Attribution Vs. Chaos

Posted on October 18, 2022 by climatechangefork

My previous blog cited a long 2016 report by the National Academy that outlines two classes of mechanisms used for climate events to assess the likelihood of attributions to climate change:

Event attribution approaches can be generally divided into two classes: (1) those that rely on the observational record to determine the change in probability or magnitude of events, and (2) those that use model simulations to compare the manifestation of an event in a world with human-caused climate change to that in a world without. Most studies use both observations and models to some extent—for example, modeling studies will use observations to evaluate whether models reproduce the event of interest and whether the mechanisms involved correspond to observed mechanisms, and observational studies may rely on models for attribution of the observed changes.

Below that paragraph, I showed a table from the same report that illustrated the state of understanding of various extreme consequences of climate change. These were grouped into three relevant categories:

  1. Ability to model the climate event.
  2. Quality and length of observational record of the event
  3. Understanding the mechanisms that lead to the event.

In all three categories, the only events for which the paper claimed to have a high degree of understanding were extremely high and low temperatures. Amid the fires, droughts, extreme storms, etc., the report’s table doesn’t even mention floods as a distinctive category.

Plenty of work remains for us to quantify the understanding of climate change’s impact on these extreme weather phenomena. In future blogs, I will try to describe in more detail some of the difficulties involved in quantifying such attribution.

This blog is focused on two relevant aspects: Attribution to anthropogenic (human-caused) to global extreme climate events and a distinction between chaotic systems, on which physics teaches us that initial conditions for such events cannot be determined, and anthropogenic attributions to such events.

I have repeatedly discussed anthropogenic attributions to global extreme climate events in previous blogs. The two that are most relevant are the following:

“Doomsday: Attributions,” from October 3, 2017, deals with the modeling of human influence on the global temperature from the beginning of the 20th century and the decline of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 in the atmosphere over that time—an indicator that burning fossil fuels is culpable of that change.

“The Little Ice Age,” from April 16, 2019, shows the reconstructed global temperature change from the beginning of the common era to the present day. This reconstruction shows a “hockey stick” shape: behavior with sharp temperature rises from the mid-20th century.

These data are such important evidence that they have convinced more than 90% of the world’s scientists about the post-Industrial Revolution climate change’s major human attribution. They also satisfy the two classes of observation outlined by the National Academy in last week’s blog. Figure 1 is repeated from the October 3, 2017, blog, showing the NASA simulation of the global temperature from the beginning of the 20th century.

Figure 1 – Attribution of global warming – simulation of 20th century global mean temperatures (with and without human influences) compared to observations
(Source: NASA via Wikipedia)

Chaos

The Oxford Language Dictionary defines chaos in the following way:

PHYSICS

  • behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions.
  • the formless matter supposed to have existed before the creation of the universe.

I will focus here on the first definition (I covered the second definition in my July 26, 2022 blog, “Creation”).

When you Google climate change attributions and chaos, you will get many links to climate change deniers who claim that since—per definition—chaotic systems are very sensitive to initial conditions, we cannot attribute the majority of climate change to humans and that climate change cannot be predicted and thus cannot be attributed. Skeptical Science is a famous blog that addresses and rebuts such issues; I have mentioned it several times, including in one of my earliest blogs (July 13, 2013). I am quoting the relevant Skeptical Science post on this issue below.

The argument: Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted

‘Lorenz (1963), in the landmark paper that founded chaos theory, said that because the climate is a mathematically-chaotic object (a point which the UN’s climate panel admits), accurate long-term prediction of the future evolution of the climate is not possible “by any method”. At present, climate forecasts even as little as six weeks ahead can be diametrically the opposite of what actually occurs, even if the forecasts are limited to a small region of the planet.’ (Christopher Monckton)

Response (with repeating Monckton’s argument):    “One of the defining traits of a chaotic system is ‘sensitive dependence to initial conditions’. This means that even very small changes in the state of the system can quickly and radically change the way that the system develops over time. Edward Lorenz’s landmark 1963 paper demonstrated this behavior in a simulation of fluid turbulence, and ended hopes for long-term weather forecasting.”

However, climate is not weather, and modeling is not forecasting.

Although it is generally not possible to predict a specific future state of a chaotic system (there is no telling what temperature it will be in Oregon on December 21 2012), it is still possible to make statistical claims about the behavior of the system as a whole (it is very likely that Oregon’s December 2012 temperatures will be colder than its July 2012 temperatures). There are chaotic components to the climate system, such as El Nino and fluid turbulence, but they all have much less long-term influence than the greenhouse effect.  It’s a little like an airplane flying through stormy weather: It may be buffeted around from moment to moment, but it can still move from one airport to another.

Nor do climate models generally produce weather forecasts. Models often run a simulation multiple times with different starting conditions, and the ensemble of results are examined for common properties (one example: Easterling & Wehner 2009). This is, incidentally, a technique used by mathematicians to study the Lorenz functions.

The chaotic nature of turbulence is no real obstacle to climate modeling, and it does not negate the existence or attribution of climate change.

Wikipedia’s entry summarizes the essentials of chaos theory:

Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary scientific theory and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws, of dynamical systems, that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, that were once thought to have completely random states of disorder and irregularities.[1] Chaos theory states that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnection, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization.[2] The butterfly effect, an underlying principle of chaos, describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state (meaning that there is sensitive dependence on initial conditions).[3] A metaphor for this behavior is that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas.

The simplest way to get a feeling for or understanding of chaos theory is to play with the logistic map:

The logistic map is a polynomial mapping (equivalently, recurrence relation) of degree 2, often cited as an archetypal example of how complex, chaotic behavior can arise from very simple non-linear dynamical equations. The map was popularized in a 1976 paper by the biologist Robert May,[1] in part as a discrete-time demographic model analogous to the logistic equation written down by Pierre François Verhulst.[2] Mathematically, the logistic map is written

where xn is a number between zero and one, that represents the ratio of existing population to the maximum possible population. This nonlinear difference equation is intended to capture two effects:

  • reproduction where the population will increase at a rate proportional to the current population when the population size is small.
  • starvation (density-dependent mortality) where the growth rate will decrease at a rate proportional to the value obtained by taking the theoretical “carrying capacity” of the environment less the current population.

