Governor Signs Historic Regional Agreement

Today at the 2007 National Governors Association Winter Meeting Governor Schwarzenegger signed an historic agreement with the Governors of Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Western United States. The Governor also challenged the federal government to follow California's lead and take bold action with two new environmental initiatives: a national market-based cap and trade system for greenhouse gas emissions, and a nation-wide Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

Governor Schwarzenegger establishes the nation's largest and most comprehensive regional greenhouse gas reduction program with four other states.

The agreement tackles all emissions sources and, like California's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), is market-based. The Western Regional Climate Action Initiative commits California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington to:

• Set regional GHG reduction goals within the next six months.


• Create a blueprint for a regional market-based program by August 2008 to meet these goals.


• Participate in a multi-state registry to track and manage GHG emissions.


• Continue promoting clean and renewable energy, increasing energy efficiency, advocating for sound regional and national energy policies and identifying new measures to fight global warming.

The agreement is larger and goes further than others. In the absence of federal action to curb GHG emissions, states must lead the way.

In 2003, California, Oregon and Washington created the West Coast Global Warming Initiative, and in 2006, Arizona and New Mexico launched the Southwest Climate Change Initiative.
The Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states' Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) focuses specifically on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Currently New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont participate in the RGGI effort.
The agreement achieves Governor Schwarzenegger's vision for the west.

In June 2006 Governor Schwarzenegger called on the Western states to join California's fight against global warming by establishing a regional greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction program-using market-based mechanisms, such as cap and trade-to reduce harmful emissions.

Governor Schwarzenegger calls for a nation-wide market for greenhouse gas emissions.
The Governor's leadership set the stage for a national goal and a market to meet it. AB 32 authorizes the California Air Resources Board to develop regulations and market mechanisms, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading, to achieve California's historic reduction targets.

GHG emissions trading is a system where companies and other emitters are given credits that represent the right to emit a specific amount of GHG. The total number of credits on the market cannot exceed the emissions cap. Emitters that exceed the cap must buy credits from those who emit less. Like other commodities, credits are bought and sold by brokers on financial markets.
Credit trading allows emitters to choose if or how they will reduce their output while reducing harmful GHG emissions overall.

Trading achieves a healthy economy and strong environment by giving businesses flexibility while reducing emissions overall. Just a month after signing AB32, Governor Schwarzenegger directed the California Air Resources Board to ensure that the state's emissions trading system will sync with others to achieve maximum market efficiency.

Markets must be compatible with one another so that trading can occur quickly and effectively. In October, Governor Schwarzenegger met with New York Governor Pataki to explore how California's future emissions trading market and RGGI can be linked to provide greater market opportunities.

Under the Governor's direction, California's program will also be compatible with the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Chicago Climate Exchange.



Elizabeth Ashford Perry
Deputy Communications Director
Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
elizabeth.ashford@gov.ca.gov
(916) 322-3651 - Telephone
(916) 324-6357 - Facsimile

Global Average Temperature For January Highest On Record

from creating commons under the sun

NOAA reported today that the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the highest for any January on record. According to the NOAA National Climatic Data the most unusually warm conditions were in the mid- and high-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere. The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.53 degrees F (0.85 degrees C) warmer than the 20th century average of 53.6 degrees F (12.0 degrees C) for January based on preliminary data, surpassing the previous record set in 2002 at 1.28 degrees F (0.71 degrees C) above the average.

Last month's record was greatly influenced by a record high land-surface temperature, the fourth warmest global ocean-surface temperature was in the 128-year series, and a moderate El Niño episode that began in September 2006. In the contiguous United States, the monthly mean temperature was near average in January.

The presence of El Niño, along with the continuing climate change trend, contributed to the record warm January. NOAA reported that the monthly mean temperatures more than 8 degrees F above average covered large parts of Eastern Europe and much of Russia, and temperatures more than 5 degrees F above average were widespread in Canada. The unusually warm conditions contributed to the 2nd lowest January snow cover extent on record for the Eurasian continent.

Pelosi: Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cuts Needed

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, February 8, 2007 (ENS) - The United States cannot effectively tackle global warming without enacting mandatory restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today.

"Scientific evidence suggests that to prevent the most severe effects of global warming, we will need to cut global greenhouse gas emissions roughly in half from today's levels by 2050," Pelosi said. "We cannot achieve the transformation we need, both in the United States and throughout the international community without mandatory action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution."

Pelosi, who has vowed to ready climate change legislation by July 4, told members of the House Science and Technology Committee not to fear the economic costs of mandatory greenhouse gas reductions.

The House speaker said she now has "a more open mind" about increasing nuclear power as part of a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"We need to compare it to the alternatives … I think it has to be on the table," Pelosi said, adding that waste disposal "is the big challenge."

