France’s Macron leads the climate charge, with the US absent

The United States may have withdrawn from the Paris climate change accord, but on Tuesday dozens of world leaders and philanthropists met to find solutions to the swiftly warming planet — and send a message of resolve to the White House.

More symbolic than policy-driven, Tuesday’s summit comes two years after the landmark ‘‘COP21’’ conference in Paris, where 196 participating countries — including the United States — vowed to keep this century’s global temperature increase below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. In one of the most controversial moments of his young presidency, President Trump announced in June that the United States would leave the Paris accord.

The United States is now the only nation on Earth to have rejected the global pact.

Although the rest of the world — and much of the United States — has continued working to meet the Paris commitments, French President Emmanuel Macron called Trump’s decision ‘‘very bad news’’ and warned against complacency. In opening remarks Tuesday, he minced no words. ‘‘We’re losing the battle,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re not moving quickly enough. We all need to act.’’

The One Planet Summit focused on practical ways to continue meeting climate goals without the participation of the US government. The main emphasis was private financing for climate initiatives in the United States and elsewhere. A major goal of the summit was to encourage private investors to fill the annual gap of $210 billion needed to meet the requirements of the Paris agreement.

Toward that end, the summit did secure some major commitments. The Gates Foundation, for instance, said Tuesday that it would pledge $300 million over the next three years to support farmers in Africa and Asia struggling with the effects of climate change: diminished soil fertility, extreme weather, and crop pests, among others. Earlier this year, the foundation had pledged a separate $300 million to benefit public health and poverty reduction programs in Tanzania.

AXA, the world’s third-largest insurance company, announced further reductions of coal investments by an additional $2.8 billion. And the World Bank — to meet its Paris commitments faster — said it would stop financing projects involving upstream oil and gas beginning in 2019. Other US philanthropic organizations also supported the cause. On Monday, the Hewlett Foundation pledged $600 million over five years to nonprofits working on climate change issues.

On the US front, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire and leading climate change advocate, vowed to persuade more companies to change their practices. Bloomberg emphasized the business incentives behind addressing climate change. ‘‘Clean energy is now cheaper than coal, energy efficiency saves money and improves your bottom line, and talented people want to work for companies that care about the planet,’’ he said.

The biggest challenge to persuading more companies to go green, Bloomberg added, is that ‘‘reliable data doesn’t exist.’’ To solve that problem, he has chaired the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, an organization that seeks to communicate financial risk related to climate change.

Since his election, climate change has been among Macron’s signature issues. When Trump said the United States would drop out of the Paris accord, Macron immediately launched a campaign called ‘‘Make Our Planet Great Again,’’ a riff on Trump’s campaign slogan. As part of that campaign, Macron offered research grants for 18 foreign scientists studying climate change to pursue their work in France. On Monday, he revealed the winners, including 13 Americans.

For political analysts, Tuesday’s summit provided further evidence of Macron’s desire to assert France as a principal mediator in virtually every important global deliberation, especially on climate change.

‘‘There is an element of prestige here, because France and President Macron want to play a leading role in the global climate governance, and I think there are just two leaders who are credible there: Macron and [Chinese President] Xi Jinping,’’ said Marc Antoine Eyl-Mazzega, director of the Center for Energy at the French Institute for International Relations, a Paris think tank.

Xi — who was not in attendance at Macron’s second Paris summit, although Chinese representatives were — also has been a supporter of the Paris agreement, even if China remains the largest emitter of greenhouse gases on Earth.

‘‘Some countries have become more inward-looking and less willing to take part in international cooperation, and the spillovers of their policy adjustments are deepening,’’ Xi said in September, stopping short of mentioning the United States by name.

But some see Chinese emissions as the potential thorn in Macron’s plans. ‘‘The exit of the US from climate credibility leaves a gap. The US has traditionally played the role of bad cop with China, forcing them to reduce their emissions. Now that role may fall to Macron,’’ said Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser, now with the Progressive Policy Institute.

‘‘I think Macron recognizes the urgency of climate action in a way that maybe older generations don’t, but he’s got to realize that global emissions can’t peak until Chinese emissions do. And Chinese emissions are still growing.’’