The usual values of interest for the parameter are those in the interval [0, 4], so that xn remains bounded on [0, 1]. The r = 4 case of the logistic map is a nonlinear transformation of both the bit-shift map and the μ = 2 case of the tent map. If r > 4 this leads to negative population sizes. (This problem does not appear in the older Ricker model, which also exhibits chaotic dynamics.) One can also consider values of r in the interval [−2, 0], so that xn remains bounded on [−0.5, 1.5].[3]

By varying the parameter r, the following behavior is observed:

Evolution of different initial conditions as a function of r

  • With r between 0 and 1, the population will eventually die, independent of the initial population.

  • With r between 1 and 2, the population will quickly approach the value r − 1/r, independent of the initial population.

  • With r between 2 and 3, the population will also eventually approach the same value r − 1/r, but first will fluctuate around that value for some time. The rate of convergence is linear, except for r = 3, when it is dramatically slow, less than linear (see Bifurcation memory).

  • With r between 3 and 1 + √6≈ 3.44949 the population will approach permanent oscillations between two values. These two values are dependent on r and given by[3]

  • With r between 3.44949 and 3.54409 (approximately), from almost all initial conditions the population will approach permanent oscillations among four values. The latter number is a root of a 12th degree polynomial (sequence A086181 in the OEIS).

  • With r increasing beyond 3.54409, from almost all initial conditions the population will approach oscillations among 8 values, then 16, 32, etc. The lengths of the parameter intervals that yield oscillations of a given length decrease rapidly; the ratio between the lengths of two successive bifurcation intervals approaches the Feigenbaum constant δ ≈ 4.66920. This behavior is an example of a period-doubling cascade.

  • At r ≈ 3.56995 (sequence A098587 in the OEIS) is the onset of chaos, at the end of the period-doubling cascade. From almost all initial conditions, we no longer see oscillations of finite period. Slight variations in the initial population yield dramatically different results over time, a prime characteristic of chaos.

The result of all of this is shown in Figure 2:

Figure 2 – Logistic map of Equation 1, regarding global population (Source: Hyperchaos)

The easiest way to construct Figure 2 from Equation 1 is to put the values of the three parameters of Equation 1 into Excel and to take about 30 recurring values of x.

Figure 2 starts with a deterministic pattern and continues, independent of the initial conditions until the rate (r in Equation 1 or a in Figure 2) reaches the value of 3. As the value of the rate surpasses 3, it starts to bifurcate—first between two very different values, then between other values—into patterns that look completely random. In practice, this means that major population changes can follow the smallest changes in the initial conditions. If we are in that chaotic regime, we cannot trace our way back to where we started the process.

The organization Project Nile published a great piece about chaos theory.

When we have an extreme weather event such as a fire or flood, we often look for a source that we can blame. This might satisfy our instincts but it will not be useful. On the other hand, if we can compare the statistics in terms of frequency and intensity to a missing driving force (like human action), as we are trying to do with attribution research, we can begin mitigation efforts and work to lessen the rate of such events.

This conclusion agrees with the Skeptical Science conclusion: “attribution is not a determination of initial conditions.”

Posted in Anthropocene, Anthropogenic, Climate Change, Extreme Weather, Sustainability | 5 Comments

Attribution: Noah’s Ark

Posted on October 11, 2022 by climatechangefork

During the active academic year, my main focus for this blog is to provide help to my students in their research assignments. I try to address the blog’s main focus—global transitions (with an emphasis on climate change)—while also staying relevant to the different courses and and being helpful to the general public. Over the previous few weeks, I’ve focused on students who research “Campus as a Lab” as a learning tool. Today, I am starting to address the needs of more advanced students—specifically, trying to quantify attributions of global transitions to local events with a focus on climate change.

Catastrophic floods are now hitting all over the world (for a comprehensive list from recent months, see Al Jazeera.). The devastating flooding in Pakistan probably attracted the most global attention, but by their nature, floods are local events that attract the most attention from the citizens of the affected country. In the US, most Americans are focusing on hurricane Ian’s impact and the devastating floods it wreaked in Florida. However, given that the US has less than a month before important elections, it’s no surprise that some of the responses to extreme weather are being politicized (“Florida’s GOP Leaders Opposed Climate Aid. Now They’re Depending on It.“)

For over a generation, climate change, with all its aspects, has been a politically divisive issue in the US. I have covered the topic extensively throughout this blog’s more than 10-year run. Democrats have argued that most of the global warming, as measured following the start of the Industrial Revolution, originates from human activities—primarily, the shift to fossil fuels as our main source of energy. Meanwhile, Republicans have largely admitted that the warming is taking place but claimed that there is considerable uncertainty about its causes, concluding that we should not take major steps to change our energy sources until we are more certain of the causation. A significant fraction of people who hold this opinion attribute the warming to “natural” causes and ascribe extreme consequences (e.g. extreme weather) to “biblical” causes. In other words, the phenomena are perpetrated independently of humans and we should just learn to live with them.

Figure 1 – Noah’s Ark (Source: Library of Congress via Rawpixel)

Figure 1 shows the most famous biblical flood and Noah’s individual attempt to adapt by building an ark and inviting pairs of animals to share with him its safety (I mentioned Noah’s Ark before, in a different context– February 4, 2020). The attribution, in this case, is clear: God made the flood as punishment for bad human behavior. The proposed mitigation for human sin is also clear: wipe out all badly-behaving humans but save one well-behaved family with the hope that they will multiply and create an improved human population. What’s less clear is how the animals that were fated to survive were chosen.

