language of loss\u003c/a>, describing their communities in terms normally reserved for war zones. \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/sounds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sounds evoked what they’d lost\u003c/a>—exploding propane tanks, beeping smoke detectors in piles of rubble, chainsaws cutting through downed trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Often, they drew strength from \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/animals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the animals they cared for\u003c/a>. As emergency planners learned in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, some Americans love their animals so much they’re willing to risk their lives for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">A country accustomed to taking in refugees from around the globe now found itself dealing with climate refugees made here in America. The sheer destructive force of \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/wildfire-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wildfires\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/hurricane-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hurricanes\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/floods-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">river flooding\u003c/a> had rattled assumptions about the limits of disaster as climate change has increasingly eroded people’s sense of security across the American landscape, the interviews showed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Read the essays on the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/loss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Common Language of Loss\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/sounds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sounds that Trigger Trauma\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/animals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bonds Between People and Animals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">And there was a relentlessness to calamities: As reporters found victims of Hurricane Michael and the Camp Fire still in the throes of recovery in March, the devastating floods struck Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Some survivors acknowledged climate change as a influence in the disasters. Others didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Randy Larsen saw the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people in Butte County, as an obvious consequence of a warming planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I grew up in California,” he said. “We’ve never had wildfires in November. We can fix all the power lines that PG&E was perhaps negligent in dealing with, we can fix all of those things, but we’re still going to have this tinderbox of a forest. Unless we do something about climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=16BGKwjP2ms&feature=emb_logo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Louis Byford, a farmer in Corning, Missouri, whose home fared only slightly better in the flooding than Larsen’s had in the fire, was having none of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s been changes taking place since God created earth,” he said. “We are simply kidding ourselves if we think we can control anything. It’s just part of God’s creation. The cycle. The come and go, the ebb and flow, whatever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, Byford found himself haunted by the calculus of loss, struggling to rebuild a farmhouse his wife wouldn’t live in anymore. “Where does that leave me?” Byford asked. “I told you I’m a determined man. I’ll give this compassion and patience. I may be a bachelor living here. It’s a burden that I can’t get rid of, every day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Scientists point out that there is broad consensus that global warming will fuel more wildfires, floods and intense hurricanes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Research shows that climate change has made California hotter and drier and more prone to wildfires. Summertime average temperatures in the state have risen 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, nearly all of it over the last 50 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The northern Great Plains are expected to see more drought, intense rainfall and flooding as the planet warms. The 12-month period leading up to February 2019 was the fifth-wettest stretch of weather in Nebraska since 1895.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The oceans are now warmer than they have been in 125,000 years, providing more energy to fuel the destructive power of hurricanes like Michael.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perched on the steps of his RV in Butte Creek Canyon, Larsen sees little reason for optimism over the long term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I wish I could say this is the new normal, but that would be profoundly optimistic if it stayed at being just this bad,” he said. “And I haven’t seen any research that suggests that it’s going to level off. The best research says maybe what? Two degrees (Celsius) increase by the turn of the century? That’s super optimistic. I think these are the good ol’ days, in terms of wildfire in California, and that’s a bit heartbreaking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003cem>Explore the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Climate\u003c/a> project.\u003c/em>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "American Climate: A Shared Experience Connects Survivors of Disaster | KQED",
"description": "In three U.S. communities devastated by disaster, themes of loss and survival resonate through the personal stories of the people who were there. ",
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"headline": "American Climate: A Shared Experience Connects Survivors of Disaster",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/hjIRI4hbkmg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/hjIRI4hbkmg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003cem>In the InsideClimate News documentary project \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Climate\u003c/a>, reporter Neela Banerjee and videographer Anna Belle Peevey share the stories of people trying to rebuild lives splintered by three weather-related disasters. \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Explore the videos and essays here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Four months after the Camp Fire incinerated his home and the entire nearby town of Paradise, California, Randy Larsen sat on the steps of his RV and struggled to process what he’d survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">He remembered seeing the smoke and fire in Paradise across the canyon and the traffic streaming down the Skyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I still hadn’t pieced it all together,” he said. “I mean, I think I realized that there was an evacuation from Paradise, but I didn’t assume it was on fire. I assumed it—I don’t know what I assumed that day. The idea that the town had burned up … was nowhere in my imagination.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">His inability to comprehend the disaster he’d endured—a wildfire that jumped the length of a football field each second—was echoed by survivors of Hurricane Michael, the first Category 5 storm to hit the Florida Panhandle, and some of the most destructive flooding to inundate the Midwest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the year-long documentary project \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Climate\u003c/a>, InsideClimate News reporter Neela Banerjee and videographer Anna Belle Peevey found shared experiences in the aftermath of extreme weather and climate-related disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In dozens of interviews, victims and survivors used a \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/loss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">common language of loss\u003c/a>, describing their communities in terms normally reserved for war zones. \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/sounds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sounds evoked what they’d lost\u003c/a>—exploding propane tanks, beeping smoke detectors in piles of rubble, chainsaws cutting through downed trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Often, they drew strength from \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/animals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the animals they cared for\u003c/a>. As emergency planners learned in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, some Americans love their animals so much they’re willing to risk their lives for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">A country accustomed to taking in refugees from around the globe now found itself dealing with climate refugees made here in America. The sheer destructive force of \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/wildfire-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wildfires\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/hurricane-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hurricanes\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/floods-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">river flooding\u003c/a> had rattled assumptions about the limits of disaster as climate change has increasingly eroded people’s sense of security across the American landscape, the interviews showed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Read the essays on the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/loss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Common Language of Loss\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/sounds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sounds that Trigger Trauma\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate/essay/animals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bonds Between People and Animals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">And there was a relentlessness to calamities: As reporters found victims of Hurricane Michael and the Camp Fire still in the throes of recovery in March, the devastating floods struck Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Some survivors acknowledged climate change as a influence in the disasters. Others didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Randy Larsen saw the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people in Butte County, as an obvious consequence of a warming planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I grew up in California,” he said. “We’ve never had wildfires in November. We can fix all the power lines that PG&E was perhaps negligent in dealing with, we can fix all of those things, but we’re still going to have this tinderbox of a forest. Unless we do something about climate change.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/16BGKwjP2ms'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/16BGKwjP2ms'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Louis Byford, a farmer in Corning, Missouri, whose home fared only slightly better in the flooding than Larsen’s had in the fire, was having none of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s been changes taking place since God created earth,” he said. “We are simply kidding ourselves if we think we can control anything. It’s just part of God’s creation. The cycle. The come and go, the ebb and flow, whatever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, Byford found himself haunted by the calculus of loss, struggling to rebuild a farmhouse his wife wouldn’t live in anymore. “Where does that leave me?” Byford asked. “I told you I’m a determined man. I’ll give this compassion and patience. I may be a bachelor living here. It’s a burden that I can’t get rid of, every day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Scientists point out that there is broad consensus that global warming will fuel more wildfires, floods and intense hurricanes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Research shows that climate change has made California hotter and drier and more prone to wildfires. Summertime average temperatures in the state have risen 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, nearly all of it over the last 50 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The northern Great Plains are expected to see more drought, intense rainfall and flooding as the planet warms. The 12-month period leading up to February 2019 was the fifth-wettest stretch of weather in Nebraska since 1895.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The oceans are now warmer than they have been in 125,000 years, providing more energy to fuel the destructive power of hurricanes like Michael.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perched on the steps of his RV in Butte Creek Canyon, Larsen sees little reason for optimism over the long term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I wish I could say this is the new normal, but that would be profoundly optimistic if it stayed at being just this bad,” he said. “And I haven’t seen any research that suggests that it’s going to level off. The best research says maybe what? Two degrees (Celsius) increase by the turn of the century? That’s super optimistic. I think these are the good ol’ days, in terms of wildfire in California, and that’s a bit heartbreaking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003cem>Explore the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/american-climate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Climate\u003c/a> project.\u003c/em>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Climate Change is Driving California’s Wildfires. The Kincade Fire? Not So Much",
"headTitle": "Climate Change is Driving California’s Wildfires. The Kincade Fire? Not So Much | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Let’s get something out of the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s wildfire activity has increased for five decades, and a strong body of research implicates climate change as a key driver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1944993/study-climate-change-a-leading-driver-of-californias-wildfires\">study\u003c/a> from Columbia University found that warming is the \u003cem>lead \u003c/em>driver in a five-fold increase in the area of California that burns during any given year. The U.S. Forest Service policy of stomping out every fire as quickly as possible exacerbates the long-term trend, loading forests with fuel to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, 2019 is an unusual year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By several measures, it is so far the least destructive wildfire year of the last five.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of this writing, California has experienced fewer fire incidents, acres burned, and structures destroyed in 2019 than any other year dating back to 2015, based on data from Cal Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three people have lost their lives to wildfire this year. The only recent year with fewer wildfire deaths was 2016, when there were none.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"California Wildfire\" aria-label=\"Table\" src=\"//datawrapper.dwcdn.net/mKMWX/1/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"600\" height=\"339\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet wildfires have upended life across California. The Kincade Fire forced the evacuation of more than 180,000 people, a record for Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, PG&E cut power to hundreds of thousands of customers across 29 counties, to try and prevent more fires from starting. Some people went for days without electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, what’s going on?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>No Forest Fires\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To start, the fir, pine and other trees that fill the Sierra Nevada and higher elevations of Northern California are not burning much, thanks to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939675/big-snow-year-is-good-and-bad-news-for-california-but-mostly-good\">monster\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939675/big-snow-year-is-good-and-bad-news-for-california-but-mostly-good\">snow\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939675/big-snow-year-is-good-and-bad-news-for-california-but-mostly-good\">year\u003c/a> and a thorough soaking of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1942464/bay-area-logs-its-wettest-may-this-century\">May\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1942464/bay-area-logs-its-wettest-may-this-century\">rain\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Kincade Fire, the year’s largest, has burned more than 77,000 acres of Sonoma County’s chaparral. Sage, shrubs, coastal live oak and madrones spot the grassy woodlands. Sure, there are areas with forest canopies here, but they are not nearly as thick as in the Sierra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now that the fire is 100% contained, fire scientists say that strong winds, not forest fuel, drove the Kincade’s growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Sierra Nevada generally has less fires when we have wet years,” says Jon Keeley, a fire scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “But when you get into coastal California, rain isn’t necessarily a good predictor. It’s these extreme autumn winds which ultimately determine what happens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keeley says that the Kincade Fire and other severe fires from the last few years, including the Thomas Fire, Woolsey Fire and the North Bay fires of 2017, were “all blown by extreme wind events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The People\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change “is probably secondary” as a cause, Oregon State University fire ecologist Meg Krawchuk says about the Kincade Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other incidents this year underscore California’s wildfire vulnerabilities beyond warming, she adds. “This year’s fires are showing more sensitivity associated with how California is growing, where populations are, building codes, and where people are allowed to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Millions of Californians — about a third of the state’s population — live in what academics call the WUI, or the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/data/WUI/\">wildland-urban interface\u003c/a>” (pronounced whoo-ie). Wildfires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1917302/bay-area-sprawl-has-put-homes-in-the-path-of-fires-what-now\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">threaten\u003c/a> these neighborhoods, trailer parks and small developments that have sprawled into the forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The number of people expected to move into harm’s way is increasing. That means it’s likelier that somebody will ignite a fire when the winds are strong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Increasingly, humans do not directly start fires. Our stuff does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Primarily, power lines,” Keeley says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you look at acreage burned by power line ignitions from 2000 to the present, they burned about half a million acres in California. That’s five times more than burned in the previous 20 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climate Change\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures play an important role in California’s uptick in wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heat waves are more common. Snow is melting earlier in the spring. The state is at least three degrees warmer and less rain is falling, report \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents/climate-change-ca.pdf\">scientists\u003c/a> at the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The heat is expanding the area of the state prone to wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire needs three ingredients to burn: ignition, fuel and oxygen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures are baking conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada and Northern California, increasing the available fuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The strongest effect of that warming is in the summertime forest fires,” says Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The arrival of winter rains this year and strong dry winds were “essential ingredients” that likely contributed to the Kincade Fire, Williams says, but climate change may have been a contributing factor, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you have one of those ingredients, but not the other, then you’re not going to get big fires,” he says. “When both of those switches are on, then it suddenly becomes very relevant that California is about three degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it would be without global warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Wind\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between Oct. 23 and Nov. 1, the National Weather Service issued three red flag warnings for windy, dry conditions in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arriving back-to-back, the offshore winds were a kind of three-act play, with brief interludes in which the gusts calmed for a day before whipping up again and expanding the Kincade Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">James Matson battled it in a bulldozer. “The fire was outrunning us,” he recalls. “We couldn’t go as fast as the fire, it would jump ahead of us.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>National Weather Service forecasters in the Bay Area had not seen these conditions before, says David King, one of the meteorologists. “At one point I stood up and asked if anyone has ever put out three red flag warnings in one week, and no one had an answer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wind peaked the night of Saturday, Oct. 26 into Sunday, when gusts ripped faster than 90 miles per hour, in some locations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/Ot4H8Y-NtHs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The cellphone video above shows the Kincade Fire during one of the wind events. The video was provided by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Ben Ingwerson, who led a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11784042/inmates-saved-homes-in-the-kincade-fire-theyll-face-an-uphill-battle-getting-firefighting-jobs-after-release\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">crew of inmate firefighters\u003c/a> in a fight against the wildfire. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some media outlets incorrectly reported the gusts as “hurricane force.” Scientists measure hurricane intensity by sustained wind speed, not gusts. Regardless, the winds were strong and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1950377/heres-what-makes-the-winds-driving-the-kincade-fire-so-unusual\">the event lasted\u003c/a> for about 30 hours, which itself, is uncommon (King says these wind storms normally last for about 12 hours).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the gusts have subsided, the area remains bone dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King says measurements of the moisture in the atmosphere — known as precipitable water — tied the record for the lowest October reading ever recorded in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/1190300390106910720?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While light winds are projected for the foreseeable future in Northern California, the reading is a reminder that fire season in California doesn’t adhere to a calendar. King suggests that 2019’s wildfire season could extend late into November or even December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no on-off switch,” he says. “Once it’s this dry, you must be prepared until you get a good soaking of rain. But nothing in the models shows even a sliver of rain coming our way.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "By several measures, 2019 is so far the least destructive wildfire year of the last five.",