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GOP Tax Bills Aim to Derail the Green-Power Gravy Train,/b>

Commentators, as well as congressional Democrats, have criticized the Republican tax bill for being rushed through the House and Senate without significant debate.

While that complaint — plus the fact that, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent analysis, the bill could increase the federal deficit by $1 trillion or more — has merit, the new tax bill should bring some much-needed sanity to federal energy policy, and in particular to the lavish subsidies being given to wind and solar energy combined.

Both the House and Senate bills aim to slash the subsidies being given to wind and solar.

While the final details of the tax overhaul must be hammered out in conference committee, both the House and Senate bills aim to slash the subsidies being given to wind and solar. Those tax giveaways are distorting wholesale electricity markets and costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

In January, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that federal subsidies for wind energy will cost the federal treasury $23.7 billion between 2016 and 2020. Solar subsidies will cost $12.3 billion over that same time period.

Not only is that a lot of money, it’s also far more generous, on an energy-equivalent basis, than what the federal government provides to the hydrocarbon and nuclear sectors. In May, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service issued a report on energy-related tax rules. It found that in 2016, solar and wind energy got more federal taxpayer cash ($6 billion) than the oil, coal and natural-gas sectors combined ($5.2 billion). Solar and wind got more cash despite the fact that coal, oil and gas produced 24 times as much energy last year as wind and solar.

The story is even more appalling when it comes to nuclear energy. Again, according to the Congressional Research Service, on an energy-equivalent basis, solar energy got 182 times as much in federal subsidies last year as the nuclear sector — and wind energy got 68 times more.

Those are staggering figures, particularly given the fact that the domestic nuclear sector — which helps reduce carbon-dioxide emissions — is in a full-blown crisis, with numerous reactors being forced to shut down in recent years and with many more, including the Indian Point reactors in Westchester County, likely to be prematurely shuttered.

The caterwauling from the rent seekers can be heard from Montauk to Jerry Brown’s kitchen in Sacramento.

A spokesman for the American Wind Energy Association told The New York Times that “even the threat of this bill is having a chilling effect” on new wind installations. The lobby group for Big Wind claims that “50,000 US jobs” are at stake.

But recall that wind subsidies will cost the federal treasury $23.7 billion between 2016 and 2020. Thus, each wind-related job costs taxpayers about $474,000. That’s an expensive gig, especially when you consider that the median household income in the United States last year was about $57,600.

Another good thing about the looming tax changes: The House version of the bill scraps the federal credit for electric vehicles. Current federal policy provides a subsidy of up to $7,500 to EV buyers. Who buys those cars? Rich people. A 2013 analysis found that Tesla buyers have an average household income of $293,000.

For years, renewable-energy advocates have been telling us that wind and solar are getting cheaper. We’re hearing the same about electric vehicles. But as those industries see their gravy train derailed, we’ll soon find out just how competitive they really are.

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Congress still needed to bolster Trump effort to end Obama’s war on coal

“Congress has abandoned much of its responsibility to legislate and has instead given unelected regulators extraordinary power to control the lives of others.”

That was President Donald Trump on Dec. 14 letting the American people know specifically why his administration has had to spend much of its first year in office taking apart the administrative state in Washington, D.C., where it is bureaucrats who make law, not Congress. “This excessive regulation does not just threaten our economy, it threatens our entire constitutional system,” Trump added. He’s right.

And so far, in 2017, the Trump administration has made more than good on its promise to begin rolling back onerous regulations.

For example, on October 10, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its filing of a proposed rulemaking to rescind the Clean Power Plan (CPP), including the existing power plant regulations that were implemented during the Obama administration. Specifically, the EPA stated, “After reviewing the CPP, EPA has proposed to determine that the Obama-era regulation exceeds the Agency’s statutory authority.” The rulemaking appeared in the Federal Register on October 16.

So far, in February 2016 the Supreme Court has granted a stay on the execution of the Clean Power Plan pending hearing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia of State of West Virginia, et al. v. EPA. The case remains up in the air, but an adverse outcome could undermine the key underpinning of the agency’s regulatory action. Americans for Limited Government supports this litigation and the EPA’s action and believes that the carbon endangerment finding and the Clean Power Plan both exceeded the statutory limits of the Clean Air Act.  The greatest danger to the agency proposal, however, remains legal challenges that will ultimately test this contention.