Wikipedia provides a short summary of Noah’s ark.

Noah’s Ark (Hebrew: תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: Tevat Noaḥ)[Notes 1] is the vessel in the Genesis flood narrative (Genesis chapters 6–9) through which God spares Noah, his family, and examples of all the world’s animals from a world-engulfing flood.[1] The story in Genesis is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the Ark appears as Safinat Nūḥ (Arabic: سفينة نوح “Noah’s ship”) and al-fulk (Arabic: الفُلْك).

Searches for Noah’s Ark have been made from at least the time of Eusebius (c. 275–339 CE), and believers in the Ark continue to search for it in modern times, but no confirmable physical proof of the Ark has ever been found.[2] No scientific evidence has been found that Noah’s Ark existed as it is described in the Bible.[3] More significantly, there is also no evidence of a global flood, and most scientists agree that such a ship and natural disaster would both be impossible.[4] Some researchers believe that a real (though localized) flood event in the Middle East could potentially have inspired the oral and later written narratives; a Persian Gulf flood, or a Black Sea Deluge 7,500 years ago has been proposed as such a historical candidate.[5][6]

Wikipedia also features more recent lists of deadly historic floods and fires, many of which are now considered to be largely attributable to climate change.

Wikipedia also provides some help describing event attributions to climate change:

Extreme event attribution, also known as attribution science, is a relatively new field of study in meteorology and climate science that tries to measure how ongoing climate change directly affects recent extreme weather events.[1][2][3][4] Attribution science aims to determine which such recent events can be explained by or linked to a warming atmosphere and are not simply due to natural variations.[5]

Attribution studies generally proceed in four steps: (1) measuring the magnitude and frequency of a given event based on observed data, (2) running computer models to compare with and verify observation data, (3) running the same models on a baseline “Earth” with no climate change, and (4) using statistics to analyze the differences between the second and third steps, thereby measuring the direct effect of climate change on the studied event.[5][6]

Heatwaves are the easiest weather events to attribute.[5]

Zubin Zeng wrote a related article last summer for the news site The Conversation:  “Is climate change to blame for extreme weather events? Attribution science says yes, for some – here’s how it works.” (Retrieved 3 September 2021).

Meanwhile, the National Academy of Science created a lengthy report with a much more comprehensive description (2016). I am including some highlights below:

Definition:

Attribution: The process of evaluating the relative contributions of multiple causal factors to a change or an event with an assignment of statistical confidence (Hegerl et al., 2010).

From the Summary (I added the emphases):

The observed frequency, intensity, and duration of some extreme weather events have been changing as the climate system has warmed. Such changes in extreme weather events also have been simulated in climate models, and some of the reasons for them are well understood. For example, warming is expected to increase the likelihood of extremely hot days and nights (Figure S.1). Warming also is expected to lead to more evaporation that may exacerbate droughts and increased atmospheric moisture that can increase the frequency of heavy rainfall and snowfall events. The extent to which climate change influences an individual weather or climate event is more difficult to determine. It involves consideration of a host of possible natural and anthropogenic factors (e.g., large-scale circulation, internal modes of climate variability, anthropogenic climate change, aerosol effects) that combine to produce the specific conditions of an event. Extreme events are rare, meaning that typically there are only a few examples of past events at any given location.

Event attribution approaches can be generally divided into two classes: (1) those that rely on the observational record to determine the change in probability or magnitude of events, and (2) those that use model simulations to compare the manifestation of an event in a world with human-caused climate change to that in a world without. Most studies use both observations and models to some extent—for example, modeling studies will use observations to evaluate whether models reproduce the event of interest and whether the mechanisms involved correspond to observed mechanisms, and observational studies may rely on models for attribution of the observed changes.

TABLE 5.1 This table… provides an overall assessment of the state of event attribution science for different event types. In each category of extreme event, the committee has provided an estimate of confidence (high, medium, and low) in the capabilities of climate models to simulate an event class, the quality and length of the observational record from a climate perspective, and an understanding of the physical mechanisms that lead to changes in extremes as a result of climate change. The entries in the table are based on the available literature and are the product of committee deliberation and judgment.

Next week’s blog will continue to discuss attributions, looking at specific cases. I will start by discussing the evidence for attributing anthropogenic (human) contributions to the global impact of climate change. I will further explore the methodology proposed by the National Academy, as discussed in this blog.

Posted in Climate Change | 5 Comments

Campus as a Lab Part 5: Learning from Global Efforts

Posted on October 4, 2022 by climatechangefork

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, NY Governor Kathy Hochul issued Executive Order 22 regarding environmental stewardship; it reflected the thinking that the state government should form an example of such stewardship for the rest of society. The title of this order made this point clear: “Leading By Example: Directing State Agencies to Adopt a Sustainability and Decarbonization Program.”

One of the reasons that I wrote that blog was to respond to an often-asked question that I am working to address in various forms: how to use the various global crises that we are currently facing to enrich the education of our students. This is the central premise of the “Campus as a Lab” concept that I have tried to cover in recent blogs and actively pursue in my own school. However, with our communication abilities, an elected official’s ability to use executive power to provide desired examples for others to follow should not be the only source of inspiration. Today’s blog gives some examples of focus areas of the “College as a Lab” that I mentioned in the last blog; these all relate to the global arena and most change is coming not through top-down commands, but rather via bottom-up movements, by necessity.

diagram of top-down vs. bottom-up movements

Decarbonization through reduction of energy intensity

Over the 10 years that I have been running this blog, I have repeatedly talked about the concept of working toward the decarbonization of the energy supply—primarily through reducing the amount of energy needed to run the same economic activity (see my June 28, 2022 blog, “Fighting Energy Use Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up”). Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, the need to reduce energy intensity as a counterweight to the Russian aggression has become a necessity, independent of the longer-term need for decarbonization. A good example of this comes from Germany, Europe’s largest economy:

AUGSBURG, Germany — Wolfgang Hübschle went into city government expecting a simple life, planning things like traditional festivals replete with lederhosen.