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"title": "Climate Change is Driving California’s Wildfires. The Kincade Fire? Not So Much | KQED",
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"headline": "Climate Change is Driving California’s Wildfires. The Kincade Fire? Not So Much",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Let’s get something out of the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s wildfire activity has increased for five decades, and a strong body of research implicates climate change as a key driver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1944993/study-climate-change-a-leading-driver-of-californias-wildfires\">study\u003c/a> from Columbia University found that warming is the \u003cem>lead \u003c/em>driver in a five-fold increase in the area of California that burns during any given year. The U.S. Forest Service policy of stomping out every fire as quickly as possible exacerbates the long-term trend, loading forests with fuel to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, 2019 is an unusual year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By several measures, it is so far the least destructive wildfire year of the last five.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of this writing, California has experienced fewer fire incidents, acres burned, and structures destroyed in 2019 than any other year dating back to 2015, based on data from Cal Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three people have lost their lives to wildfire this year. The only recent year with fewer wildfire deaths was 2016, when there were none.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"California Wildfire\" aria-label=\"Table\" src=\"//datawrapper.dwcdn.net/mKMWX/1/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"600\" height=\"339\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet wildfires have upended life across California. The Kincade Fire forced the evacuation of more than 180,000 people, a record for Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, PG&E cut power to hundreds of thousands of customers across 29 counties, to try and prevent more fires from starting. Some people went for days without electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, what’s going on?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>No Forest Fires\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To start, the fir, pine and other trees that fill the Sierra Nevada and higher elevations of Northern California are not burning much, thanks to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939675/big-snow-year-is-good-and-bad-news-for-california-but-mostly-good\">monster\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939675/big-snow-year-is-good-and-bad-news-for-california-but-mostly-good\">snow\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939675/big-snow-year-is-good-and-bad-news-for-california-but-mostly-good\">year\u003c/a> and a thorough soaking of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1942464/bay-area-logs-its-wettest-may-this-century\">May\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1942464/bay-area-logs-its-wettest-may-this-century\">rain\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Kincade Fire, the year’s largest, has burned more than 77,000 acres of Sonoma County’s chaparral. Sage, shrubs, coastal live oak and madrones spot the grassy woodlands. Sure, there are areas with forest canopies here, but they are not nearly as thick as in the Sierra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now that the fire is 100% contained, fire scientists say that strong winds, not forest fuel, drove the Kincade’s growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Sierra Nevada generally has less fires when we have wet years,” says Jon Keeley, a fire scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “But when you get into coastal California, rain isn’t necessarily a good predictor. It’s these extreme autumn winds which ultimately determine what happens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keeley says that the Kincade Fire and other severe fires from the last few years, including the Thomas Fire, Woolsey Fire and the North Bay fires of 2017, were “all blown by extreme wind events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The People\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change “is probably secondary” as a cause, Oregon State University fire ecologist Meg Krawchuk says about the Kincade Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other incidents this year underscore California’s wildfire vulnerabilities beyond warming, she adds. “This year’s fires are showing more sensitivity associated with how California is growing, where populations are, building codes, and where people are allowed to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Millions of Californians — about a third of the state’s population — live in what academics call the WUI, or the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/data/WUI/\">wildland-urban interface\u003c/a>” (pronounced whoo-ie). Wildfires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1917302/bay-area-sprawl-has-put-homes-in-the-path-of-fires-what-now\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">threaten\u003c/a> these neighborhoods, trailer parks and small developments that have sprawled into the forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The number of people expected to move into harm’s way is increasing. That means it’s likelier that somebody will ignite a fire when the winds are strong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Increasingly, humans do not directly start fires. Our stuff does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Primarily, power lines,” Keeley says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you look at acreage burned by power line ignitions from 2000 to the present, they burned about half a million acres in California. That’s five times more than burned in the previous 20 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climate Change\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures play an important role in California’s uptick in wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heat waves are more common. Snow is melting earlier in the spring. The state is at least three degrees warmer and less rain is falling, report \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents/climate-change-ca.pdf\">scientists\u003c/a> at the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The heat is expanding the area of the state prone to wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire needs three ingredients to burn: ignition, fuel and oxygen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures are baking conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada and Northern California, increasing the available fuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The strongest effect of that warming is in the summertime forest fires,” says Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The arrival of winter rains this year and strong dry winds were “essential ingredients” that likely contributed to the Kincade Fire, Williams says, but climate change may have been a contributing factor, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you have one of those ingredients, but not the other, then you’re not going to get big fires,” he says. “When both of those switches are on, then it suddenly becomes very relevant that California is about three degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it would be without global warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Wind\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between Oct. 23 and Nov. 1, the National Weather Service issued three red flag warnings for windy, dry conditions in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arriving back-to-back, the offshore winds were a kind of three-act play, with brief interludes in which the gusts calmed for a day before whipping up again and expanding the Kincade Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">James Matson battled it in a bulldozer. “The fire was outrunning us,” he recalls. “We couldn’t go as fast as the fire, it would jump ahead of us.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>National Weather Service forecasters in the Bay Area had not seen these conditions before, says David King, one of the meteorologists. “At one point I stood up and asked if anyone has ever put out three red flag warnings in one week, and no one had an answer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wind peaked the night of Saturday, Oct. 26 into Sunday, when gusts ripped faster than 90 miles per hour, in some locations.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Ot4H8Y-NtHs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Ot4H8Y-NtHs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The cellphone video above shows the Kincade Fire during one of the wind events. The video was provided by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Ben Ingwerson, who led a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11784042/inmates-saved-homes-in-the-kincade-fire-theyll-face-an-uphill-battle-getting-firefighting-jobs-after-release\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">crew of inmate firefighters\u003c/a> in a fight against the wildfire. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some media outlets incorrectly reported the gusts as “hurricane force.” Scientists measure hurricane intensity by sustained wind speed, not gusts. Regardless, the winds were strong and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1950377/heres-what-makes-the-winds-driving-the-kincade-fire-so-unusual\">the event lasted\u003c/a> for about 30 hours, which itself, is uncommon (King says these wind storms normally last for about 12 hours).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the gusts have subsided, the area remains bone dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King says measurements of the moisture in the atmosphere — known as precipitable water — tied the record for the lowest October reading ever recorded in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>While light winds are projected for the foreseeable future in Northern California, the reading is a reminder that fire season in California doesn’t adhere to a calendar. King suggests that 2019’s wildfire season could extend late into November or even December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no on-off switch,” he says. “Once it’s this dry, you must be prepared until you get a good soaking of rain. But nothing in the models shows even a sliver of rain coming our way.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "exxons-climate-fraud-trial-has-begun-heres-what-you-need-to-know",
"title": "Exxon’s Climate Fraud Trial Has Begun. Here’s What You Need to Know",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ExxonMobil went on trial Tuesday in a packed courtroom in New York, where the oil giant stands accused of defrauding investors by misleading them about the risks it faces from future climate regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The civil case is the first major climate change lawsuit to reach trial in the United States, and it is the culmination of four years of investigation by the New York state attorney general’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The central allegation is that Exxon fraudulently used two sets of books to estimate the risks it faces as governments take steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions: one that was shared with investors and another that was used only internally. The public estimate was higher, suggesting a future with stricter limits on emissions, while the internal figures were lower, reflecting more lenient regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawyers for Attorney General Letitia James, who took office this year, a few months after the lawsuit was filed, have argued that this practice exposed investors to greater risks than Exxon had disclosed and inflated the company’s value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The central question that Justice Barry Ostrager will have to decide is whether Exxon’s disclosures reflected its practices, Kevin Wallace, acting chief of the attorney general’s investor protection bureau, told the state court in his opening statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are not telling Exxon how to run its business,” Wallace said. “But it has to be honest with investors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exxon’s lead attorney, Theodore Wells, called the allegations “bizarre and twisted” and said the company did nothing wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exxon does not dispute that it used two estimates for the future impacts of climate regulations, but it argues that it was transparent with investors about its practices and that each had legitimate business purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The opening statements suggested that the case may turn on semantic arguments about what a reasonable investor would have believed from reading Exxon’s reports and disclosures, and on a technical forensic analysis of what impact the company’s practices had on its share price and value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid this discussion, Exxon’s former chief executive and former Secretary of State \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22032017/exxonmobil-climate-change-investigation-wayne-tracker-rex-tillerson-new-york-ag\">Rex Tillerson\u003c/a> is expected to testify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever decision the judge reaches is sure to be cited in major climate cases to come. More than a dozen local and state governments have sued Exxon and other energy companies seeking damages to help pay the costs imposed on cities by rising seas and extreme weather caused by climate change. On Tuesday, U.S. Supreme Court justices denied requests by energy companies in three of those cases—involving \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20072018/baltimore-climate-change-lawsuit-inner-harbor-coastal-flooding-sea-level-rise-urban-waterfront-revitalization\">Baltimore,\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/19a391.html\">Rhode Island\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/19a428.html\">three Colorado municipalities\u003c/a>—to intervene as the companies try to have the cases heard in federal rather than state courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Problem\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since at least 2010, Exxon had been reporting that it was using something called a proxy cost of carbon to model the financial impacts of climate policies decades into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the company came under increasing pressure from some investors to better disclose the risks it was facing, Wallace told the court in his opening statement, “Exxon realized it had a problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May 2014, the company’s top management was \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16102019/exxon-oil-sands-trial-climate-change-fraud-new-york-rex-tillerson\">given a presentation\u003c/a> written by Guy Powell, Exxon’s corporate greenhouse gas manager, warning that the way the company had been accounting for climate risks was potentially misleading. Even as it was reporting its proxy cost to the public, it was using a separate estimate for carbon costs—which it called a “greenhouse gas cost”—to evaluate investment opportunities internally. The proxy cost assumed carbon costs would be significantly higher than the internal estimate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One effect of using a lower estimate for future carbon costs was that it made high-polluting oil projects look like more attractive investments, compared to if the higher proxy cost were applied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Powell recommended aligning the costs. Soon after the presentation, Wallace said, Exxon’s management directed company planners to start using the higher cost for their internal evaluations, as well. Exxon attorney Wells told the court Tuesday that the decision had nothing to do with the presentation but was a reflection of how the company saw climate policies evolving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even after Exxon aligned its two carbon price estimates in the summer of 2014, corporate planners continued to apply lower estimates when evaluating whether to invest in new energy projects, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16102019/exxon-oil-sands-trial-climate-change-fraud-new-york-rex-tillerson\">documents\u003c/a> obtained by the attorney general show. In Alberta, for example, where Exxon has spent tens of billions of dollars on projects in Canada’s oil sands, the company directed planners to apply an existing carbon fee that was much lower than the corporate estimates. In particular, while corporate estimates projected carbon prices continuing to rise up to $80 per ton in 2040, planners in Canada applied a fee that held flat at $24 decades into the future and didn’t apply to all of a given project’s emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Assuming that existing legislation would remain frozen in place forever is the exact opposite of accounting for increasingly stringent regulation,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The attorney general argues that this practice hid tens of billions of dollars in potential future costs at these oil sands projects from investors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his opening statement for Exxon, Wells argued that the public proxy cost was used to model global supply and demand for its products decades into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because it was global in scope, the proxy cost was informed by a suite of policies Exxon expects to see adopted around the world, from fuel efficiency standards in the U.S. to carbon taxes in Europe. The lower greenhouse gas cost, Wells said, was meant to reflect direct costs at specific Exxon facilities around the globe, so it was informed by a more limited set of policies. Wells used the example of a hypothetical refinery in Brooklyn, which would pay for its emissions if New York were to implement a tax or fee on polluters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to a specific sentence in \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/media/global/files/energy-and-environment/report---energy-and-carbon---managing-the-risks.pdf\">one report that Exxon issued\u003c/a> in 2014 in response to investor pressure, where the company said “we require that all our business segments include, where appropriate, GHG costs in their economics when seeking funding for capital investments.” The sentence made clear that the proxy cost and greenhouse gas cost were distinct, he argued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace countered that this claim hangs on a “tortured reading” of the company’s disclosures, and pointed to other reports that he argued obfuscated any difference. In some, Exxon used the term “GHG proxy cost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A reasonable investor had every reason to believe that Exxon was using the term proxy costs and greenhouse gas costs interchangeably,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Toward the end of his statement, Wells drew a smile from Ostrager when he mentioned what he called “the elephant in the room,” charging that the allegations are part of a political conspiracy by liberal attorneys general, backed by activists, to smear the company. He cited \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general\">a 2016 press conference \u003c/a>held by then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman with many of his counterparts from other states promising to go after energy companies for their role in fueling climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ostrager has already dismissed an attempt by Exxon to halt the case on such a claim, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29032018/exxon-climate-fraud-investigations-ruling-federal-judge-caproni-new-york-schneiderman-massachusetts-healey\">as has a federal judge in New York\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Years of Investigation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The New York \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/exxon-climate-change-investigation\">investigation\u003c/a> began in the fall of 2015, when then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05112015/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-subpoena-Exxon-climate-documents\">issued a subpoena\u003c/a> seeking documents spanning four decades of research findings and communications about climate change. Massachusetts investigators followed several months later with a separate subpoena. While Massachusetts has yet to file a lawsuit, that state’s attorney general \u003ca href=\"https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/documents-show-massachusetts-ag-ready-to-file-climate-case-against-exxon\">sent a letter to Exxon\u003c/a> earlier this month saying it plans to file a claim soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two investigations followed the publication of the Pulitzer Prize-finalist \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken\">investigative series of stories by InsideClimate News\u003c/a> and later reporting by the \u003ca href=\"http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/\">Los Angeles Times\u003c/a> that disclosed that Exxon had long understood the science of global warming, predicted its catastrophic consequences, and then spent millions of dollars to promote misinformation about global warming and the role of fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ostrager has allotted three weeks for the trial and has said he will issue a ruling shortly after it ends. If he rules against Exxon, the company could face substantial fines and be ordered to revise how it discloses climate risks.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "Exxon’s Climate Fraud Trial Has Begun. Here’s What You Need to Know | KQED",
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"headline": "Exxon’s Climate Fraud Trial Has Begun. Here’s What You Need to Know",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ExxonMobil went on trial Tuesday in a packed courtroom in New York, where the oil giant stands accused of defrauding investors by misleading them about the risks it faces from future climate regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The civil case is the first major climate change lawsuit to reach trial in the United States, and it is the culmination of four years of investigation by the New York state attorney general’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The central allegation is that Exxon fraudulently used two sets of books to estimate the risks it faces as governments take steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions: one that was shared with investors and another that was used only internally. The public estimate was higher, suggesting a future with stricter limits on emissions, while the internal figures were lower, reflecting more lenient regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawyers for Attorney General Letitia James, who took office this year, a few months after the lawsuit was filed, have argued that this practice exposed investors to greater risks than Exxon had disclosed and inflated the company’s value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The central question that Justice Barry Ostrager will have to decide is whether Exxon’s disclosures reflected its practices, Kevin Wallace, acting chief of the attorney general’s investor protection bureau, told the state court in his opening statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are not telling Exxon how to run its business,” Wallace said. “But it has to be honest with investors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exxon’s lead attorney, Theodore Wells, called the allegations “bizarre and twisted” and said the company did nothing wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exxon does not dispute that it used two estimates for the future impacts of climate regulations, but it argues that it was transparent with investors about its practices and that each had legitimate business purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The opening statements suggested that the case may turn on semantic arguments about what a reasonable investor would have believed from reading Exxon’s reports and disclosures, and on a technical forensic analysis of what impact the company’s practices had on its share price and value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid this discussion, Exxon’s former chief executive and former Secretary of State \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22032017/exxonmobil-climate-change-investigation-wayne-tracker-rex-tillerson-new-york-ag\">Rex Tillerson\u003c/a> is expected to testify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever decision the judge reaches is sure to be cited in major climate cases to come. More than a dozen local and state governments have sued Exxon and other energy companies seeking damages to help pay the costs imposed on cities by rising seas and extreme weather caused by climate change. On Tuesday, U.S. Supreme Court justices denied requests by energy companies in three of those cases—involving \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20072018/baltimore-climate-change-lawsuit-inner-harbor-coastal-flooding-sea-level-rise-urban-waterfront-revitalization\">Baltimore,\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/19a391.html\">Rhode Island\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/19a428.html\">three Colorado municipalities\u003c/a>—to intervene as the companies try to have the cases heard in federal rather than state courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Problem\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since at least 2010, Exxon had been reporting that it was using something called a proxy cost of carbon to model the financial impacts of climate policies decades into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the company came under increasing pressure from some investors to better disclose the risks it was facing, Wallace told the court in his opening statement, “Exxon realized it had a problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May 2014, the company’s top management was \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16102019/exxon-oil-sands-trial-climate-change-fraud-new-york-rex-tillerson\">given a presentation\u003c/a> written by Guy Powell, Exxon’s corporate greenhouse gas manager, warning that the way the company had been accounting for climate risks was potentially misleading. Even as it was reporting its proxy cost to the public, it was using a separate estimate for carbon costs—which it called a “greenhouse gas cost”—to evaluate investment opportunities internally. The proxy cost assumed carbon costs would be significantly higher than the internal estimate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One effect of using a lower estimate for future carbon costs was that it made high-polluting oil projects look like more attractive investments, compared to if the higher proxy cost were applied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Powell recommended aligning the costs. Soon after the presentation, Wallace said, Exxon’s management directed company planners to start using the higher cost for their internal evaluations, as well. Exxon attorney Wells told the court Tuesday that the decision had nothing to do with the presentation but was a reflection of how the company saw climate policies evolving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even after Exxon aligned its two carbon price estimates in the summer of 2014, corporate planners continued to apply lower estimates when evaluating whether to invest in new energy projects, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16102019/exxon-oil-sands-trial-climate-change-fraud-new-york-rex-tillerson\">documents\u003c/a> obtained by the attorney general show. In Alberta, for example, where Exxon has spent tens of billions of dollars on projects in Canada’s oil sands, the company directed planners to apply an existing carbon fee that was much lower than the corporate estimates. In particular, while corporate estimates projected carbon prices continuing to rise up to $80 per ton in 2040, planners in Canada applied a fee that held flat at $24 decades into the future and didn’t apply to all of a given project’s emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Assuming that existing legislation would remain frozen in place forever is the exact opposite of accounting for increasingly stringent regulation,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The attorney general argues that this practice hid tens of billions of dollars in potential future costs at these oil sands projects from investors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his opening statement for Exxon, Wells argued that the public proxy cost was used to model global supply and demand for its products decades into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because it was global in scope, the proxy cost was informed by a suite of policies Exxon expects to see adopted around the world, from fuel efficiency standards in the U.S. to carbon taxes in Europe. The lower greenhouse gas cost, Wells said, was meant to reflect direct costs at specific Exxon facilities around the globe, so it was informed by a more limited set of policies. Wells used the example of a hypothetical refinery in Brooklyn, which would pay for its emissions if New York were to implement a tax or fee on polluters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to a specific sentence in \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/media/global/files/energy-and-environment/report---energy-and-carbon---managing-the-risks.pdf\">one report that Exxon issued\u003c/a> in 2014 in response to investor pressure, where the company said “we require that all our business segments include, where appropriate, GHG costs in their economics when seeking funding for capital investments.” The sentence made clear that the proxy cost and greenhouse gas cost were distinct, he argued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace countered that this claim hangs on a “tortured reading” of the company’s disclosures, and pointed to other reports that he argued obfuscated any difference. In some, Exxon used the term “GHG proxy cost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A reasonable investor had every reason to believe that Exxon was using the term proxy costs and greenhouse gas costs interchangeably,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Toward the end of his statement, Wells drew a smile from Ostrager when he mentioned what he called “the elephant in the room,” charging that the allegations are part of a political conspiracy by liberal attorneys general, backed by activists, to smear the company. He cited \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general\">a 2016 press conference \u003c/a>held by then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman with many of his counterparts from other states promising to go after energy companies for their role in fueling climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ostrager has already dismissed an attempt by Exxon to halt the case on such a claim, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29032018/exxon-climate-fraud-investigations-ruling-federal-judge-caproni-new-york-schneiderman-massachusetts-healey\">as has a federal judge in New York\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Years of Investigation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The New York \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/exxon-climate-change-investigation\">investigation\u003c/a> began in the fall of 2015, when then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05112015/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-subpoena-Exxon-climate-documents\">issued a subpoena\u003c/a> seeking documents spanning four decades of research findings and communications about climate change. Massachusetts investigators followed several months later with a separate subpoena. While Massachusetts has yet to file a lawsuit, that state’s attorney general \u003ca href=\"https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/documents-show-massachusetts-ag-ready-to-file-climate-case-against-exxon\">sent a letter to Exxon\u003c/a> earlier this month saying it plans to file a claim soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two investigations followed the publication of the Pulitzer Prize-finalist \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken\">investigative series of stories by InsideClimate News\u003c/a> and later reporting by the \u003ca href=\"http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/\">Los Angeles Times\u003c/a> that disclosed that Exxon had long understood the science of global warming, predicted its catastrophic consequences, and then spent millions of dollars to promote misinformation about global warming and the role of fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California's Top Air Regulator Is Scathing in Response to DOJ Climate Suit",
"headTitle": "California’s Top Air Regulator Is Scathing in Response to DOJ Climate Suit | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">Once again, the federal government is challenging California over policies related to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Justice Department filed a lawsuit today in the Eastern District of California arguing that the state’s 2013 cap-and-trade \u003ca href=\"https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/linkage/linkage.htm\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">agreement \u003c/span>\u003c/a>with the Canadian Province of Quebec violates the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The feds say in a \u003cspan class=\"s1\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-files-lawsuit-against-state-california-unlawful-cap-and-trade-agreement\">release\u003c/a> that \u003c/span>California is interfering with U.S. international relations by “attempting to pursue an independent foreign policy in the area of greenhouse gas regulation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In a statement, Jeffrey Bossert Clark, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said that California “veered outside of its proper constitutional lane” with the agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The power to enter into such agreements is reserved to the federal government, which must be able to speak with one voice in the area of U.S. foreign policy,” he said.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The civil complaint named the state, key officials, the California Air Resources Board and the Western Climate Initiative Inc.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, was scathing in her criticism of the suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking after her keynote address at a climate policy \u003ca href=\"https://www.hamiltonproject.org/events/economic_policy_innovations_to_combat_climate_change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">forum\u003c/a> hosted by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, she said her “first thought was that it was a joke.” She continued …\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The linkage with Canada has been in effect for a number of years. And our State Department and other elements of the U.S. government are well aware of it. They were following its development from the very beginning. We’ve also had legal opinions at all levels that what we’re doing doesn’t interfere with the federal prerogative on treaties. We don’t have a treaty. We’re not entering into treaties. But we do have many different memorandums of understanding that allow us to work on cross boundary problems with other states in other countries. And this is one of those programs. We’ll fight it out in the court, of course. But it just seems odd. The timing seems odd, and particularly odd at a time when the U.S. government is being investigated for conducting illegal foreign policy. It’s almost as though they are searching for a distraction.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed back even before the workday in California had begun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press release, Newsom said on the issue of climate change that the White House has its “head in the sand,” and the Trump administration is pursuing “political retribution against California, our climate policies and the health of our communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Carbon pollution knows no borders, and the Trump administration’s abysmal record of denying climate change and propping up big polluters makes cross-border collaboration all the more necessary,” Newsom said in his statement. “California’s landmark cap-and-trade program has inspired the creation of dozens of businesses, is a model for similar policies around the world, and puts California well ahead of the pack as we prepare for a low-carbon future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, Newsom and Nichols reached a tailpipe emissions agreement with four major automakers. Ford, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen voluntarily agreed to produce cleaner cars over time and invest in electric vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That agreement was a rebuke of the Trump administration, which wanted to loosen emission standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s attorney general has sued the federal government more two dozen times over the Trump administration’s environmental policies.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">Once again, the federal government is challenging California over policies related to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Justice Department filed a lawsuit today in the Eastern District of California arguing that the state’s 2013 cap-and-trade \u003ca href=\"https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/linkage/linkage.htm\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">agreement \u003c/span>\u003c/a>with the Canadian Province of Quebec violates the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The feds say in a \u003cspan class=\"s1\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-files-lawsuit-against-state-california-unlawful-cap-and-trade-agreement\">release\u003c/a> that \u003c/span>California is interfering with U.S. international relations by “attempting to pursue an independent foreign policy in the area of greenhouse gas regulation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In a statement, Jeffrey Bossert Clark, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said that California “veered outside of its proper constitutional lane” with the agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The power to enter into such agreements is reserved to the federal government, which must be able to speak with one voice in the area of U.S. foreign policy,” he said.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The civil complaint named the state, key officials, the California Air Resources Board and the Western Climate Initiative Inc.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, was scathing in her criticism of the suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking after her keynote address at a climate policy \u003ca href=\"https://www.hamiltonproject.org/events/economic_policy_innovations_to_combat_climate_change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">forum\u003c/a> hosted by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, she said her “first thought was that it was a joke.” She continued …\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The linkage with Canada has been in effect for a number of years. And our State Department and other elements of the U.S. government are well aware of it. They were following its development from the very beginning. We’ve also had legal opinions at all levels that what we’re doing doesn’t interfere with the federal prerogative on treaties. We don’t have a treaty. We’re not entering into treaties. But we do have many different memorandums of understanding that allow us to work on cross boundary problems with other states in other countries. And this is one of those programs. We’ll fight it out in the court, of course. But it just seems odd. The timing seems odd, and particularly odd at a time when the U.S. government is being investigated for conducting illegal foreign policy. It’s almost as though they are searching for a distraction.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed back even before the workday in California had begun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press release, Newsom said on the issue of climate change that the White House has its “head in the sand,” and the Trump administration is pursuing “political retribution against California, our climate policies and the health of our communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Carbon pollution knows no borders, and the Trump administration’s abysmal record of denying climate change and propping up big polluters makes cross-border collaboration all the more necessary,” Newsom said in his statement. “California’s landmark cap-and-trade program has inspired the creation of dozens of businesses, is a model for similar policies around the world, and puts California well ahead of the pack as we prepare for a low-carbon future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, Newsom and Nichols reached a tailpipe emissions agreement with four major automakers. Ford, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen voluntarily agreed to produce cleaner cars over time and invest in electric vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That agreement was a rebuke of the Trump administration, which wanted to loosen emission standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s attorney general has sued the federal government more two dozen times over the Trump administration’s environmental policies.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Exxon's Trial Begins in New York Climate Fraud Case",