To bolster these regulatory and legal efforts, the EPA and President Donald Trump should support additional legislation by Congress to either defund or amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit implementation of the Clean Power Plan. Appropriate vehicles for such a rider would be the upcoming omnibus spending bill, the debt ceiling, the 2019 budget or the September continuing resolution. With narrow majorities in the House and Senate by Republicans, 2018 might be the last chance for legislative action on this front.

Permanent prohibition and rescission of the Clean Power Plan — and any similar rulemaking that would seek to restrict carbon emissions — will give the electric industry the certainty it needs to build new coal-powered plants and to reopen recent closures. It will guarantee that when the EPA completes its action, it is not overturned. This in turn will help bolster capacity on the U.S. electric grid so that when the U.S. economy starts booming under the Trump administration, we have enough power to sustain it.

Regulations are forever?

The crux of the problem for the EPA or any other agency that wishes to end a regulation is that in 1983, the Supreme Court unanimously decided in Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association v. State Farm Mutual an agency must supply a reasoned analysis. Thus, it is more difficult to eliminate an existing regulation than it is to change it.

Thus, every regulatory rescission is subject to judicial review to determine not only whether it was rational based on the statutory scheme, but to prove that the original regulation exceeded the statute.

Even when there is no basis in law, as in Massachusetts v. EPA, in 2007 the Supreme Court ruled carbon dioxide could be regulated under the terms of the Clean Air Act.

When the challenges come, as surely they will, the assumption courts will make is that the Clean Power Plan was properly enacted and based on the statutory scheme, leaving it to the Trump administration to prove otherwise. That could be a losing battle. But it need not be.

The Trump administration might be better served if Congress were to act to prohibit the use of funds to implement the Clean Power Plan and the carbon endangerment finding as well. Then when the regulatory rescissions come, the EPA could simply say it lacks funds to enforce the regulations.

Executive action alone is no silver bullet. Much depends presently on whether Justice Anthony Kennedy wishes to affirm his ruling Massachusetts v. EPA — which led directly to the carbon endangerment finding by the EPA in 2009 — by upholding the Clean Power Plan.

President Trump and Congress need to be smarter this time — and defund regulations via Congressional action. Then there will be no question that the Clean Power Plan exceeds statutory authority.

Permanently ending the Clean Power Plan will bolster the U.S. electric grid

If electricity consumption is supposed to be a reliable proxy for economic growth, the only conclusion one can come to is that the U.S. economy has not grown in any meaningful sense since 2007. That year, the U.S. consumed about 3.89 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity. It dipped to a low of 3.72 trillion kilowatt hours in 2009 after the financial crisis and now stands at 3.85 trillion kilowatt hours in 2016, according to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The U.S. is using no more electricity now than in 2007, even though the working age population has expanded by more than 16 million during that time.

After 2000 and China’s introduction to World Trade Organization, permanent normal trade relations, offshoring and Kyoto, and then the financial crisis and Obama administration’s war on coal, U.S. industrial use of the grid was flat and then dropping. 2016 actually marked a 25-year low, with industrial usage collapsing, from 1.03 trillion kWh in 2007 to 936 billion kWh in 2016, a drop of 91 billion kWh. Residential and commercial use of the grid kept rising.

Overall, had industrial, residential and commercial electrical use continued growing at the same rate as in the 1990s, national usage as measured as the percent of summer capacity megawatts used at peak demand would be nearing 100 percent of grid production now, according to an Americans for Limited Government study of data from the North American Electric Reliability Council and the Energy Information Agency. Today it stands at about 75 percent.

Grid capacity has been further harmed by former President Barack Obama’s war on coal. Coal as a percentage of net electricity generation has declined from 49 percent in 2007 to 30 percent in 2016, behind natural gas at 34 percent, according to the Energy Information Agency (EIA). Although nuclear and coal are by far the most efficient sources of electricity, they are making up a smaller part of the pie.



The fact the grid has not been maxed out is a testament to the offshoring of industrial capacity and the lack of robust economic growth since 2005. While undoubtedly the electric industry would move to meet additional demand as it has in the past, without new access to coal and nuclear power, that could become more difficult. It should not be left to chance.