Instead, these days he has the unpopular task of calculating which traffic lights to shut off, how to lower temperatures in offices and swimming pools — and perhaps, if it comes to it, pulling the plug on Bavarians’ beloved but energy-intensive breweries.

Municipal officials like Mr. Hübschle, the economic adviser to the provincial Bavarian city of Augsburg, sit on the front line of a geopolitical struggle with Russia since European Union leaders agreed this week to try to reduce natural gas consumption by 15 percent, fearing that President Vladimir V. Putin could cut exports in retaliation for Europe’s support for Ukraine.

Since energy prices are a global issue, an effort has been made to reduce them by increasing domestic energy supplies to replace that which usually comes from Russia. This has, among other things, forced the US to withdraw historic quantities of oil reserves from its emergency supply. Many of these consequences could be reduced by increasing the efficiency of our energy use:

Even as Oil Prices Ease, U.S. Keeps Tapping Strategic Reserve

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden has overseen the largest sale of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ever, to ease prices at the gasoline pump.

Having released 160 million barrels of crude since March, more than a quarter of the stockpile, the Energy Department has reduced the reserve to its lowest level in four decades. Some oil experts say continuing the withdrawals could test the nation’s energy security.

But even though oil prices have fallen sharply from their peak, the administration is not ready to start refilling the reserve. Instead, rather than ending the releases in October as planned, it has decided to extend them, at a lower rate, for at least another month.

“It’s a risky policy,” said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, a consulting firm in Washington. “This policy can only last until the stockpiles are exhausted, and replenishing the stockpiles would take years.”

Reduced use of plastic through encouraging the use of sustainable alternatives

India, the largest developing country, is an excellent example of bottom-up efforts to reduce plastic use:

As India Bans Disposable Plastic, Tamil Nadu Offers Lessons

CHENNAI, India — Amul Vasudevan, a vegetable hawker in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, thought she was going to go out of business.

The state had forbidden retailers to use disposable plastic bags, which were critical for her livelihood because they were so cheap. She could not afford to switch to selling her wares in reusable cloth bags.

Tamil Nadu was not the first state in India to try to curtail plastic pollution, but unlike others it was relentless in enforcing its law. Ms. Vasudevan was fined repeatedly for using throwaway bags.

Now, three years after the ban took effect, Ms. Vasudevan’s use of plastic bags has decreased by more than two-thirds; most of her customers bring cloth bags. Many streets in this state of more than 80 million people are largely free of plastic waste.

Testing sewage for early detection of viral threats:

I am giving two examples of this focus activity, as it relates to the expansion of COVID-19 testing and the detection of other re-emerging pandemics.

  1. Wastewater Disease Tracking: A Photographic Journey From the Sewer to the Lab

The Covid-19 pandemic has turned sewage into gold.

People who are infected with the coronavirus shed the pathogen in their stool. By measuring and sequencing the viral material present in sewage, scientists can determine whether cases are rising in a particular area and which variants are circulating.

People excrete the virus even if they never seek testing or treatment. So wastewater surveillance has become a critical tool for keeping tabs on the virus, especially as Covid-19 testing has increasingly shifted to the home.

The institutions and localities that invested in wastewater surveillance over the last two years are discovering that it can be used to track other health threats, too. The Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network has already begun tracking the monkeypox virus in wastewater. And last week, New York City officials announced that polio had been detected in the city’s sewage.

  1. Governor Hochul Declares Polio State of Emergency for New York

In August, New York City officials said they had identified polio in the city’s wastewater. On Friday, state health officials announced that they had identified polio in 57 samples collected from wastewater in several downstate counties between May and August. The majority of the samples were collected in Rockland County, and 50 of them were genetically linked to the case of the Rockland resident.

Thirteen of the wastewater samples were collected in Orange County, six were collected in Sullivan County and one was collected in Nassau County.

Next week I will shift back to my local environment, as we continue to follow our efforts to implement “Campus as a Lab” at my school.

Posted in Climate Change, Economics, Electricity, Energy, Russia/Ukraine, Sustainability | 3 Comments

Campus as a Lab Part 4: In Defense of Failures; Happy New Year!

Posted on September 27, 2022 by climatechangefork

 

 

 

 

Source: iStock Photo

I know that the title makes for a strange combination! This blog is being posted on the second day of the Jewish New Year. Similar to other New Year postings (see the September 22, 2020 one for Rosh Hashana or the December 31, 2019, posting for the Common Era New Year, that took place days before COVID-19 was escalated from epidemic to global pandemic) I am wishing everybody a better future in the coming year. Why, then, do I combine these wishes with ones for failures and with Campus as a Lab?

Given the current world situation, it is not enough to wish for a better future; to achieve it we have to work hard together. Working hard doesn’t help, though, when we don’t know exactly what to do to confront the threats that surround us—so we have to experiment. University campuses have to lead in the experimentations, with the knowledge that in doing so we will inevitably encounter many failures. As we know from science, those failures are necessary so that we can eventually learn what leads to success.

Last week’s blog started with a figure of the “Magic Triangle” of Curriculum, Research, and Campus Operation (Administration) interacting with the two overlapping spheres of Institutional Sustainability and Living Laboratories. Underneath these spheres, the figure contains suggested specific focus areas such as:

Stormwater projects

Native Landscapes

Energy efficiency

To which I added:

Mandated decarbonization

Mandated decrease in the use of single-use plastics

Testing of sewage for early detection of viral threats

Running schools with decreased enrollments

You may already have thought of more areas to add to this list (feel free to post them in the comments). Clearly, these focus areas include sustainability and well-being, with substantial overlap between them.