"headTitle": "Exxon’s Trial Begins in New York Climate Fraud Case | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late 2013, ExxonMobil faced increasing pressure from investors to disclose more about the risks the company faced as governments began limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Of the many costs climate change will impose, oil companies face a particularly acute one: the demand for their product will have to shrink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, Exxon had been using something called a proxy cost of carbon to estimate what stricter climate policies might mean for its bottom line. But as pressure from shareholders grew, a problem came sharply into focus: An\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/puqHCQWOVBT6krMGTPuk1D?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> internal presentation warned\u003c/a> top executives that the way the company had been applying this proxy cost was potentially misleading. That’s because Exxon didn’t have one projected cost of carbon. It had two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The contents of that presentation are at the heart of a trial set to start next week in a civil case brought against the company by the New York attorney general. Exxon is accused of disclosing one set of these projected carbon costs while planners used an entirely different set internally for evaluating investments. The public set projected that climate policies would be more stringent, while the internal one assumed more modest attempts to limit emissions. The effect of using these dueling estimates,\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/BqoDCR6LWDurvBj9hPnMtP?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> the attorney general says\u003c/a>, was that Exxon hid tens of billions of dollars in potential costs, downplaying the risk to investors and inflating the company’s value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the company is found guilty of defrauding stockholders, it could face substantial penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Exxon has denied wrongdoing, it does not dispute the core fact of the case: that for years it disclosed a proxy cost that was higher than what it applied to its investment evaluations. Its lawyers have argued these different sets of figures did not mislead investors. But this only highlights another side of the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy Exxon produces today is more polluting, according to the attorney general’s complaint, because the company took the potential costs of climate change less seriously than it represented to investors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Applying a lower estimate for carbon costs made high-polluting projects look more attractive, and it undermined the investment case for any project that would reduce emissions. Nowhere is this clearer than in Canada’s oil sands, a vast expanse of low-grade hydrocarbons that now make up about 30 percent of Exxon’s oil reserves, far more than any of its peer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oil sands tick all the boxes when it comes to a carbon-risky asset,” \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1949663 alignright\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/ExxonTarSandsReserves529px.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/ExxonTarSandsReserves529px.png 529w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/ExxonTarSandsReserves529px-160x171.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\">said Andrew Logan, who runs the oil and gas program at Ceres, a sustainable investment advocacy group. Because they require enormous amounts of energy to exploit, the oil sands are among the world’s most expensive and carbon-polluting sources of oil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The oil sands are this very concrete, specific example—and very big example—of the kind of asset you wouldn’t invest in,” he said, “if you actually believed the rhetoric of Exxon and others about climate risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the trial may prove to be about much more than Exxon’s risky investments. Climate change has abruptly shifted in the public consciousness from a future threat to a present danger. In the United States alone, more than a dozen local and state governments\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/DwLFCVON1KClx9NrfJ36zu?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> have sued energy companies\u003c/a> seeking damages. Exxon is a defendant in many of these cases, and the New York attorney general’s case would be the first to go to trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story behind the trial begins in the 1990s, when Lee Raymond took control of Exxon as chief executive. State-owned energy companies were on the rise, and while Exxon was still a giant in the industry, it was struggling to replace the oil it pumped each year. At least through this lens, Exxon was shrinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon enough, Raymond began boasting the opposite—that the company was actually increasing its reserves, as Steve Coll details in his history of Exxon, Private Empire, thanks to new investments in an obscure resource in Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The oil sands, or tar sands, lie beneath a swath of northern Alberta about the size of New York State. They are a viscous mix of sand and bitumen that’s generally strip-mined and then heated and treated to produce an oil that can be refined into fuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just as Exxon was increasing its stakes in the oil sands, it was also confronting what a carbon-constrained future might look like. In its 2010 Outlook for Energy report, Exxon projected carbon prices would reach $60 per ton in 2030. But it turns out that, at the time, Exxon had a second estimate for carbon pricing—it called this one a “greenhouse gas cost” rather than a proxy cost—which company strategists used to evaluate investments and which was not disclosed publicly. This internal greenhouse gas cost estimate did not rise above $40 per ton, according to the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a 2011 email exchange cited in the lawsuit, Robert Bailes, the company’s greenhouse gas manager,\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/JRmwCW682Xuj5GR7CmCAGj?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> proposed aligning the two cost estimates\u003c/a> by using the higher set of figures only.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rex has seemed happy with the difference previously,” replied Tom Eizember, a planning manager, referring to then-chief executive Rex Tillerson. Apparently, he wrote, Tillerson liked that the lower greenhouse gas costs didn’t give as much incentive to invest in efforts to cut emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a June deposition, Tillerson said\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/KgUJCXDM32FnX0Vvh9-hVU?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> he didn’t recall discussing\u003c/a> the issue with Eizember.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also in 2011, the complaint says, an internal presentation by Exxon’s vice president of environmental policy and planning warned that high carbon costs would present a “major concern” for energy-intensive operations like oil sands, which would be “vulnerable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t until 2014, after management was given \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/puqHCQWOVBT6krMGTPuk1D?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the presentation about the potentially misleading\u003c/a> internal carbon cost, however, that executives ordered that the lower greenhouse gas cost be revised to match the proxy cost contained in the Outlook reports. (In a\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/t50ZCYEM4Nt3LOERs3hYYc?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> pre-trial memorandum\u003c/a>, Exxon asserts that it aligned the costs in response to shifting climate policies.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2015, New York prosecutors working for then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued their first subpoenas, provoked by investigative reports\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/a2dUCZ6W5NuM52rZhNVO2k?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> published by InsideClimate News\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/B-3oC1w95PSpM52yImplIX?domain=graphics.latimes.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> the Los Angeles Times\u003c/a>. A tumbling oil market abruptly halted new investment in Canada’s tar sands, but Exxon had already spent $33 billion on a new project there, according to the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The attorney general’s allegations go beyond Alberta, too. The complaint says Exxon understated greenhouse gas costs at operations around the world, including natural gas assets in the U.S., a refinery in Belgium and a liquid natural gas terminal in Cyprus. All told, the attorney general claims, these practices cost investors as much as $1.6 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exxon declined to comment for this article. But the company has asserted in filings that it was appropriate to use different estimates. It’s public facing proxy cost, it said, was used to estimate global demand for fossil fuels and reflected a collection of policies Exxon expected to see enacted internationally. While this would affect how much oil Exxon would sell, it wouldn’t necessarily reflect the direct costs at company projects scattered around the globe. Instead, the internal “greenhouse gas costs” were meant to estimate these direct costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to prevail, prosecutors do not have to prove that Exxon executives intentionally misled investors. But they will have to show that the company’s policies had a “material” effect on its stock price, said David Shapiro, a financial crimes specialist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The devil is in the details,” he said. “Conceptually they have a great case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exxon’s stock is still widely held by investment giants like Vanguard, and most Wall Street analysts give it a hold rating, rather than buy or sell. But these financial trends have led some of the industry’s critics to warn that the company is facing a reckoning.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late 2013, ExxonMobil faced increasing pressure from investors to disclose more about the risks the company faced as governments began limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Of the many costs climate change will impose, oil companies face a particularly acute one: the demand for their product will have to shrink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, Exxon had been using something called a proxy cost of carbon to estimate what stricter climate policies might mean for its bottom line. But as pressure from shareholders grew, a problem came sharply into focus: An\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/puqHCQWOVBT6krMGTPuk1D?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> internal presentation warned\u003c/a> top executives that the way the company had been applying this proxy cost was potentially misleading. That’s because Exxon didn’t have one projected cost of carbon. It had two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The contents of that presentation are at the heart of a trial set to start next week in a civil case brought against the company by the New York attorney general. Exxon is accused of disclosing one set of these projected carbon costs while planners used an entirely different set internally for evaluating investments. The public set projected that climate policies would be more stringent, while the internal one assumed more modest attempts to limit emissions. The effect of using these dueling estimates,\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/BqoDCR6LWDurvBj9hPnMtP?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> the attorney general says\u003c/a>, was that Exxon hid tens of billions of dollars in potential costs, downplaying the risk to investors and inflating the company’s value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the company is found guilty of defrauding stockholders, it could face substantial penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Exxon has denied wrongdoing, it does not dispute the core fact of the case: that for years it disclosed a proxy cost that was higher than what it applied to its investment evaluations. Its lawyers have argued these different sets of figures did not mislead investors. But this only highlights another side of the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy Exxon produces today is more polluting, according to the attorney general’s complaint, because the company took the potential costs of climate change less seriously than it represented to investors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Applying a lower estimate for carbon costs made high-polluting projects look more attractive, and it undermined the investment case for any project that would reduce emissions. Nowhere is this clearer than in Canada’s oil sands, a vast expanse of low-grade hydrocarbons that now make up about 30 percent of Exxon’s oil reserves, far more than any of its peer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oil sands tick all the boxes when it comes to a carbon-risky asset,” \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1949663 alignright\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/ExxonTarSandsReserves529px.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/ExxonTarSandsReserves529px.png 529w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/ExxonTarSandsReserves529px-160x171.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\">said Andrew Logan, who runs the oil and gas program at Ceres, a sustainable investment advocacy group. Because they require enormous amounts of energy to exploit, the oil sands are among the world’s most expensive and carbon-polluting sources of oil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The oil sands are this very concrete, specific example—and very big example—of the kind of asset you wouldn’t invest in,” he said, “if you actually believed the rhetoric of Exxon and others about climate risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the trial may prove to be about much more than Exxon’s risky investments. Climate change has abruptly shifted in the public consciousness from a future threat to a present danger. In the United States alone, more than a dozen local and state governments\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/DwLFCVON1KClx9NrfJ36zu?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> have sued energy companies\u003c/a> seeking damages. Exxon is a defendant in many of these cases, and the New York attorney general’s case would be the first to go to trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story behind the trial begins in the 1990s, when Lee Raymond took control of Exxon as chief executive. State-owned energy companies were on the rise, and while Exxon was still a giant in the industry, it was struggling to replace the oil it pumped each year. At least through this lens, Exxon was shrinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon enough, Raymond began boasting the opposite—that the company was actually increasing its reserves, as Steve Coll details in his history of Exxon, Private Empire, thanks to new investments in an obscure resource in Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The oil sands, or tar sands, lie beneath a swath of northern Alberta about the size of New York State. They are a viscous mix of sand and bitumen that’s generally strip-mined and then heated and treated to produce an oil that can be refined into fuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just as Exxon was increasing its stakes in the oil sands, it was also confronting what a carbon-constrained future might look like. In its 2010 Outlook for Energy report, Exxon projected carbon prices would reach $60 per ton in 2030. But it turns out that, at the time, Exxon had a second estimate for carbon pricing—it called this one a “greenhouse gas cost” rather than a proxy cost—which company strategists used to evaluate investments and which was not disclosed publicly. This internal greenhouse gas cost estimate did not rise above $40 per ton, according to the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a 2011 email exchange cited in the lawsuit, Robert Bailes, the company’s greenhouse gas manager,\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/JRmwCW682Xuj5GR7CmCAGj?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> proposed aligning the two cost estimates\u003c/a> by using the higher set of figures only.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rex has seemed happy with the difference previously,” replied Tom Eizember, a planning manager, referring to then-chief executive Rex Tillerson. Apparently, he wrote, Tillerson liked that the lower greenhouse gas costs didn’t give as much incentive to invest in efforts to cut emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a June deposition, Tillerson said\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/KgUJCXDM32FnX0Vvh9-hVU?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> he didn’t recall discussing\u003c/a> the issue with Eizember.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also in 2011, the complaint says, an internal presentation by Exxon’s vice president of environmental policy and planning warned that high carbon costs would present a “major concern” for energy-intensive operations like oil sands, which would be “vulnerable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t until 2014, after management was given \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/puqHCQWOVBT6krMGTPuk1D?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the presentation about the potentially misleading\u003c/a> internal carbon cost, however, that executives ordered that the lower greenhouse gas cost be revised to match the proxy cost contained in the Outlook reports. (In a\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/t50ZCYEM4Nt3LOERs3hYYc?domain=documentcloud.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> pre-trial memorandum\u003c/a>, Exxon asserts that it aligned the costs in response to shifting climate policies.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2015, New York prosecutors working for then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued their first subpoenas, provoked by investigative reports\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/a2dUCZ6W5NuM52rZhNVO2k?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> published by InsideClimate News\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/B-3oC1w95PSpM52yImplIX?domain=graphics.latimes.