That is why to help bolster capacity on the U.S. electric grid so that it is prepared when the U.S. economy starts booming under the Trump administration, the Clean Power Plan must be permanently repealed by Congress.

Had the economy been growing robustly during the Obama administration, grid capacity would have been tested.

To the extent that Republicans might not be in possession of Congressional majorities after 2018, and that otherwise the EPA’s action depends on uncertain affirmation by the Supreme Court and specifically Justice Anthony Kennedy, now is the time to pursue a legislative option while it remains open. There may not be a better chance to do this.

The Congress has numerous vehicles at its disposal to attempt to put a rider on legislation: the upcoming omnibus spending bill, the debt ceiling, the 2019 budget or the September continuing resolution. The risk is not by attempting to use a legislative vehicle, it is in waiting to see what happens without one.

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Trump Admin To Remove Climate Change From List Of National Security Threats

The Trump administration will reverse course from previous Obama administration policy, eliminating climate change from a list of national security threats. The National Security Strategy to be released on Monday will emphasize the importance of balancing energy security with economic development and environmental protection, according to a source who has seen the document and shared excerpts of a late draft.

“Climate policies will continue to shape the global energy system,” a draft of the National Security Strategy slated to be released on Monday said. “U.S. leadership is indispensable to countering an anti-growth, energy agenda that is detrimental to U.S. economic and energy security interests. Given future global energy demand, much of the developing world will require fossil fuels, as well as other forms of energy, to power their economies and lift their people out of poverty.”

This matches President Trump’s vision, sometimes shared using his trademark hyperbole, that the United States needs to emphasize national security and economic growth over climate change.

During his successful campaign, Trump mocked Obama’s placement of climate change in the context of national security. Here’s a sample of his approach from a campaign speech in Hilton Head, South Carolina, in late 2015:


"So Obama’s always talking about the global warming, that global warming is our biggest and most dangerous problem, OK? No, no, think of it. I mean, even if you’re a believer in global warming, ISIS is a big problem, Russia’s a problem, China’s a problem. We’ve got a lot of problems. By the way, the maniac in North Korea is a problem. He actually has nuclear weapons, right? That’s a problem.

We’ve got a lot of problems. We’ve got a lot of problems. That’s right, we don’t win anymore. He said we want to win. We don’t win anymore. We’re going to win a lot — if I get elected, we’re going to win a lot.

(Applause)

We’re going to win so much — we’re going to win a lot. We’re going to win a lot. We’re going to win so much you’re all going to get sick and tired of winning. You’re going to say oh no, not again. I’m only kidding. You never get tired of winning, right? Never.

(Applause)

But think of it. So Obama’s talking about all of this with the global warming and the — a lot of it’s a hoax, it’s a hoax. I mean, it’s a money-making industry, OK? It’s a hoax, a lot of it. And look, I want clean air and I want clean water. That’s my global — I want clean, clean crystal water and I want clean air. And we can do that, but we don’t have to destroy our businesses, we don’t have to destroy our —

And by the way, China isn’t abiding by anything. They’re buying all of our coal; we can’t use coal anymore essentially. They’re buying our coal and they’re using it. Now when you talk about the planet, it’s so big out there — we’re here, they’re there, it’s like they’re our next door neighbor, right, in terms of the universe."


The draft of the National Security Strategy makes this approach policy, emphasizing national security and economic growth over climate change.

President Obama made climate change, and the burdensome regulations that accompany its focus, a primary focus of his administration, including in his National Security Strategy released in 2015. “[W]e are working toward an ambitious new global climate change agreement to shape standards for prevention, preparedness, and response over the next decade,” that report said.

“In some ways, [climate change] is akin to the problem of terrorism and ISIL,” Obama said at climate talks in Paris in 2015. During a weekly address, Obama said “Today, there is no greater threat to our planet than climate change.”

In September 2016, President Obama released a memorandum requiring federal agencies to consider the effects of climate change in the development of national security-related doctrine, policies, and plans. All of this alarmed critics concerned with more pressing security risks.