All of these areas require the participation of both top-down and bottom-up efforts—in other words: we all need to work together. Whenever I talk or write about how to address this issue in the context of my classroom or the administration’s participation in my school’s activities, I am asked to provide examples. Well, during the last meeting regarding my school’s attempt to address single-use plastic, the CUNY administrator in charge of the process shared how the State of New York has recently begun to address this issue. The governor issued a sustainability and decarbonization executive order on September 20, 2022 that calls on state agencies to lead by example:

WHEREAS, State government can and should continue to lead in environmental stewardship through the use of green procurement and sustainable management practices; and

The order lists 75 affected entities in New York State, including CUNY and SUNY, the two New York public universities. The order is only aimed at state facilities and is meant to serve as an example for others (private sectors, federal facilities within the state, and local facilities).  I am including selected excerpts below but I strongly recommend that you read the full order:

II. Green NY Council

There is hereby established the GreenNY Council (the “Council”). The Council shall be comprised of the Director of the Division of the Budget (“DOB”); the Commissioner of the Office of General Services; the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”); the Commissioner of the Department of Health; the Commissioner of Economic Development; the Commissioner of Transportation; the Commissioner of the Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation; the President of the Environmental Facilities Corporation; the President of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (“NYSERDA”); the President of the New York Power Authority (“NYPA”); the President of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York; and the Chief Executive Officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

III.  Training, Staff, and Support

  1. Each Affected Entity shall, no later than 30 days from the issuance of this Order, assign an employee to serve as its Sustainability Coordinator. Sustainability Coordinators shall be given management support and provided with the necessary resources to enable the Affected Entity to comply with this Order. Sustainability Coordinators shall serve as the Affected Entity’s liaison to the Council.
    1. Affected Entities are encouraged to create a Sustainability Team in-house to support the work of the Council. This Sustainability Team should be comprised of appropriate staff involved in identifying, approving, and implementing sustainability or energy projects, and environmental justice matters. The Sustainability Team should include an executive sponsor at the Deputy or Associate Commissioner, or Vice President level or equivalent.

IV. Reporting

  1. All Affected Entities shall furnish such information and assistance as the Council determines is reasonably necessary to accomplish its purposes. All Affected Entities shall share data in the most efficient manner identified by the Council for purposes of informing any progress reports, and the Council shall follow applicable NYS Data Governance procedures regarding any interagency data sharing or collection.

V. Exemptions

  1. Exemptions from any of the specific targets, goals, or other requirements under this Order may be granted by the Council co-chairs, provided, however, that any exemptions to Section VII.A of this Order may only be granted by the President of NYSERDA in consultation with the Chief Executive Officer of the New York State Department of Public Service (“DPS”) and Director of Budget.

VI. Buying and Operating Green

  1. The Council shall develop and issue sustainable procurement specifications (procurement specifications) for use by Affected Entities in the procurement of commodities, services, and technology, or where applicable, in the development of new public works solicitations and contracts.
    Any procurement specifications developed, approved, or issued by the Interagency Committee on Sustainability and Green Procurement under Executive Order 4, issued on April 24, 2008, shall carry forward in full effect as if issued by the Council until modified by the Council.

VII.  Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

  1. By 2030 and thereafter, subject to available supply, 100% of the electricity used by Affected Entities for their own operations, except electricity needed to support the generation of electricity by an Affected Entity in accordance with its enabling authority, shall come from energy systems that are eligible under the CES (“Eligible Systems”) as part of an all-of-government approach to meet the goals of the Climate Act in a cost-effective manner.

VIII.  Reducing Waste

  1. The Council shall create a waste diversion plan template that Affected Entities shall use to complete their plans. All Affected Entities shall create a waste diversion plan and file such plan with the Council that outlines how they will meet the following goals:
    1. A decrease in waste disposal of 10 percent every five years from a baseline of Fiscal Year 2018-19, until reaching a goal of 75 percent.
    2. Waste data reported for these goals should be broken out into the following categories: recycled materials; compostable materials and other organics; material sent to landfill (including construction and demolition waste); and special waste (including hazardous waste).

IX. Reducing Use of Toxic Substances.

  1. Affected Entities shall evaluate and incorporate toxics use reduction strategies into their operations, to the extent practicable, to achieve pollution prevention. The Council will, at a minimum, provide agencies with information on healthy buildings, green cleaning and disinfection, integrated pest management and green procurement.

XI. Low Impact Development

  1. Affected Entities shall evaluate, and to the maximum extent practicable, incorporate green infrastructure concepts to reduce all stormwater runoff and improve water quality in new construction or redevelopment projects submitted for permitting by Affected Entities regardless of disturbance threshold. These include activities such as the reconstruction of parking lots and the addition of new landscaping.

XII.  Promoting Biodiversity and Habitat Protection

  1. Affected Entities that have jurisdiction over real property shall, where practicable, seek opportunities to enhance the ecological integrity of their real property to support native biodiversity and the NYS Pollinator Protection Plan, protect threatened and endangered species, and increase climate resilience and natural carbon storage. This includes prioritizing the use of native plants and minimizing the use of non-native plants in landscaping and other planting efforts and other activities that may be identified in the New York Natural Heritage Program conservation guide and its management recommendations regarding listed plants.

XIII.  Disadvantaged Communities

  1. Each Affected Entity shall, to the maximum extent practicable, lower the impact of its operations on Disadvantaged Communities, and shall incorporate lowered environmental impact in these communities into the plans developed by Affected Entities pursuant to this Order.

XIV.  Innovative Solutions

  1. The Council shall continuously evaluate the potential of new technologies in order to assist Affected Entities in continuing to reduce their environmental footprint and increase climate resilience (mitigation and adaptation) of its operations, and wherever feasible, test new technologies and equipment to determine if such technologies or equipment is practicable for adoption in Affected Entity operations.

Cost is a factor in the order, but only as one aspect to be weighed against other considerations.

WHEREAS, it is the State’s policy to promote cost-effective methods to reduce energy and resource consumption, and reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous substances and the generation of hazardous substances, pollution, and waste at the source; and

It is also brought up in the sections VI. Buying and Operating Green, VII. Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and VIII.  Reducing Waste.