Leaders of some of America's largest corporations agree with Pelosi's move towards mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

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China to set up Asia's first carbon-credit exchange

BEIJING: China, set to overtake the US as the world's largest carbon dioxide emitter, will soon set up Asia's first carbon-credit exchange in Beijing, allowing the country a head-start in the multi-billion-dollar global carbon market.

The exchange and 12 brokerages in western China, estimated to cost $1.7 million over three years, will be established with financial backing from Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steelmaker, which is scouting for major forays into China. The project aims to establish the clean development mechanism (CDM) technical service centres in 12 provinces, like Xinjiang, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia.

These centres will act as brokers between international investors and local partners to kick-start Green Investment in China's less developed regions.

The initiative aims to pilot carbon trading in China, build capacity and provide policy input for the expansion of carbon market and reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in China, UN Resident Coordinator and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative Inichina, Khalid Malik said.

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California emissions law inspires Illinois

By Michael Martinez
Tribune national correspondent
Published February 12, 2007

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Juan Molina can no longer wait for the nation's green movement to come to his doorstep, which is one house away from the "diesel death zone" of Interstate Highway 710.

Frequently the trendsetter, California is providing the nation's most aggressive law yet in response to a growing belief, advanced by an international study this month, that mankind and its pollutants are making the planet warmer.

With Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger taking a lead role against traditional interests in his party, California will impose restrictions on just about every business to reduce carbon emissions under a law that took effect in January.

Other states in the West as well as New England are devising measures, but none has passed a law as groundbreaking as the Golden State's, experts and officials said."California has taken the lead in actually establishing a law to do it," said Chris Field, director of the department of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. "I think one of the goals of the California legislature and governor was to come up with an initiative that was tougher than anybody else's, and they want the bragging rights of having the strongest climate policy."

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Climate Exchanges prove big

By ROBERT LEE HOTZ, Los Angeles Times
The Chicago Climate Exchange is the first and only legally binding carbon emissions market in North America. In the absence of federal controls on greenhouse gas emissions, it applies an axiom of economic theory to the problem of global warming: People in search of profit can be expected to do just about anything for a buck -- even save the planet.

That concept of the market forms the cornerstone of regulatory efforts to fight global warming.
Interest in carbon trading as an arcane but powerful tool to fight global warming has intensified following the release last week of a landmark United Nations report that found rising temperatures will continue to increase even if greenhouse gas emissions can be held to current levels.

It’s a new form of environmental bookkeeping that theoretically reduces emissions of carbon dioxide and the other trace gases responsible for gradually rising global temperatures.
Since the exchange opened in 2003, almost two hundred companies -- including the Ford Motor Co., Du Pont, IBM Corp., Amtrak and American Electric Power Co. -- have volunteered to buy and sell the right to emit tons of carbon dioxide and five other key greenhouse gases.

California officials are beginning to frame market-based trading schemes, inspired in part by the Chicago Climate Exchange, to curb industrial carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent over the next 14 years. State and federal regulators already use market trading to control the sulfur emissions responsible for acid rain.

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Dispatches from the Maine Climate Summit

Here I am - reporting from the Maine Climate Summit.

The Maine Geocluster of SustainUS is hosting the 3rd annual Maine Climate Summit at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Current temperature - 19 degrees, but according to the weather website, it feels like 9 degrees.

There is a high energy level despite the cold. Over one hundred listeners appeared for the keynote speaker last night, Alison Drayton. A hundred people may not seem like a lot, but for a small town, on a Friday night, in the middle of the winter, not a bad accomplishment.

Alison Drayton is an international climate negotiations expert. She is a senior official of the United Nations Development Programme with an extensive history in international climate change negotiations. She is the former Counselor in the Permanent Mission of Guyana to the UN, where she coordinated the Group of G-77/China on climate and sustainable development issues during the formative years of the Framework on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. According to COA President David Hales, "Her visionary leadership and her superior negotiating skills helped set the basis for international progress in addressing global warming."

Drayton addressed a number of key issues in her address last night. The disproportionate impacts of climate change on developing countries and the rising costs of action were two points that were emphasized.

The threats of rising famine and malnutrition are not limited to developing countries. Avoiding these crises requires changes at the fundamental level of many of these regions. Costs of action are still less expensive as the future costs of inaction.

She also pointed out that the developing world blames the industrialized world for their historical role in climate change, their lack of inaction and in some cases their refusal to acknowledge the threat.

She ended her talk with some practical, realistic changes we can make in our daily lives.