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> the Los Angeles Times\u003c/a>. A tumbling oil market abruptly halted new investment in Canada’s tar sands, but Exxon had already spent $33 billion on a new project there, according to the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The attorney general’s allegations go beyond Alberta, too. The complaint says Exxon understated greenhouse gas costs at operations around the world, including natural gas assets in the U.S., a refinery in Belgium and a liquid natural gas terminal in Cyprus. All told, the attorney general claims, these practices cost investors as much as $1.6 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exxon declined to comment for this article. But the company has asserted in filings that it was appropriate to use different estimates. It’s public facing proxy cost, it said, was used to estimate global demand for fossil fuels and reflected a collection of policies Exxon expected to see enacted internationally. While this would affect how much oil Exxon would sell, it wouldn’t necessarily reflect the direct costs at company projects scattered around the globe. Instead, the internal “greenhouse gas costs” were meant to estimate these direct costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to prevail, prosecutors do not have to prove that Exxon executives intentionally misled investors. But they will have to show that the company’s policies had a “material” effect on its stock price, said David Shapiro, a financial crimes specialist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The devil is in the details,” he said. “Conceptually they have a great case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Pacific Gas & Electric has generated confusion — not to mention outrage — with its power grid shutdowns. The situation continues for a second day in 34 California counties. On social media and phone calls to KQED’s Forum radio program, people throughout PG&E’s service area have asked how and why the investor-owned utility took this step. KQED reporters have some answers to some of the questions that have come in …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Is PG&E Turning the Power Off? Is This PG&E’s Fault?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bottom line, PG&E doesn’t want to risk having its power lines start another fire, so it is pre-emptively turning the power off during this week’s dry, windy weather. The company made the decision based on information from its wildfire center, where meteorologists keep watch on fire conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E’s power lines have sparked many catastrophic wildfires in California, including last year’s Camp Fire in Butte County that caused 85 deaths, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in 100 years. PG&E lines started more than a dozen fires in 2017. Less than a month ago, the company agreed to pay billion in a settlement with victims of the recent fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The shutoffs are part of its wildfire mitigation \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11750896/cpuc-pge-deenergization-wildfire-safety-power-shutoffs\">plan\u003c/a>, mandated by the state and agreed to by the California Public Utilities Commission, the state’s top power regulator. — \u003cem>Kevin Stark\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who Made This Decision and When?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If past practice tells us anything, PG&E has been making and remaking this decision, with the help of its meteorological team, over several days. The utility says it considers weather, fuel and other conditions and observations, as well as the need for notice by state and local parties, when it decides to implement shutoffs. As we’ve seen over the last few days, the planned outage times can change with shifting conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact is, there’s nothing new about turning off power lines when conditions get risky: San Diego Gas and Electric, with the permission of the CPUC, has mitigated fire risk this way since 2012. What is new \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/News_Room/Public-Safety-Power-Shutoff-Policies-and-Procedures-September-2018.pdf\">are the guidelines PG&E filed\u003c/a> just a year ago for its public safety power shutoff procedures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the last couple of years, the CPUC has required investor-owned utilities to describe their processes for arriving at decisions like the one affecting nearly three dozen California counties right now. PG&E shut off power two times last year; the last time PG&E called a public safety power shutoff, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/Utilities_and_Industries/Energy_-_Electricity_and_Natural_Gas/PGE%20PSPS%20Report%20Letter_06-21-19.pdf\">for two days in June\u003c/a>, it affected about 22,000 customers in the North Bay and the Sierra foothills, including Butte County and Paradise. — \u003cem>Molly Peterson\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Are the Shutoffs So Widespread?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Essentially, PG&E says that current conditions warrant extreme caution. The utility does its own predictive analysis, with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/wildfires/psps-weather-map.page?WT.mc_id=Vanity_weather\">dedicated page\u003c/a> offering a 7-day forecast of the possibility of a public safety power shutoff. As a rationale for the current outages, members of PG&E’s meteorological team have pointed out that Diablo and Santa Ana winds, along with low humidity and dry surface fuels, are making the state vulnerable to wildfire. Apart from PG&E’s in-house operation, the National Weather Service has issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/mqt/redflagtips\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Red Flag Warnings\u003c/a> for large chunks of California, and PG&E says these are “in alignment” with its own analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment, says these dangerous winds, though occurring annually, haven’t been this widespread in the state since the Wine Country Fires of 2017, before PG&E had instituted its de-energization protocol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wara also says PG&E may have had to cast a wide net because the energy infrastructure of California wasn’t built to accommodate the kind of fire risk we’re now experiencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ll have a power line that will serve one valley and then go up and over a ridge to serve the next valley,” Wara told KQED’s Miranda Leitsinger. “And that means that if you have to turn that light off, you could black out both valleys in addition to the ridgetop — even though the risk is only on the ridgetop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, is a longtime critic of the company who is \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/TedrickG/status/1182312963090182145\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">questioning\u003c/a> the widespread nature of the outage. In a letter sent to the California Public Utilities Commission Wednesday, he wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I strongly disagree with the binary position currently offered by PG&E – they can turn the power off and shut down the economy and livelihoods of millions in California, an action which may protect us from wildfire, or they can roll the dice and continue with the lights on, and risk an enormous fire starting from their power lines. This situation is not acceptable nor sustainable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hill wrote that a public safety power shutoff must be a surgical, last resort measure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In any event, PG&E will have to say more about the choices it made: The utility must file a CPUC report with information related to its decisionmaking 10 days after the shutoff event ends. —\u003cem>Molly Peterson\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>This Is Intolerable. Why Can’t PG&E Just Bury The Lines?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For new construction, PG&E places most power lines underground, so its main issue is dealing with 81,000 miles of existing overhead lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s no small feat. A little back-of-the-envelope math: Strung together, the lines could extend there and back from San Francisco to Buenos Aires about four times. Burying lines is very expensive. On its website, PG&E estimates it would cost $3 million per mile to puts its lines underground. So $3 million x 81,000 miles = $243 billion, which is more than California’s entire 2019 budget. One \u003ca href=\"https://www.eei.org/issuesandpolicy/electricreliability/undergrounding/Documents/UndergroundReport.pdf\">report\u003c/a> suggests that burying lines in urban places can be even more expensive — up to $5 million a mile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, consumer safety advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article222387335.html\">argue\u003c/a> that leaders in Sacramento should require the utility to bury lines in heavily populated, high-risk fire areas. — \u003cem>Kevin Stark\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Can’t the State Take Over PG&E and Solve This Mess?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, though there’s no real model for a state taking over a publicly traded utility of this size. We also have yet to see the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11718683/pge-bankruptcy-filing-poses-big-questions-challenges-for-gov-newsom\">political\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11718683/pge-bankruptcy-filing-poses-big-questions-challenges-for-gov-newsom\">will\u003c/a> for this to occur. One reason is that taxpayers would have to take on the financial responsibility that just bankrupted PG&E — liability for its aging, unsafe electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there were a way to untangle PG&E’s many stakeholders and its various functions — don’t forget, it’s a gas company, too — other challenges would emerge: For one, figuring out how to value its massive assets and sorting out how the state would foot the bill for them, especially since ratepayers have already been paying for the system. Also, the main wildfire problems of aging, poorly maintained electrical transmission lines in rural, fire-prone areas, as well as more frequently occurring climate change-driven severe weather, are not going away, no matter who is in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public power \u003cem>does \u003c/em>exist in California — Sacramento and Los Angeles both have it, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">San\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">Francisco\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">is\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">offering\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">to\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">buy\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">PG\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">&\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">E\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">’\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">s\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">assets\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">within\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">city\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">limits\u003c/a>. But that’s different than completely ending PG&E as we know it and making it a public, state-run power company. It’s worth mentioning that PG&E workers largely oppose this option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One idea that’s been floated: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">Breaking\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">up\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">PG\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">&\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">E\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">into\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">smaller\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">companies\u003c/a>. — \u003ci> Marisa Lagos\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Are These Winds So Dangerous?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are known as “Diablo winds,” although they’re not necessarily hot. They are, however, pretty typical for this time of year. Their speed and dryness make them especially good at fanning and spreading flames. That can turn a potentially manageable wildfire into an out-of-control inferno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These winds that are so good at driving wildfires actually start out cold\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong> Early autumn’s big, cold air masses, brought by the\u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/jet\"> jet stream\u003c/a>, first move over Washington and Oregon then head to the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. This cold air is drier because it holds less moisture, and it has relatively higher pressure than the warmer air sitting over California. The meeting of these air currents propels the winds over the Sierra. As the winds move downslope, they speed up, the air compresses and warms, and the humidity plummets. This removes moisture from the landscape, and makes any spark more likely to start a wildfire. — \u003cem>Danielle Venton\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Will Any Good Come Of This Shutdown?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, one thing is that the outages are testing the region’s emergency response system. They could expose weaknesses that can be fixed before the next major earthquake hits — for example, Caltrans administrators realized they needed to install a backup generator at the Caldecott Tunnel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The shutoffs underscore another fact: PG&E’s grid technology is outdated and clunky. The utility proactively shut off power on Wednesday morning, only to have people wake up to no electricity, less-than-gusty wind conditions, and warnings that the lights could remain off for days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disruption could serve as a focusing event for California to invest in local wind, solar, battery storage and other technologies that would turn neighborhoods into small power islands, called microgrids, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.navigantresearch.com/team/peter-asmus\">Peter\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.navigantresearch.com/team/peter-asmus\">Asmus\u003c/a>, a director at Navigant Research, a market research firm for the power sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Forecasts are often wrong,” he said. “In an ideal situation, you would have the flexibility to make real-time adjustments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Puerto Ricans lived without electricity for months after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island in 2017. Now its main utility \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/02/12/puerto-ricos-utility-prepa-plans-to-divide-island-into-renewable-energy-microgrids/#4c0e345755fc\">plans\u003c/a> to divide the entire island into a series of microgrids that could offer resiliency and flexibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E has not widely adopted that technology. But, Asmus suggested, “the shutoffs are going to drive California to be the leader in microgrids in the U.S.” — \u003cem>Kevin Stark\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Will These Power Shutoffs Work?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll have to wait and see. There are many other ways fires can start: discarded cigarette butts, overheated cars idling over dry vegetation, chains dragging on the ground and sparking. — \u003cem>Danielle Venton\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "You've called into Forum. You've commented on our Facebook page. You want to understand what's happening with PG&E. We answer your most common questions.",
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"title": "Why Is This Happening? Answers to Your Questions on the PG&E Shutdown | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Pacific Gas & Electric has generated confusion — not to mention outrage — with its power grid shutdowns. The situation continues for a second day in 34 California counties. On social media and phone calls to KQED’s Forum radio program, people throughout PG&E’s service area have asked how and why the investor-owned utility took this step. KQED reporters have some answers to some of the questions that have come in …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Is PG&E Turning the Power Off? Is This PG&E’s Fault?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bottom line, PG&E doesn’t want to risk having its power lines start another fire, so it is pre-emptively turning the power off during this week’s dry, windy weather. The company made the decision based on information from its wildfire center, where meteorologists keep watch on fire conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E’s power lines have sparked many catastrophic wildfires in California, including last year’s Camp Fire in Butte County that caused 85 deaths, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in 100 years. PG&E lines started more than a dozen fires in 2017. Less than a month ago, the company agreed to pay billion in a settlement with victims of the recent fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The shutoffs are part of its wildfire mitigation \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11750896/cpuc-pge-deenergization-wildfire-safety-power-shutoffs\">plan\u003c/a>, mandated by the state and agreed to by the California Public Utilities Commission, the state’s top power regulator. — \u003cem>Kevin Stark\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who Made This Decision and When?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If past practice tells us anything, PG&E has been making and remaking this decision, with the help of its meteorological team, over several days. The utility says it considers weather, fuel and other conditions and observations, as well as the need for notice by state and local parties, when it decides to implement shutoffs. As we’ve seen over the last few days, the planned outage times can change with shifting conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact is, there’s nothing new about turning off power lines when conditions get risky: San Diego Gas and Electric, with the permission of the CPUC, has mitigated fire risk this way since 2012. What is new \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/News_Room/Public-Safety-Power-Shutoff-Policies-and-Procedures-September-2018.pdf\">are the guidelines PG&E filed\u003c/a> just a year ago for its public safety power shutoff procedures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the last couple of years, the CPUC has required investor-owned utilities to describe their processes for arriving at decisions like the one affecting nearly three dozen California counties right now. PG&E shut off power two times last year; the last time PG&E called a public safety power shutoff, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/Utilities_and_Industries/Energy_-_Electricity_and_Natural_Gas/PGE%20PSPS%20Report%20Letter_06-21-19.pdf\">for two days in June\u003c/a>, it affected about 22,000 customers in the North Bay and the Sierra foothills, including Butte County and Paradise. — \u003cem>Molly Peterson\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Are the Shutoffs So Widespread?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Essentially, PG&E says that current conditions warrant extreme caution. The utility does its own predictive analysis, with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/wildfires/psps-weather-map.page?WT.mc_id=Vanity_weather\">dedicated page\u003c/a> offering a 7-day forecast of the possibility of a public safety power shutoff. As a rationale for the current outages, members of PG&E’s meteorological team have pointed out that Diablo and Santa Ana winds, along with low humidity and dry surface fuels, are making the state vulnerable to wildfire. Apart from PG&E’s in-house operation, the National Weather Service has issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/mqt/redflagtips\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Red Flag Warnings\u003c/a> for large chunks of California, and PG&E says these are “in alignment” with its own analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment, says these dangerous winds, though occurring annually, haven’t been this widespread in the state since the Wine Country Fires of 2017, before PG&E had instituted its de-energization protocol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wara also says PG&E may have had to cast a wide net because the energy infrastructure of California wasn’t built to accommodate the kind of fire risk we’re now experiencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ll have a power line that will serve one valley and then go up and over a ridge to serve the next valley,” Wara told KQED’s Miranda Leitsinger. “And that means that if you have to turn that light off, you could black out both valleys in addition to the ridgetop — even though the risk is only on the ridgetop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, is a longtime critic of the company who is \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/TedrickG/status/1182312963090182145\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">questioning\u003c/a> the widespread nature of the outage. In a letter sent to the California Public Utilities Commission Wednesday, he wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I strongly disagree with the binary position currently offered by PG&E – they can turn the power off and shut down the economy and livelihoods of millions in California, an action which may protect us from wildfire, or they can roll the dice and continue with the lights on, and risk an enormous fire starting from their power lines. This situation is not acceptable nor sustainable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hill wrote that a public safety power shutoff must be a surgical, last resort measure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In any event, PG&E will have to say more about the choices it made: The utility must file a CPUC report with information related to its decisionmaking 10 days after the shutoff event ends. —\u003cem>Molly Peterson\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>This Is Intolerable. Why Can’t PG&E Just Bury The Lines?