Well, this executive order covers most of the focus groups that we need to incorporate in all our institutions, but not all. The next blog will focus on our ability to learn how to connect these disparate elements through learning from global experiences.

Posted in Climate Change | 2 Comments

Campus as a Lab Part 3: Serve Students Through Better Faculty/Administration Integration

Posted on September 20, 2022 by climatechangefork

Source: Rutgers Living Laboratories

The figure at the top is a repeat from the first blog in this series (July 19th). The first two blogs were posted during the summer when I was working from home and traveling in Europe. I am writing this blog at the beginning of the fall semester, and have started to work on implementing the mission the figure illustrates in my own school.

I am focused on three aspects of this attempt: The relationship between faculty, administrators, and students as determined through the governance of the institution, incorporating the concept into my teaching, and integrating the concept of “Living Laboratories” into the mandated sustainability efforts of the school. I’m repeating the figure above based on the premise that all the campus and university personnel that are needed to improve the governance of the school are very busy, and this blog is probably the only document that I have any right to hope that they will read.

As to the examples shown in the figure, I would add the following categories below the overlapping circles of Institutional Sustainability and Living Laboratories: mandated decarbonization, mandated decrease in the use of single-use plastics, and testing of sewage for early detection of viral threats. I would also incorporate efficiently running schools with decreased enrollments—a problem that threatens us all given the declining global population. All these threats (and the ones that I don’t know to include) are components of the correlations between Institutional Sustainability and Living Laboratories shown in the figure.

I teach at the City University of New York (CUNY):

The City University of New York (abbr. CUNY; /ˈkjuːni/, KYOO-nee) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges, six professional institutions ,one undergraduate honors college and a University Center headed by the Chancellor. While its constituent colleges date back as far as 1847, CUNY was established in 1961. The university enrolls more than 275,000 students.

The university has one of the most diverse student bodies in the United States, with students hailing from around the world, but mostly from New York City. The black, white and Hispanic undergraduate populations each comprise more than a quarter of the student body, and Asian undergraduates make up 18 percent. Fifty-eight percent are female, and 28 percent are 25 or older.[59] In the 2017–2018 award year, 144,380 CUNY students received the Federal Pell Grant.[60]

CUNY employs 6,700 full-time faculty members and over 10,000 adjunct faculty members.

By necessity, the governance of the university is complicated; it involves not only the overall institution but also the governance of all the individual colleges. All report to the Chancellor, who in turn reports to the Board of Directors. The university’s mandate is anchored in the New York State Educational Law 125, Section 6201.

I teach at Brooklyn College, one of the senior colleges. Within that, I teach at the Honor College, Macaulay, and occasionally in the Graduate Center. I am directly involved in my college’s attempts to reduce its carbon footprint and in the university’s efforts to reduce its single-use plastic. Over the last three years, the focus of my Macaulay class has been to follow our school’s attempts to reduce its carbon footprint. Last year, we focused on the lessons that the COVID-19-triggered shifts to online learning can provide about how to minimize energy use under normal, in-person, conditions. The August 2nd “Campus as a Lab” blog (the second in the series) shows the details and one of the final products that emerged. That work also shows the benefits of a closer relationship of cooperation with the administration, in addition to highlighting some of the difficulties that the complexity of the university structure imposes on meaningful on-campus changes.

The most direct mechanism to minimize carbon emissions would be to change the energy sources that power the campuses. However, the consortia structure of the university means that the University Center purchases the energy and then distributes it to the campuses (granted, if a campus is using less energy than estimated, it is compensated for the saved energy). In addition, the buildings of a campus belong to CUNY, not to the campuses or colleges. So, a campus is not free, on its own to install photovoltaic panels or wind turbines to replace some of its energy sources. Only CUNY can do that. What the individual campuses can do is educate their own students to minimize wasted energy and receive the benefits of their actions. This concept can be generalized for most of the other transitions that campuses are now going through. Almost every one of them has both a top-down and a bottom-up component for implementation.

Incorporating the decarbonization efforts into my course curriculum was a straightforward exercise. It was implemented in a course that was generally labeled as “Science-Forward,” meaning that instructors have the freedom to teach almost anything as long as they incorporate certain essential elements. Almost all of the students came in with a solid background in high school science. My course has always focused on climate change, so it was not difficult to add the research component that relates to the transitions taking place on campus. This year’s experiment is exploring the incorporation of college transition into other disciplines.

The methodology I use in teaching the class is based on Team-Based Learning (TBL): the class is divided into groups that work together. Half of the semester is dedicated to the background, while the other half is spent on research projects. We end with posters that summarize the work done—like the one shown in the August 2nd blog.

The groups are divided into four of the five schools that make up the college’s departmental structure. These schools include Business (4 departments), Education (4), Science (9), and Social Sciences (8 interdisciplinary programs and 12 departments). The students’ research job is not to change any of the offered courses or to add new courses but to identify candidate courses in which aspects of the transitions already in effect in the college could help in the teaching. Once they find the target courses, they approach the relevant teaching faculty and discuss how to implement the changes, including the specific materials (I focus on energy use in my course). Only then can they approach the administration to help faculty in the next steps toward implementation.

Cooperation of students in different disciplines on similar aspects in college changes will encourage interdisciplinary work. This should also result in more cluster hiring, as I mentioned in the July 19th blog.

This is all new but not unique to me or to the institution. I gave some background and activities taking place at other institutions in the first two blogs in this series. The activities that I outline here aim to achieve two complementary objectives: improve the students’ education through the incorporation of practical experiences (hopefully helping them succeed in similar transitions after graduation) and at the same time help prepare the college to lead in the long-term changing realities of the physical environment that engulfs us all.