1) exercise voter power. Vote for the greener alternative, lobby your elected official
2) save energy, save the planet, save dollars. Wash in cold water, use long life lightbulbs,
3) exercise consumer power. Support green companies. 12 billion dollars are spent on plastic bags alone.
4) exercise ethical investment. The power of the individual share holder in the united states is very important
5) support clean tech
6) require public companies to report on their emissions
7) buy local

The question and answer period following her presentation provided a very candid look at the negotiations process within the UN.
Other issues raised included our current level of preparation for the worst case scenario, as well as the post-2012 question that has been plaguing Kyoto-watchers for quite some time.

The role of international negotiations in mitigating climate change raises a number of key points regarding states varying levels of commitment to solving the climate crisis. Issues of sovereignty, wealth and global influence all play a key role in how we will solve this problem.

Maine house Representative Ted Kauffman raised some interesting points regarding the role of US States acting as incubators for legislation. As more US states are entering into climate change policy, both locally and regionally, businesses are beginning to fear the changes required to comply with a number of different systems. This is prompting lobbying at the Federal level by companies who are not necessarily in support of climate policy. This is illustrative of the high level of adaptability individuals and businesses can have in the face of legislation and compliance. By implementing important policy at the State level, we can make a strong statement - to constituents, businesses and other governments, that the state of the climate is posing severe problems around the world. Governments need to implement policy, and individuals need to be enterprising.

Let's hope that $25 million dollar prize gets awarded soon!

-julia

news from the (water)front

Hello everyone -

we just received a note from our wonderful Dave who is bravely facing the cold in Norfolk, VA, checking on our wonderful Weatherbird.

We would also like to take this opportunity to announce the Planktos Weatherbird Blog

planktosweatherbird.blogspot.com

we'll be sending regular boat updates, bloom updates and hillarious open ocean stories (unlike the very educational, but rarely personal postings on this blog).

Check out pictures of the boat and keep up to date on Planktos EcoRestoration!

Who said Plankton aren't beautiful?

I found this site while googling David Thomas - an associate professor of marine biogeochemistry at the University of Wales in Bangor, Wales. You can read the article about him here.


At Planktos, we're always looking at plankton in an appreciative way. A recent addition to our library is Plankton: A Critical Creation.






The image on the right is a plankton-inspired carving by Louise Hibbert.









Her partner, Sarah Parker-Eaton works in silver and gold to create her plankton creations, seen to left.








Sarah, Louise and David all collaborated on a plankton project and created some amazing work which can be seen here, or below.

Maine Climate Summit

BAR HARBOR - As frigid weather maintains its stranglehold on the state, the phenomenon of climate change isn’t immediately palpable in this tip of the United States.
But organizers of the third annual Maine Climate Change Summit, to be held next weekend in Bar Harbor, said global warming and its environmental impact reach everyone, and any chance to discuss the topic is a good one.

The summit, which begins Friday, Feb. 9, and runs through Sunday, Feb. 11, was organized by COA students and members of SustainUS, a youth environmental movement. It also is sponsored by the Sierra Student Coalition and a Planktos, a San Francisco-based ecosystem restoration company.

Saturday's mid-afternoon workshop focuses on a panel on science and technology with environmental engineer Robert Niven, who has been working on developing a cost-effective, environmentally-benign carbon capture and storage process, called CO2 Accelerated Concrete Curing. Also on the panel is transportation engineer and land use planner Jon Slason of Burlington, Vt., who has worked with organizations, municipalities and states to assess the impacts of development and land use changes while encouraging growth and economic stability. Additional panel members are solar engineer David Kaufman and COA 2006 alumna, Julia Clark who is representing Planktos, a company researching the role of plankton in carbon storage.

Read More here or here

although the climate and oceans are inexorably intertwined, the critical role oceans play in climate change is seldom addressed

Oceans Report Card Gives U.S. Government an F for Funding

WASHINGTON, DC, January 30, 2007 (ENS) - The failure of Congress and the President to commit sufficient funding to oceans protection in 2006 earned the federal government a grade of F on the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative's U.S. Ocean Policy Report Card, issued today.


Admiral James D. Watkins, co-chair of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, told reporters on a conference call today that the oceans are in deep trouble, in part due to the effects of climate change.

Read more

UN Climate Change Report On Global Warming

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is due to release a report in Paris on Friday entitled Climate Change 2007 in which 2,500 scientists from 130 countries unequivocally state that the current trend towards potentially catastrophic global warming has been induced by human activity, which began with the dramatic increase in fossil fuel use during the Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century.
read the complete article here

Fudging the evidence

Tuesday, Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), held a hearing on “Political Interference with Science: Global Warming.”
Turns out (surprise surprise) that the Bush administration is muzzling federal scientists and suppressing or distorting their research on climate change.

Click here to read the full article online.