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For new construction, PG&E places most power lines underground, so its main issue is dealing with 81,000 miles of existing overhead lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s no small feat. A little back-of-the-envelope math: Strung together, the lines could extend there and back from San Francisco to Buenos Aires about four times. Burying lines is very expensive. On its website, PG&E estimates it would cost $3 million per mile to puts its lines underground. So $3 million x 81,000 miles = $243 billion, which is more than California’s entire 2019 budget. One \u003ca href=\"https://www.eei.org/issuesandpolicy/electricreliability/undergrounding/Documents/UndergroundReport.pdf\">report\u003c/a> suggests that burying lines in urban places can be even more expensive — up to $5 million a mile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, consumer safety advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article222387335.html\">argue\u003c/a> that leaders in Sacramento should require the utility to bury lines in heavily populated, high-risk fire areas. — \u003cem>Kevin Stark\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Can’t the State Take Over PG&E and Solve This Mess?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, though there’s no real model for a state taking over a publicly traded utility of this size. We also have yet to see the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11718683/pge-bankruptcy-filing-poses-big-questions-challenges-for-gov-newsom\">political\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11718683/pge-bankruptcy-filing-poses-big-questions-challenges-for-gov-newsom\">will\u003c/a> for this to occur. One reason is that taxpayers would have to take on the financial responsibility that just bankrupted PG&E — liability for its aging, unsafe electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there were a way to untangle PG&E’s many stakeholders and its various functions — don’t forget, it’s a gas company, too — other challenges would emerge: For one, figuring out how to value its massive assets and sorting out how the state would foot the bill for them, especially since ratepayers have already been paying for the system. Also, the main wildfire problems of aging, poorly maintained electrical transmission lines in rural, fire-prone areas, as well as more frequently occurring climate change-driven severe weather, are not going away, no matter who is in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public power \u003cem>does \u003c/em>exist in California — Sacramento and Los Angeles both have it, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">San\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">Francisco\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">is\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">offering\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">to\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">buy\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">PG\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">&\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">E\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">’\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">s\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">assets\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">within\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">city\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11773007/san-francisco-offers-to-buy-pge-electric-grid-in-the-city-for-2-5-billion\">limits\u003c/a>. But that’s different than completely ending PG&E as we know it and making it a public, state-run power company. It’s worth mentioning that PG&E workers largely oppose this option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One idea that’s been floated: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">Breaking\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">up\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">PG\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">&\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">E\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">into\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">smaller\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739802/money-for-victims-uncertainty-for-pge-everythings-on-the-table-in-newsoms-new-wildfire-plan\">companies\u003c/a>. — \u003ci> Marisa Lagos\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Are These Winds So Dangerous?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are known as “Diablo winds,” although they’re not necessarily hot. They are, however, pretty typical for this time of year. Their speed and dryness make them especially good at fanning and spreading flames. That can turn a potentially manageable wildfire into an out-of-control inferno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These winds that are so good at driving wildfires actually start out cold\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong> Early autumn’s big, cold air masses, brought by the\u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/jet\"> jet stream\u003c/a>, first move over Washington and Oregon then head to the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. This cold air is drier because it holds less moisture, and it has relatively higher pressure than the warmer air sitting over California. The meeting of these air currents propels the winds over the Sierra. As the winds move downslope, they speed up, the air compresses and warms, and the humidity plummets. This removes moisture from the landscape, and makes any spark more likely to start a wildfire. — \u003cem>Danielle Venton\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Will Any Good Come Of This Shutdown?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, one thing is that the outages are testing the region’s emergency response system. They could expose weaknesses that can be fixed before the next major earthquake hits — for example, Caltrans administrators realized they needed to install a backup generator at the Caldecott Tunnel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The shutoffs underscore another fact: PG&E’s grid technology is outdated and clunky. The utility proactively shut off power on Wednesday morning, only to have people wake up to no electricity, less-than-gusty wind conditions, and warnings that the lights could remain off for days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disruption could serve as a focusing event for California to invest in local wind, solar, battery storage and other technologies that would turn neighborhoods into small power islands, called microgrids, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.navigantresearch.com/team/peter-asmus\">Peter\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.navigantresearch.com/team/peter-asmus\">Asmus\u003c/a>, a director at Navigant Research, a market research firm for the power sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Forecasts are often wrong,” he said. “In an ideal situation, you would have the flexibility to make real-time adjustments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Puerto Ricans lived without electricity for months after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island in 2017. Now its main utility \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/02/12/puerto-ricos-utility-prepa-plans-to-divide-island-into-renewable-energy-microgrids/#4c0e345755fc\">plans\u003c/a> to divide the entire island into a series of microgrids that could offer resiliency and flexibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E has not widely adopted that technology. But, Asmus suggested, “the shutoffs are going to drive California to be the leader in microgrids in the U.S.” — \u003cem>Kevin Stark\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Will These Power Shutoffs Work?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll have to wait and see. There are many other ways fires can start: discarded cigarette butts, overheated cars idling over dry vegetation, chains dragging on the ground and sparking. — \u003cem>Danielle Venton\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Your SUV Is Really Messing With California's Climate Plans",
"headTitle": "Your SUV Is Really Messing With California’s Climate Plans | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>A couple of years ago, environmental groups and state leaders cheered when California reported it had reached its 2020 emissions target four years \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-adv-california-climate-pollution-20180722-story.html\">early\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when it comes to meeting California’s ambitious 2030-and- beyond climate goals, it appears to be way too early to pop any celebratory champagne.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]Emissions from the transportation sector soared to a record high, as more people drove more miles in larger, less-efficient trucks and SUVs. These gas guzzlers made up 57% of new vehicle registrations in the fourth quarter of 2018, up from 39% five years ago.[/pullquote] According to the latest report from the annual California Green Innovation Index, at its current rate of emissions reduction, the state is 31 years behind its 2030 goal, which it wouldn’t meet until 2061.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If California is to meet the 2030 target, a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases from 1990 levels, the state needs to cut emissions about three times faster than the current rate. The outlook for California reaching its 2050 goal — an 80% reduction compared to 1990 — is even bleaker. At its current pace, the state will overshoot that goal by a full century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the latest report, by researchers at Beacon Economics and is not the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/ghg-inventory-program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">official greenhouse gas inventory\u003c/a>, California reduced emissions by just over 1 percent from 2017 to 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We could be decades behind if we don’t implement an ambitious new set of innovative policies, and that’s a big if,” said Noel Perry, founder of Next 10, the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that releases the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perry called the numbers, which draw on nearly a decade’s worth of data, “a wakeup call.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Wildfire Issue\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California wildfires in 2018 emitted an estimated 45.5 million metric tons of CO2, a 24% increase from 2017, when California wildfires released an estimated total of 26.7 million metric tons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, wildfires in California produced “an estimated nine times more emissions than were reduced across the entire state’s economy the year prior,” according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Air Resources Board, which is in charge of implementing the state’s emissions reduction policies, is pushing back on the report’s inclusion of these emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanley Young, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, said it is a “mistake to compare carbon released by wildfire with human-caused emissions” because carbon released by wildfires is part of the natural carbon cycle, while emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are the result of extracting carbon that otherwise would stay in the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Young acknowledged that the state’s 2030 goal is going to be a heavy lift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2017, California published a \u003ca style=\"font-weight: bold\" href=\"https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/scoping_plan_2017.pdf\">plan\u003c/a> to achieve reductions that are “cost-effective” and “technologically feasible,” said Young. But they are going to require “continued legislative and funding support,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s emissions \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1945609/california-and-carmakers-reach-clean-vehicle-agreement-rebuking-trump-administration\">agreement\u003c/a> with four major car companies, and the state’s investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from its cap-and-trade program towards incentives for electric vehicles, as examples of “California’s full-throated commitment to transforming the transportation sector, where we face the biggest challenges.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Policy Changes\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make the necessary reductions in emissions, Californians will need to make drastic changes in the way they get around, build homes, manufacture goods and consume energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California historically has shown its ability to use policy and technology innovation to make dramatic shifts in carbon reductions,” Perry said. “We’ve seen that through renewable energy and also in energy efficiency. Although the news is sobering, if California were to galvanize together and create new regulations and new policies that help to drive the reduction of emissions, I think that it is quite possible that we can hit our ambitious policy goals.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not that California isn’t making progress. In fact, the state’s energy sector is slashing carbon emission, particularly from its electricity grid, at the same time the economy has been growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 1990, the state’s GDP increased by 41% while per capita planet-warming gas emissions fell by 25%, according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re finally seeing a lot of research and development investment start to pay off,” said Adam Fowler, director of research at Beacon. “Renewable energy has reached a tipping point in terms of being increasingly cost competitive with fossil fuels, and that’s exciting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem is that emissions from other sectors are flat or, in the case of transportation, rising. Transportation-related carbon pollution remains the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California, mostly because of personal vehicles, the report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2017, emissions from the transportation sector soared to a record high, as more people drove more miles in larger, less-efficient trucks and SUVs. These vehicles made up 57% of new registrations in state in the fourth quarter of 2018, up from 39% five years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There has been a shift in consumer preference toward what have historically been less efficient vehicles,” Fowler said. “This is probably one of the most sobering points from the report. Breakthroughs in these hard to reach sectors are going to require ambitious policy setting to push our economic and climate goals forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some other key takeaways from the report:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The state’s renewable energy sector is strong. In 2017, for the first time, a greater portion of California’s power mix came from renewable energy sources like wind and solar than from fossil fuels\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Renewable resources like hydroelectric, solar and wind are increasingly replacing natural gas.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Electric vehicle sales are rising, with adoption up 37% in 2018 over the previous year. Still, while electric, hybrid, and even hydrogen vehicles are more popular, at the current pace, they will account for just 2% of all the cars registered on the road by the end of 2019.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Emissions from landfills continue to rise, jumping about 7% in 2017. At the same time, the state’s recycling rate declined. At this rate, California is not on track to meet its goal of a 75% recycling rate by the year 2020, Fowler said.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Soaring emissions from vehicles are a big factor in limiting the state's greenhouse gas reductions, according to a new report. At the current pace, California is 31 years behind hitting its 2030 target.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A couple of years ago, environmental groups and state leaders cheered when California reported it had reached its 2020 emissions target four years \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-adv-california-climate-pollution-20180722-story.html\">early\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when it comes to meeting California’s ambitious 2030-and- beyond climate goals, it appears to be way too early to pop any celebratory champagne.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> According to the latest report from the annual California Green Innovation Index, at its current rate of emissions reduction, the state is 31 years behind its 2030 goal, which it wouldn’t meet until 2061.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If California is to meet the 2030 target, a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases from 1990 levels, the state needs to cut emissions about three times faster than the current rate. The outlook for California reaching its 2050 goal — an 80% reduction compared to 1990 — is even bleaker. At its current pace, the state will overshoot that goal by a full century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the latest report, by researchers at Beacon Economics and is not the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/ghg-inventory-program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">official greenhouse gas inventory\u003c/a>, California reduced emissions by just over 1 percent from 2017 to 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We could be decades behind if we don’t implement an ambitious new set of innovative policies, and that’s a big if,” said Noel Perry, founder of Next 10, the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that releases the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perry called the numbers, which draw on nearly a decade’s worth of data, “a wakeup call.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Wildfire Issue\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California wildfires in 2018 emitted an estimated 45.5 million metric tons of CO2, a 24% increase from 2017, when California wildfires released an estimated total of 26.7 million metric tons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, wildfires in California produced “an estimated nine times more emissions than were reduced across the entire state’s economy the year prior,” according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Air Resources Board, which is in charge of implementing the state’s emissions reduction policies, is pushing back on the report’s inclusion of these emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanley Young, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, said it is a “mistake to compare carbon released by wildfire with human-caused emissions” because carbon released by wildfires is part of the natural carbon cycle, while emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are the result of extracting carbon that otherwise would stay in the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Young acknowledged that the state’s 2030 goal is going to be a heavy lift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2017, California published a \u003ca style=\"font-weight: bold\" href=\"https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/scoping_plan_2017.pdf\">plan\u003c/a> to achieve reductions that are “cost-effective” and “technologically feasible,” said Young. But they are going to require “continued legislative and funding support,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pointed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s emissions \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1945609/california-and-carmakers-reach-clean-vehicle-agreement-rebuking-trump-administration\">agreement\u003c/a> with four major car companies, and the state’s investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from its cap-and-trade program towards incentives for electric vehicles, as examples of “California’s full-throated commitment to transforming the transportation sector, where we face the biggest challenges.