In most cases, such activities involve budgetary and personnel tensions between present and future needs. Every step taken to improve prospects in the future must consider the price against present needs. We must experiment to achieve the right balance and consider cost-effectiveness in any pilot that we are undertaking. However, the need for such balance is not restricted to academic institutions; it also applies to society at large. That said, society is supporting academic institutions to be the leaders in these existential changes.

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Back from Germany

Posted on September 13, 2022 by climatechangefork

 A field of dead sunflowers  in Farsleben, Germany

I have described Germany’s energy transition in earlier blogs (December 9 – 30, 2014, and October 1 – 8, 2019). As I mentioned in last week’s blog, I followed my trip to England, Poland, and France by teaching the first week of classes in Brooklyn before returning to Europe for a few days. I went to Germany for a delayed celebration of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp in which I spent the second half of WWII.

Germany was recently in the middle of the news until recently, when were told about the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The country was bound to return to the news, however, as Russia chokes Europe’s gas supply in advance of the approaching winter. As Paul Krugman wrote in the NYT:

There is, however, one exception, and it’s a doozy: European natural gas.

Unlike the markets for oil and wheat, the market for gas isn’t fully global. The cheapest way to ship gas is normally via pipelines, which breaks the world into separate regional markets defined by where the pipelines run. The main alternative is to ship gas in liquefied form, which is how it gets to markets not served by pipelines, but this requires specially designed shipping and terminals, which can’t be added rapidly in a crisis.

Germany is Europe’s largest economy and, as I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, it was among the leaders of the shift to a more sustainable energy mix. Not only did it reduce its dependence on coal but it also made attempts to eliminate its dependence on nuclear power after the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011. As I mentioned in those earlier blogs, Germany decided to replace these with enhanced development of sustainable energy sources such as solar and wind. Its alternative sources also included low-cost natural gas imported from Russia (see the February 8, 2022 blog on Petrostates), thus opening the country to energy blackmail from Russia. We saw this come into play after Germany tried to help Ukraine fight a Russian takeover following the February 24th invasion.

Since energy prices tend to be international and largely based on supply and demand, Germany, along with most of Europe, the US, Japan, and others found itself confronting the other aspect (besides carbonization of the atmosphere) of the energy transition: resilience. Nobody can live without an affordable energy supply.

While all of this takes place, the heating of the planet continues to accelerate. As I have mentioned repeatedly (put water in the search box), one of the most important consequences of the temperature rise has been water cycle vulnerabilities, including water stress caused by prolonged droughts and major floods caused by major downpours, snow melting, or a rise in sea level. The prolonged droughts in Europe, California, and China, and the devastating floods in Pakistan that are now hitting the planet are early signs of what we can expect for the future:

Severe droughts across the Northern Hemisphere—stretching from the farms of California to waterways in Europe and China—are further snarling supply chains and driving up the prices of food and energy, adding pressure to a global trade system already under stress.

Parts of China are experiencing their longest sustained heat wave since record-keeping began in 1961, according to China’s National Climate Center, leading to manufacturing shutdowns owing to lack of hydropower. The drought affecting Spain, Portugal, France and Italy is on track to be the worst in 500 years, according to Andrea Toreti, a climate scientist at the European Commission’s Joint Research Center.

The dead sunflowers at the top of this blog, which I encountered during my visit to Germany, serve as a visual example of the phenomenon’s impact. The drought in Europe has an additional negative impact on its energy supply: it has greatly affected the operation of the many dams that generate hydropower and has had negative consequences for nuclear power stations, which depend on river flow for cooling.

The biggest worry is the expectation of scarcity of heating during the coming winter. Since most energy prices are based on supply and demand, such scarcity likely means very high prices that the rich can afford but the less wealthy cannot:

European energy prices surged after Russia shut down natural-gas flows through a major pipeline, threatening to add to economic woes for businesses and households across the continent.

Natural-gas futures in northwest Europe, which reflect the cost of fuel in the wholesale market, jumped more than 30% in early trading Monday. They remain below the all-time high recorded in late August.

State-controlled Gazprom PJSC extended a halt to flows through Nord Stream late Friday. Moscow blamed the suspension on technical problems. European governments described it as an economic attack in retaliation for their support of Ukraine.

Over the weekend, governments in Sweden and Finland offered billions of dollars of guarantees to utilities to prevent a meltdown in energy trading. Officials fear the loss of imports through Nord Stream could lead to a further leap in power prices and saddle utilities with cash payments to energy trading exchanges that they may struggle to meet. A wave of failed payments could undermine financial stability, officials said.

“This has had the ingredients for a kind of a Lehman Brothers of energy industry,” Finland’s Economic Affairs Minister Mika Lintilä said Sunday.

Another variant on the same topic is that governments will likely have to intervene.

The Days of Energy Deregulation Are Over in Europe

After decades of promoting a free-market approach to the electricity and natural gas industries, European governments are taking back control of these vital functions. Record-high energy prices, partly the result of Russia’s throttling of gas supplies, are prompting lawmakers to discard economic orthodoxy and undo years of painstaking deregulation.

Britain, perhaps the most market-oriented of the large European countries, is taking one of the biggest steps in this direction. Prime Minister Liz Truss, on her third day in office on Thursday, announced a plan to, in effect, freeze energy bills for two years for consumers and six months for business.

The intervention, with an estimated cost to the government of as much as 150 billion pounds ($172 billion), would prevent household energy bills from rising about 80 percent next month, potentially slowing the country’s double-digit inflation rate. In recent years, Britain has had a regulated price cap on energy for households, but there is growing political consensus that it is not up to dealing with the extremes of current markets, where prices for natural gas and electricity have reached several times their norms.

At the same time, the European Union has proposed a cap on Russian gas prices and negotiations with Norway, another large, but friendly, gas supplier. Because natural gas-fired power plants usually set electric power prices, Brussels wants to impose a tax on generators from non-gas sources, like wind and nuclear, whose operating costs are lower, and use that revenue to help people and companies struggling with energy costs.