By contrast, President Trump’s National Security Strategy will focus on conventional and immediate national security risks. The draft says, in part:

"North Korea seeks the capability to kill millions of Americans with nuclear weapons. Iran supports terrorist groups and openly calls for our destruction. Jihadist terrorist organizations such as ISIS and al Qaeda are determined to attack the United States and radicalize Americans with their hateful ideology. States and non-state actors undermine social order with drug and human trafficking networks, which drive violent crimes and cause thousands of American deaths each year…. Strengthening control over our borders and immigration system is central to national security, economic prosperity, and the rule of law. Terrorists, drug traffickers, and criminal cartels exploit porous borders and threaten U.S. security and public safety. These actors adapt quickly to outpace our defenses."

As for climate change, the draft report says “The United States will remain a global leader in reducing traditional pollution, as well as greenhouse gases, while growing its economy. This achievement, which can serve as model to other countries, flows from innovation, technology breakthroughs, and energy efficiency gains –not from onerous regulation.”

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Slimy attack on Polar bear truth-teller   

At this time of year, we’re accustomed to seeing polar bears as a holiday mascot for a certain soft drink. But you can rest assured that thousands of real live polar bears are anything but cute and cuddly as they hunt down and devour Arctic seals and assorted other prey.

Sadly, there’s one unnamed polar bear that most likely didn’t live to enjoy this time of plenty. In late August, the photography team of Paul Nicklen and Christina Mittermeier happened upon an emaciated member of the species that was down to its last brief bursts of energy, desperately rummaging through garbage heaps in a vain search for nourishment. “This is what a starving polar bear looks like,” wrote Mittermeier. “Weak muscles, atrophied by extended starvation could barely hold him up.”

Laying it on even thicker, Nicklen added, “We stood there crying — filming with tears rolling down our cheeks.” They added that there was nothing they could do to help, because feeding wild animals is illegal and “it’s not like we travel around with 200-300 pounds of seal meat.” And while they conceded that they couldn’t completely pin down the cause of the bear’s imminent demise, they presumed global warming was the culprit. “This is the face of climate change,” Mittermeier asserted. Paul Amstrup of Polar Bears International added, “Despite uncertainties about how this bear got into this starving condition, we can be absolutely certain if we allow the world to continue to warm, there will be ever greater numbers of such events as survival rates decline over more and more of the polar bear range.”

But not so fast, say the skeptics. First off, they counter, it’s not unusual to see starving polar bears in late August as that’s near the end of their dormant period. “That bear is starving, but it’s not starving because the ice suddenly disappeared and it could no longer hunt seals,” wrote Arctic wildlife biologist Jeff Higdon. Population-wise, polar bears are certainly not in immediate danger of extinction. In fact, some regions of the polar north have a significant polar bear presence.

Research — based on years’ worth of observations — tells us that, if anything, Arctic sea ice arrived on time, or even a bit early this winter — so healthy bears were easily able to swim out to their hunting grounds and floes of ice. Polar bear scientist Susan Crockford made the case that things were just fine. For her trouble, Crockford had her reputation sullied in the worst way. Terence Corcoran recounts:

As a starting point, we look to a story published December 1st on Vice News’s tech site. Motherboard, that included an interview with U.S. polar bear scientist/activist Stephen Amstrup. In the article, Amstrup accuses Canadian polar bear scientist Susan Crockford of filling her bear research with extreme allegations. Climate activists have targeted Crockford, a zoologist and adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Victoria, because her research inconveniently finds that, despite their claims, polar bears are not at risk. ‘You don’t have to read far in her material to see that it is full of unsubstantiated statements and personal attacks on scientists, using names like eco-terrorists, fraudsters, green terrorists and scammers,’ Amstrup claimed.

A few days later, Motherboard published a slithery retraction. After Crockford complained that Amstrup’s comments about her were “a lie” and that she has never used such terms, Amstrup “clarified” his comments. He said that when he accused Crockford of calling scientists fraudsters, he really meant to accuse “climate deniers as a whole, rather than Crockford in particular.”

Life is often made more difficult for those who don’t worship at the altar of climate change, and Crockford’s sin is that of being an oft-cited skeptic to the “polar bears are going extinct” narrative. Polar bears do indeed make for cute and cuddly symbols of the far north, and for now they aren’t going anywhere fast — despite what some with an agenda would lead us to believe.

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