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Policy Changes\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make the necessary reductions in emissions, Californians will need to make drastic changes in the way they get around, build homes, manufacture goods and consume energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California historically has shown its ability to use policy and technology innovation to make dramatic shifts in carbon reductions,” Perry said. “We’ve seen that through renewable energy and also in energy efficiency. Although the news is sobering, if California were to galvanize together and create new regulations and new policies that help to drive the reduction of emissions, I think that it is quite possible that we can hit our ambitious policy goals.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not that California isn’t making progress. In fact, the state’s energy sector is slashing carbon emission, particularly from its electricity grid, at the same time the economy has been growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 1990, the state’s GDP increased by 41% while per capita planet-warming gas emissions fell by 25%, according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re finally seeing a lot of research and development investment start to pay off,” said Adam Fowler, director of research at Beacon. “Renewable energy has reached a tipping point in terms of being increasingly cost competitive with fossil fuels, and that’s exciting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem is that emissions from other sectors are flat or, in the case of transportation, rising. Transportation-related carbon pollution remains the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California, mostly because of personal vehicles, the report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2017, emissions from the transportation sector soared to a record high, as more people drove more miles in larger, less-efficient trucks and SUVs. These vehicles made up 57% of new registrations in state in the fourth quarter of 2018, up from 39% five years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There has been a shift in consumer preference toward what have historically been less efficient vehicles,” Fowler said. “This is probably one of the most sobering points from the report. Breakthroughs in these hard to reach sectors are going to require ambitious policy setting to push our economic and climate goals forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some other key takeaways from the report:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The state’s renewable energy sector is strong. In 2017, for the first time, a greater portion of California’s power mix came from renewable energy sources like wind and solar than from fossil fuels\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Renewable resources like hydroelectric, solar and wind are increasingly replacing natural gas.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Electric vehicle sales are rising, with adoption up 37% in 2018 over the previous year. Still, while electric, hybrid, and even hydrogen vehicles are more popular, at the current pace, they will account for just 2% of all the cars registered on the road by the end of 2019.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Emissions from landfills continue to rise, jumping about 7% in 2017. At the same time, the state’s recycling rate declined. At this rate, California is not on track to meet its goal of a 75% recycling rate by the year 2020, Fowler said.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Fire, Rock Slides, and Floods: UN Report Details Growing Warming Threat in the Mountains",
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"content": "\u003cp>With ominous orange-gray smoke clouds seething on the western horizon, it’s easy to understand how Colorado’s highest city and other mountain communities are directly threatened by global warming. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote align='right' citation='Heidi Steltzer, biologist at Fort Lewis College']‘Concern, commitment and action on climate change should not depend on which places, species or people are impacted. Instead, they should be motivated by compassion.’[/pullquote]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain snowpack is shrinking and melting earlier in the spring. Warmer and longer summers dry out vegetation and increase the threat of wildfires in western mountain forests, where the fire season has \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/86268/longer-more-frequent-fire-seasons\">lengthened\u003c/a> by at least a month since 1979.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The growing wildfire risk is just part of an accelerating cycle of global warming impacts in the world’s mountain regions, according to a new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25092019/ipcc-cryosphere-ocean-report-climate-change-sea-level-rise-greenland-antarctica\">report\u003c/a> that includes a \u003ca href=\"https://report.ipcc.ch/srocc/pdf/SROCC_FinalDraft_Chapter2.pdf\">section\u003c/a> focused on mountains for the first time in more than 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Snow cover duration has declined in nearly all regions, especially at lower elevations, on average by five days per decade,” the mountain chapter of the IPCC report says. On average across Western North America, the European Alps and High Mountain Asia, temperatures are warming by 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s melting glaciers and changing mountain river flows, disrupting plants and wildlife, and increasing the risk of extreme \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26092018/climate-change-mountains-landslide-hazard-thawing-permafrost-rockfall-extreme-weather-glaciers-global-warming\">rockslides\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08032019/avalanche-climate-change-risk-snow-storm-forecast-colorado-switzerland\">avalanches\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06082018/global-warming-climate-change-floods-california-oroville-dam-scientists\">mountain floods\u003c/a> caused by rain falling on snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taken together, global warming impacts represent an existential threat to millions of people in the Andes, the Himalaya, the European Alps, and the U.S. Mountain West including Alaska, said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/heidimountains\">Heidi Steltzer\u003c/a>, a biologist at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, and a lead author of the mountain chapter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Shrinking glaciers and snow harm Indigenous Peoples and rural communities greatly. Concern, commitment and action on climate change should not depend on which places, species or people are impacted. Instead, they should be motivated by compassion,” Steltzer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Water Reliability \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Crested Butte, about 100 miles southwest of Leadville, hydrologist and physicist Rosemary Carroll studies how \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07062016/unabated-global-warming-threatens-west-snowpack-water-rocky-mountains-sierra-nevada-drought\">disruptions\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07062016/unabated-global-warming-threatens-west-snowpack-water-rocky-mountains-sierra-nevada-drought\">to the water cycle\u003c/a> will affect local ranchers and ski areas, as well as drinking and agricultural water supplies hundreds of miles away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The IPCC assessment found that global warming will change the timing and amount of runoff, “affecting water storage and delivery infrastructure around the world,” a finding backed by research focusing on the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2016 \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016GL068798\">study\u003c/a> in six Western mountain ranges showed rising temperatures will shift the snow accumulation zone and runoff timing enough to have significant impacts on water cycles. And some towns in the Rockies and Sierra Nevada are at risk from \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06082018/global-warming-climate-change-floods-california-oroville-dam-scientists\">dangerous flash floods\u003c/a> as global warming brings rain, rather than snow, to some mountain regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carroll pointed out her living room window to a craggy ridgeline where she measures how water from melted snow trickles through rocks and meadows down to the East River, on to the Gunnison River and finally into the mighty Colorado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The new normal is that the snowpack is melting earlier and we have earlier runoff, and that’s a fact. There’s going to be less water for a given snowpack,” she said. Even in average snowfall years, global warming is reducing the amount of available water for irrigation and storage, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her research for the University of Nevada’s Desert Research Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy will help communities adapt as global warming disrupts flows from mountain streams. Around Crested Butte, the ski industry and local ranchers will feel the changes first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But addressing those impacts isn’t as easy as just throwing a new report on the table. Translating science into action requires working with stakeholders from the start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ranchers know what’s happening, they know that things are shifting, but they’re afraid the policy will shift in a way that they will carry the burden of the change. Since they have most of the water, they fear they will have to give up the most, and that it won’t be equitable,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The states that get their water from the Colorado River are already restructuring \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31012019/colorado-river-water-crisis-climate-science-state-conservation-plans\">water-sharing agreements\u003c/a> to stave off shortages and trying to develop new storage plans to account for extreme wet and dry years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Goodbye to Glaciers\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Global warming will change nearly every mountain ecosystem, starting with the very visible meltdown of glaciers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the European Alps, \u003ca href=\"https://www.alpenverein.at/portal/news/aktuelle_news/2018/2018_04_06_gletscherbericht.php\">some glaciers retreated by as much 410 feet\u003c/a> last year — imagine the Empire State Building shrinking by a third. Globally, the world’s glaciers have lost 9 trillion tons of ice since 1961, raising sea level by about 1 inch, according to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Glaciers_lose_nine_trillion_tonnes_of_ice_in_half_a_century\">European Space Agency\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As glaciers melt, they create a series of risks: newly formed meltwater lakes can burst through their banks, flooding towns and farms below. And as the ice dwindles, that will significantly change the timing and amount of water available for hydropower production and agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along with disrupting ecosystems and downstream communities that rely on glacier meltwater, global warming in the mountains will cause emotional and cultural loss as cherished landscapes vanish. In Switzerland, people recently held a memorial service for the \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/matthias_huss/status/1176117412997062656\">disappearing Pizol Glacier\u003c/a> as a way of dealing with that grief, a sometimes overlooked component of climate resilience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media media-element-container media-image_full\">\n\u003cp>The physical threats are real and growing, said Swiss glaciologist Matthias Huss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If greenhouse gas emissions peak in the next few years and then start to decline, glaciers in the European Alps will lose two-thirds of their current ice. With continued high emissions, the glaciers will all but vanish, with only 5 percent of the current ice remaining, Huss and colleagues found in recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.the-cryosphere.net/13/1125/2019/\">study\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26092018/climate-change-mountains-landslide-hazard-thawing-permafrost-rockfall-extreme-weather-glaciers-global-warming\">An increase in rockfall events\u003c/a>, and flooding from glacier lakes, also due to more extreme weather events, is likely,” Huss said. “I think European countries are prepared, and they have the financial means to adapt. It will be much more difficult for developing countries to adapt to the challenges in mountain regions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Extreme storms that destroy forests and damage roads and railroad lines could also become more frequent in the world’s mountains, although climate models aren’t yet localized enough to project such changes accurately, the IPCC assessment concluded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It won’t be cheap to redesign and rebuild water infrastructure, Huss said. In some snow-dependent communities, the meltdown will also drive wrenching cultural and economic changes. But “one could also see this as a chance for major development toward a more sustainable way to live on our planet,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adapting Food Crops\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what University of Colorado researcher Tsegay Wolde-Georgis was thinking when he led a \u003ca href=\"https://instaar.colorado.edu/news-events/instaar-news/apple-trees-in-atebes-cultivating-climate-resilience-in-an-ethiopian-villag/\">project\u003c/a> in the early 2000s to cultivate apple trees around Atebe, in the dry highlands of Ethiopia where he grew up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diversifying local food supplies will help make the region more resilient to global warming, he said. The new IPCC assessment affirms that global warming is driving dangerous changes in mountain environments that threaten food supplies. But along with warnings, the world needs action, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything is getting more extreme, and there is seasonal confusion,” he said. But there is enough scientific and traditional knowledge to find on-the-ground projects and do them, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the apple orchard, he adapted a traditional permaculture technique, using water-filled clay pots to efficiently irrigate the young trees. At the same time, residents enhanced the water-holding capacity of deforested hillsides by building terraces and planting vegetation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such regenerative agriculture is crucial for food security in developing countries, said Wolde-Georgis, who works with the \u003ca href=\"https://instaar.colorado.edu/research/programs/consortium-for-capacity-building/\">Consortium for Capacity Building\u003c/a>, part of the University of Colorado’s \u003ca href=\"https://instaar.colorado.edu/\">Institute of Alpine and Arctic Research\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After decades of academic research and projects, he radiates the kind of practical wisdom that can help shape resilience to global warming. His eyes gleam as he recalls the look on a local priest’s face during the first apple harvest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was the first time in his life he tasted an apple. When we plant apples, it’s mitigation [of the climate impact], but at the same time, we are solving problems. We have to find something that’s doable on the ground,” he said. In four years, the farmers planted 1,400 apple trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, communities worked to restore watersheds by building terraces and replanting clear-cut hillsides. Wolde-Georgis said the work was successful. Streams that had been dry by the end of December now hold water through the end of May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a larger scale, Wolde-Georgis helps build physical and information infrastructure to boost resilience, including new roads and railroads to help transport food when climate extremes cause crop failures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ethiopia and other developing countries also need more institutional science-based infrastructure to inform good governance across jurisdictional boundaries, he said. To meet the challenges ahead requires working in an atmosphere of trust and a spirit of collaboration, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Disrupting Plants\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab in Gothic, Colorado, David Inouye’s cabin near a patch of shimmering gold aspens is marked by wisps of chimney smoke. For nearly 50 years, he’s been recording plant and animal activity while other observers tally snowfall and snowmelt data day by day — a scientific deep dive into time and space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to the 1970s, spring is coming earlier. There is more winter rain, and summers are longer and drier. It all adds up to disruption for mountain ecosystems, where most plants only have a few weeks to bloom. And the plants are tightly linked with pollinating insects in \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15062018/climate-change-impacts-pollen-pollination-flowers-bees-butterflies-europe-heat-wave-global-warming-research\">a delicately timed cycle\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The ecology of this altitude is driven largely by how much snow we get in the winter and when that snow melts,” Inouye said. “As the climate changes, we’re tending to get less snow and warmer and earlier springs. A paradoxical consequence is that we’re getting more frost damage,” he said. The effects ripple through the ecosystem as global warming disrupts plants and seed production, which, in turn, means less food for small mammals and birds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Graceful yellow glacier lilies are \u003ca href=\"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/12-0255.1\">blooming 17 days earlier\u003c/a> than they did in the 1970s, but migrating hummingbirds that depend on the flower nectar aren’t keeping up. By the time they arrive, many of the plants have withered away, and if current trends continue, in two decades the hummingbirds will miss the first flowers entirely. Ecosystems could collapse as global warming continues to decouple \u003ca href=\"https://www.rmbl.org/article/science-story-june-2019/\">complex ecological relationships\u003c/a>, showing why global warming is a threat to biodiversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01766.x\">study\u003c/a> documented how earlier spring snowmelt makes mountain daisies bloom earlier, when they are more susceptible to frost. The research showed how the frost damage reduces the amount of nectar for a species of butterfly that depends on that particular flower for feeding during the egg-laying season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they don’t get nectar, they can’t make eggs, and the population declines,” Inouye said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tipping Points\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab helps connect the dots in complex ecosystems and how global warming can make them unravel, said lab executive director Ian Billick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What people don’t realize is that we’re changing multiple things at the same time. People don’t realize how drastically things are going to change,” he said. Massive disturbance events linked with global warming like the early 2000s bark beetle outbreak that killed trees across millions of acres will happen again and again. Multiple stressors are driving mountain ecosystems past tipping points, leading to fundamental change, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our agricultural productivity depends on these ecosystems functioning in a highly integrated way, so it’s like if you throw a screwdriver in the middle of an engine, the whole thing falls apart, and I think it’s like with ag, where these finely tuned things are going to fall apart.