WH OKs report warning warming is ‘man-made’
US renewable energy booms
WASHINGTON, Nov 4, (Agencies): A massive US report concludes the evidence of global warming is stronger than ever, contradicting a favorite talking point of top Trump administration officials, who downplay humans’ role in climate change.
The report released Friday is one of two scientific assessments required every four years. A draft showing how warming affects the US was also published.
Despite fears by some scientists and environmental advocates, David Fahey of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several authors said there was no political interference or censoring of the 477-page final report.
“A lot of what we’ve been learning over the last four years suggests the possibility that things may have been more serious than we think,” said Robert Kopp of Rutgers University, one of dozens of scientists inside and outside the government who wrote the reports.
Since 1900, Earth has warmed by 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) and seas have risen by 8 inches. Heat waves, downpours and wildfires have become frequent.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt have repeatedly said carbon dioxide isn’t the primary contributor to global warming.
It’s “extremely likely” — meaning with 95 to 100 percent certainty — that global warming is manmade, mostly from the spewing of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, scientists concluded.
“Over the last century, there are no convincing alternative explanations,” the report said.
Scientists calculated that human contribution to warming since 1950 is between 92 percent and 123 percent. It’s more than 100 percent on one end, because some natural forces — such as volcanoes and orbital cycle — are working to cool Earth, but are being overwhelmed by the effects of greenhouse gases, said study co-author Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech.
“This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization,” she said.
For the first time, scientists highlighted a dozen “tipping points” of potential dangers that could happen from warming, things that Hayhoe said “keep me up at night.”
They include the slowing down of the giant Atlantic Ocean circulation system that could dramatically warp weather worldwide, much stronger El Ninos, major decreases in ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which would spike sea level rise, and massive release of methane and carbon dioxide from thawing permafrost that could turbo-charge warming.
Chance
Researchers did not provide an estimate of how likely tipping points would occur, but “there is certainly some chance of some of these things happening,” Fahey said.
The report also documented how different climate change caused events can interact in a complex way to make life worse such as the California wildfires and Superstorm Sandy five years ago.
The world’s oceans are under a “triple threat” — the water is getting warmer, more acidic and seeing a drop in oxygen levels, Hayhoe said.
In a 1,504-page draft report on the impacts of climate change, scientists detailed dozens of ways global warming is already affecting parts of the US.
Scientists said global warming is already sickening, injuring and killing Americans with changes to weather, food, air, water and diseases. And it’s expected to get worse, hurting the economy, wildlife and energy supply.
“Risks range from the inconvenient, such as increasing high tide flooding along the East Coast related to sea level rise, to ... the forced relocation of coastal communities in Alaska and along the Gulf Coast,” the draft report said.
Outside experts said the reports are the most up-to-date summary of climate science.
“It shows that if anything the findings of scientists have become more dire” since 2013, said University of California, Berkeley climate scientist Zeke Haus father, who wasn’t part of the work.
Renewable energy continues to grow in the United States, despite US President Donald Trump’s moves to dismantle clean power, deregulate industry and promote fossil fuels like coal, experts say.
Five months after Trump declared the United States would withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate accord, the Republican leader continues to unravel the environmental legacy of his predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama.
A signature piece of Trump’s strategy has been to roll back regulations, including the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which aimed to cut US emissions from power plants for the first time.
“They are trying to put their fingers on the scale in favor of coal and other polluting fossil fuels, and trying to do things to slow down the penetration of clean, renewable energy technologies, so that is the landscape,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
But many state and city governments have pressed on with their fight against climate change, and the job force of those working in renewable energies continues to expand nationwide.
“The trend is very clear,” added Meyer.
“To fight Trump, the investment and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency have continued growing.”
Employment
Employment in the solar industry grew 24.5 percent in 2016 compared to a year earlier, reaching a workforce of nearly 374,000 people, according to an Energy Department report.
Traditional fossil fuels employed just 187,000 people, it said.
Employment in US wind energy rose 32 percent to nearly 102,000 people.
“The renewable energy industry is already working here,” said Frank Maisano, senior principal at Bracewell, a law and government relations firm serving the energy industry.
“Jobs are growing dramatically in both wind and solar.”
Solar and wind energy combined now produce 10 percent of the total electricity in the United States, according to the Energy Department.
In March, eight percent of the nation’s electricity came from wind and two percent from solar.
In states like California, renewables made up an even larger proportion of electricity production.
Climate science expert Michael Mann, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said it is possible that the United States will reach its commitment to cut emissions under the Paris accord regardless of what Trump says or does.
Governments, scientists, industry groups and environmental campaigners are meeting in Germany next week to discuss implementing a global agreement to curb climate change, despite uncertainty over how the United States will figure into the effort.
President Donald Trump announced earlier this year that the US will pull out of the 2015 Paris climate accord unless his administration can secure a better deal.
Other countries have pledged to press on regardless at the Nov. 6-17 meeting in the western German city of Bonn. The 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP) will be presided over by Fiji, one of the small island nations particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming.
Researchers say extreme weather like the events of recent months — including hurricanes in the Caribbean, heatwaves in Europe and flooding in south Asia — are going to become more frequent as a result of climate change. To prevent catastrophic consequences, they say countries must make concerted efforts to shift the global economy away from fossil fuels and to adjust to some inevitable impacts, such as rising sea levels.
“This COP is more important than most people realize,” Andrew Steer, head of the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based environmental think tank, said.
Steer said a growing number of commitments from governments, as well as from major companies and cities around the world was “broadly encouraging.” He noted the falling cost of renewable energy — a key technology required to help power-hungry economies kick the carbon habit.
Most of the 195 countries coming to Bonn — where the U.N. climate agency is located — appear willing to continue hammering out the details needed to make the Paris 2015 accord work, German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said ahead of the twoweek talks.