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The IPCC report represents only the tiny tip of a “massive global change iceberg,” said Steltzer, the Colorado biologist and lead author of the mountain chapter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nine-tenths is what we haven’t seen, measured and documented. We know things are changing for which we have no peer-reviewed scientific articles, and things are changing too fast to keep up,” she said. “There’s no reason to wait to act. We know enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just this past winter, both Europe and parts of the Rockies experienced \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08032019/avalanche-climate-change-risk-snow-storm-forecast-colorado-switzerland\">unprecedented avalanche cycles\u003c/a> after record snowfalls, surprising scientists as well as public safety managers charged with keeping mountain roads open. Recently, mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus have been appearing in the high mountains but remain largely untracked, along with other invasive species. And there are likely scores of other ecological cycles being disrupted that haven’t been studied at all, Inouye said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The IPCC assessment also concluded that forest fires are likely to increase in mountain areas where summers become warmer and drier. “Coastal ranges of California, the Blue Mountains of Australia, Mt. Kenya, and mountains on the fringes of the Mediterranean Sea, already subject to frequent fire episodes, would be severely affected,” the assessment said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019EF001210\">study\u003c/a> showed that the fivefold increase in the extent of California’s wildfires since the 1970s was “very likely driven by drying of fuels promoted by human‐induced warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Snow is decreasing, temperatures are warming, and mountains are changing in ways I never expected I’d live to see,” Steltzer said. “Policy-makers ask for data to show how bad it is. … Instead, they could ask how do we preserve the benefits of nature for each of us and all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media media-element-container media-image_full\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>With ominous orange-gray smoke clouds seething on the western horizon, it’s easy to understand how Colorado’s highest city and other mountain communities are directly threatened by global warming. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain snowpack is shrinking and melting earlier in the spring. Warmer and longer summers dry out vegetation and increase the threat of wildfires in western mountain forests, where the fire season has \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/86268/longer-more-frequent-fire-seasons\">lengthened\u003c/a> by at least a month since 1979.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The growing wildfire risk is just part of an accelerating cycle of global warming impacts in the world’s mountain regions, according to a new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25092019/ipcc-cryosphere-ocean-report-climate-change-sea-level-rise-greenland-antarctica\">report\u003c/a> that includes a \u003ca href=\"https://report.ipcc.ch/srocc/pdf/SROCC_FinalDraft_Chapter2.pdf\">section\u003c/a> focused on mountains for the first time in more than 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Snow cover duration has declined in nearly all regions, especially at lower elevations, on average by five days per decade,” the mountain chapter of the IPCC report says. On average across Western North America, the European Alps and High Mountain Asia, temperatures are warming by 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s melting glaciers and changing mountain river flows, disrupting plants and wildlife, and increasing the risk of extreme \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26092018/climate-change-mountains-landslide-hazard-thawing-permafrost-rockfall-extreme-weather-glaciers-global-warming\">rockslides\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08032019/avalanche-climate-change-risk-snow-storm-forecast-colorado-switzerland\">avalanches\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06082018/global-warming-climate-change-floods-california-oroville-dam-scientists\">mountain floods\u003c/a> caused by rain falling on snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taken together, global warming impacts represent an existential threat to millions of people in the Andes, the Himalaya, the European Alps, and the U.S. Mountain West including Alaska, said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/heidimountains\">Heidi Steltzer\u003c/a>, a biologist at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, and a lead author of the mountain chapter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Shrinking glaciers and snow harm Indigenous Peoples and rural communities greatly. Concern, commitment and action on climate change should not depend on which places, species or people are impacted. Instead, they should be motivated by compassion,” Steltzer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Water Reliability \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Crested Butte, about 100 miles southwest of Leadville, hydrologist and physicist Rosemary Carroll studies how \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07062016/unabated-global-warming-threatens-west-snowpack-water-rocky-mountains-sierra-nevada-drought\">disruptions\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07062016/unabated-global-warming-threatens-west-snowpack-water-rocky-mountains-sierra-nevada-drought\">to the water cycle\u003c/a> will affect local ranchers and ski areas, as well as drinking and agricultural water supplies hundreds of miles away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The IPCC assessment found that global warming will change the timing and amount of runoff, “affecting water storage and delivery infrastructure around the world,” a finding backed by research focusing on the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2016 \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016GL068798\">study\u003c/a> in six Western mountain ranges showed rising temperatures will shift the snow accumulation zone and runoff timing enough to have significant impacts on water cycles. And some towns in the Rockies and Sierra Nevada are at risk from \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06082018/global-warming-climate-change-floods-california-oroville-dam-scientists\">dangerous flash floods\u003c/a> as global warming brings rain, rather than snow, to some mountain regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carroll pointed out her living room window to a craggy ridgeline where she measures how water from melted snow trickles through rocks and meadows down to the East River, on to the Gunnison River and finally into the mighty Colorado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The new normal is that the snowpack is melting earlier and we have earlier runoff, and that’s a fact. There’s going to be less water for a given snowpack,” she said. Even in average snowfall years, global warming is reducing the amount of available water for irrigation and storage, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her research for the University of Nevada’s Desert Research Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy will help communities adapt as global warming disrupts flows from mountain streams. Around Crested Butte, the ski industry and local ranchers will feel the changes first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But addressing those impacts isn’t as easy as just throwing a new report on the table. Translating science into action requires working with stakeholders from the start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ranchers know what’s happening, they know that things are shifting, but they’re afraid the policy will shift in a way that they will carry the burden of the change. Since they have most of the water, they fear they will have to give up the most, and that it won’t be equitable,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The states that get their water from the Colorado River are already restructuring \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31012019/colorado-river-water-crisis-climate-science-state-conservation-plans\">water-sharing agreements\u003c/a> to stave off shortages and trying to develop new storage plans to account for extreme wet and dry years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Goodbye to Glaciers\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Global warming will change nearly every mountain ecosystem, starting with the very visible meltdown of glaciers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the European Alps, \u003ca href=\"https://www.alpenverein.at/portal/news/aktuelle_news/2018/2018_04_06_gletscherbericht.php\">some glaciers retreated by as much 410 feet\u003c/a> last year — imagine the Empire State Building shrinking by a third. Globally, the world’s glaciers have lost 9 trillion tons of ice since 1961, raising sea level by about 1 inch, according to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Glaciers_lose_nine_trillion_tonnes_of_ice_in_half_a_century\">European Space Agency\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As glaciers melt, they create a series of risks: newly formed meltwater lakes can burst through their banks, flooding towns and farms below. And as the ice dwindles, that will significantly change the timing and amount of water available for hydropower production and agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along with disrupting ecosystems and downstream communities that rely on glacier meltwater, global warming in the mountains will cause emotional and cultural loss as cherished landscapes vanish. In Switzerland, people recently held a memorial service for the \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/matthias_huss/status/1176117412997062656\">disappearing Pizol Glacier\u003c/a> as a way of dealing with that grief, a sometimes overlooked component of climate resilience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media media-element-container media-image_full\">\n\u003cp>The physical threats are real and growing, said Swiss glaciologist Matthias Huss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If greenhouse gas emissions peak in the next few years and then start to decline, glaciers in the European Alps will lose two-thirds of their current ice. With continued high emissions, the glaciers will all but vanish, with only 5 percent of the current ice remaining, Huss and colleagues found in recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.the-cryosphere.net/13/1125/2019/\">study\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26092018/climate-change-mountains-landslide-hazard-thawing-permafrost-rockfall-extreme-weather-glaciers-global-warming\">An increase in rockfall events\u003c/a>, and flooding from glacier lakes, also due to more extreme weather events, is likely,” Huss said. “I think European countries are prepared, and they have the financial means to adapt. It will be much more difficult for developing countries to adapt to the challenges in mountain regions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Extreme storms that destroy forests and damage roads and railroad lines could also become more frequent in the world’s mountains, although climate models aren’t yet localized enough to project such changes accurately, the IPCC assessment concluded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It won’t be cheap to redesign and rebuild water infrastructure, Huss said. In some snow-dependent communities, the meltdown will also drive wrenching cultural and economic changes. But “one could also see this as a chance for major development toward a more sustainable way to live on our planet,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adapting Food Crops\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what University of Colorado researcher Tsegay Wolde-Georgis was thinking when he led a \u003ca href=\"https://instaar.colorado.edu/news-events/instaar-news/apple-trees-in-atebes-cultivating-climate-resilience-in-an-ethiopian-villag/\">project\u003c/a> in the early 2000s to cultivate apple trees around Atebe, in the dry highlands of Ethiopia where he grew up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diversifying local food supplies will help make the region more resilient to global warming, he said. The new IPCC assessment affirms that global warming is driving dangerous changes in mountain environments that threaten food supplies. But along with warnings, the world needs action, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything is getting more extreme, and there is seasonal confusion,” he said. But there is enough scientific and traditional knowledge to find on-the-ground projects and do them, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the apple orchard, he adapted a traditional permaculture technique, using water-filled clay pots to efficiently irrigate the young trees. At the same time, residents enhanced the water-holding capacity of deforested hillsides by building terraces and planting vegetation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such regenerative agriculture is crucial for food security in developing countries, said Wolde-Georgis, who works with the \u003ca href=\"https://instaar.colorado.edu/research/programs/consortium-for-capacity-building/\">Consortium for Capacity Building\u003c/a>, part of the University of Colorado’s \u003ca href=\"https://instaar.colorado.edu/\">Institute of Alpine and Arctic Research\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After decades of academic research and projects, he radiates the kind of practical wisdom that can help shape resilience to global warming. His eyes gleam as he recalls the look on a local priest’s face during the first apple harvest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was the first time in his life he tasted an apple. When we plant apples, it’s mitigation [of the climate impact], but at the same time, we are solving problems. We have to find something that’s doable on the ground,” he said. In four years, the farmers planted 1,400 apple trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, communities worked to restore watersheds by building terraces and replanting clear-cut hillsides. Wolde-Georgis said the work was successful. Streams that had been dry by the end of December now hold water through the end of May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a larger scale, Wolde-Georgis helps build physical and information infrastructure to boost resilience, including new roads and railroads to help transport food when climate extremes cause crop failures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ethiopia and other developing countries also need more institutional science-based infrastructure to inform good governance across jurisdictional boundaries, he said. To meet the challenges ahead requires working in an atmosphere of trust and a spirit of collaboration, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Disrupting Plants\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab in Gothic, Colorado, David Inouye’s cabin near a patch of shimmering gold aspens is marked by wisps of chimney smoke. For nearly 50 years, he’s been recording plant and animal activity while other observers tally snowfall and snowmelt data day by day — a scientific deep dive into time and space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to the 1970s, spring is coming earlier. There is more winter rain, and summers are longer and drier. It all adds up to disruption for mountain ecosystems, where most plants only have a few weeks to bloom. And the plants are tightly linked with pollinating insects in \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15062018/climate-change-impacts-pollen-pollination-flowers-bees-butterflies-europe-heat-wave-global-warming-research\">a delicately timed cycle\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The ecology of this altitude is driven largely by how much snow we get in the winter and when that snow melts,” Inouye said. “As the climate changes, we’re tending to get less snow and warmer and earlier springs. A paradoxical consequence is that we’re getting more frost damage,” he said. The effects ripple through the ecosystem as global warming disrupts plants and seed production, which, in turn, means less food for small mammals and birds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Graceful yellow glacier lilies are \u003ca href=\"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/12-0255.1\">blooming 17 days earlier\u003c/a> than they did in the 1970s, but migrating hummingbirds that depend on the flower nectar aren’t keeping up. By the time they arrive, many of the plants have withered away, and if current trends continue, in two decades the hummingbirds will miss the first flowers entirely. Ecosystems could collapse as global warming continues to decouple \u003ca href=\"https://www.rmbl.org/article/science-story-june-2019/\">complex ecological relationships\u003c/a>, showing why global warming is a threat to biodiversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another \u003ca href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01766.x\">study\u003c/a> documented how earlier spring snowmelt makes mountain daisies bloom earlier, when they are more susceptible to frost. The research showed how the frost damage reduces the amount of nectar for a species of butterfly that depends on that particular flower for feeding during the egg-laying season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they don’t get nectar, they can’t make eggs, and the population declines,” Inouye said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tipping Points\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab helps connect the dots in complex ecosystems and how global warming can make them unravel, said lab executive director Ian Billick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What people don’t realize is that we’re changing multiple things at the same time. People don’t realize how drastically things are going to change,” he said. Massive disturbance events linked with global warming like the early 2000s bark beetle outbreak that killed trees across millions of acres will happen again and again. Multiple stressors are driving mountain ecosystems past tipping points, leading to fundamental change, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our agricultural productivity depends on these ecosystems functioning in a highly integrated way, so it’s like if you throw a screwdriver in the middle of an engine, the whole thing falls apart, and I think it’s like with ag, where these finely tuned things are going to fall apart.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The IPCC report represents only the tiny tip of a “massive global change iceberg,” said Steltzer, the Colorado biologist and lead author of the mountain chapter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nine-tenths is what we haven’t seen, measured and documented. We know things are changing for which we have no peer-reviewed scientific articles, and things are changing too fast to keep up,” she said. “There’s no reason to wait to act. We know enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just this past winter, both Europe and parts of the Rockies experienced \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08032019/avalanche-climate-change-risk-snow-storm-forecast-colorado-switzerland\">unprecedented avalanche cycles\u003c/a> after record snowfalls, surprising scientists as well as public safety managers charged with keeping mountain roads open. Recently, mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus have been appearing in the high mountains but remain largely untracked, along with other invasive species. And there are likely scores of other ecological cycles being disrupted that haven’t been studied at all, Inouye said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The IPCC assessment also concluded that forest fires are likely to increase in mountain areas where summers become warmer and drier. “Coastal ranges of California, the Blue Mountains of Australia, Mt. Kenya, and mountains on the fringes of the Mediterranean Sea, already subject to frequent fire episodes, would be severely affected,” the assessment said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019EF001210\">study\u003c/a> showed that the fivefold increase in the extent of California’s wildfires since the 1970s was “very likely driven by drying of fuels promoted by human‐induced warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Snow is decreasing, temperatures are warming, and mountains are changing in ways I never expected I’d live to see,” Steltzer said. “Policy-makers ask for data to show how bad it is. … Instead, they could ask how do we preserve the benefits of nature for each of us and all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media media-element-container media-image_full\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"order": 9
},
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Perspectives",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
"subscribe": {
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/M4f5",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Planet-Money-p164680/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
}
},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Political Breakdown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"subscribe": {
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/572155894/political-breakdown",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/political-breakdown",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/07RVyIjIdk2WDuVehvBMoN",
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