Everyone agrees that the best solution to the shortages and the high energy prices is to use less energy to produce the same outputs (collectively, measured in GDP). This means reducing the energy intensity, defined as energy/GDP (see the May 7, 2019 blog). Major steps are being taken in this direction, however, most of them are in the form of “recommendations” not mandates. In Germany, these include reduced temperatures for heating and increased temperatures for air-conditioned cooling. They also turn off streetlights and the illumination of monuments. Everywhere, you see increased availability and use of bikes and scooters. Significantly, in Germany, the recommendations for saving energy don’t include reducing speed on the autobahns.

The proposed price intervention by governments is controversial because of the belief by many economists that high prices reduce use, while lower prices encourage it. The subsidized energy use reminds all of the practices of many poor countries: even under more “normal” conditions, people in such countries can’t afford to buy fuel. Now, the high prices are basically determined by a conflict between two blocs of rich countries. Protests in Indonesia have come to remind us of this asymmetry.

The shape of the world that will be left after the conflict between Russia and the West is settled, is yet to be determined.

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Back from Europe

Posted on September 6, 2022 by climatechangefork

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, after three years of COVID-19 hibernation, my wife and I just came home from visiting friends and family in England, Poland, and France. I will spend a few days teaching the first week of classes, then return for a few days to Germany for a delayed celebration of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp in which I spent the second half of WWII. This opportunity to visit Europe at the tail-end of summer enables me to have a look at how the continent is trying to adapt to the ever-increasing climate change that is heating it. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has accelerated the energy transition under which these efforts take place. Additionally, most European countries, and many others, are working to help Ukraine defend itself.

Within the three weeks that I spent in Europe, we had one rainy afternoon in Krakow, Poland. The rest of the time was sunny days with visible drought, especially in London. I am starting to write this blog a day after returning to New York, where heavy rain issued a warm welcome. For two days–one in London and one in Warsaw–the high temperature exceeded 90oF. Other days were hovering in the mid-80s. To a New Yorker, this doesn’t seem like a heat wave; in the places that I visited in Europe, it seemed hot mainly because of the lack of air-conditioned spaces to escape to. The hotels that we stayed in were air-conditioned. However, most days we stayed with family and friends. With one exception, none of these private residences had air-conditioning, although fans are starting to be installed. Socioeconomic conditions were not an obstacle to adaptation in the places that I visited. As we will see below, people are starting to adapt. In Paris, I used to go to the area of the Notre Dame cathedral to have my ice cream. Now, the best ice creams that I ever tested are spread across the city. The use of bikes and scooters is expanding. As we will see below, the energy transition is not yet directly hitting but fear of approaching consequences for consumers is widespread. This fear is based on estimates of the pricing of energy use. In most cases, the last estimate came out before the Russian invasion. Everybody is expecting a sharp price jump for the next estimate (see England below, which has just issued its newest estimate). All of these are by necessity limited personal observations. The rest of the blog will examine how my observations fit into more general, published observations:

One can find a good survey of the situation in some of the European countries on Business Insider:

The European energy crisis set into motion by the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows no signs of abating and looks to deepen further in coming weeks as record heatwaves hit the continent.

In France, the crisis is so bad that power stations are being permitted to break environmental rules to stay open as the country struggles to maintain national energy supplies, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) granted a temporary waiver allowing five nuclear plants across the country to dispense more than the authorized amount of hot water into rivers, the news agency reported.

In France, rivers and waterways are used to cool power plants. Under the current environmental rules, nuclear plants must reduce or stop output when river temperatures reach a point at which use by the plants may harm the environment, per Bloomberg. That provision is being temporarily halted.

Europe’s prolonged high temperatures are putting further pressure on the bloc’s already strained energy supplies.

The River Rhine, one of the continent’s most important rivers, is drying up amid the record-breaking summer heatwaves, Insider reported last month. The river is currently at its lowest level in at least 15 years, making moving goods — including coal and gas — in container ships down the river a challenge.

Northwest and central Europe are set for even more hot weather in the coming weeks. Temperatures in the UK, France, and Germany are expected to soar on Friday, with some estimates predicting highs of 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the week.

You can find additional coverage on ABC:

In Germany, falling water levels of the River Rhine have left it impassable to many boats.

Further south, Spain is facing its worst drought on record, with research suggesting the Iberian Peninsula could be the driest it has been for more than 1,000 years.

Its drought has also led to the emergence of a prehistoric stone circle dubbed the “Spanish Stonehenge”, which has only been fully visible four times since 1963.

Neighboring France is experiencing its worst drought since records began in 1958, its national weather agency says.

On average, less than 1cm of rain fell across France in July and scores of villages have been left to rely on deliveries from water trucks as taps run dry.

Italy’s worst drought in decades has reduced Lake Garda — the country’s largest lake — to near its lowest level ever recorded, exposing expanses of previously underwater rocks.

Water levels in many of Switzerland’s rivers and lakes have also fallen to very low levels.

The water scarcity resulting from these heat waves extends beyond Europe:

Water is a scarce commodity and has been for a long time. And often it is a contested one. A 4,500-year-old stone from Mesopotamia, in today’s Iraq, is on display in the Louvre museum in Paris. Engraved on it are scenes of battle and war the kings of Lagash and Umma fought, in part over water.

Since then, the value of water has multiplied. Eight billion people now live on earth and they all need drinking water. But above all, agriculture and industry, consume gigantic quantities of water. At the same time, climate change is upsetting the rhythm of rain and drought.

When Ethiopia builds a dam on the upper reaches of the Nile, Sudan and Egypt fear for their lifelines. The Ilisu Dam in Turkey, dams the waters of the Tigris River — which means that less water arrives in Iraq. The Euphrates River is dammed in several locations. In 2018, a study conducted on orders of the EU Commission identified eight rivers where the risk of conflict over the use of increasingly scarce water is particularly high: The Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris, as well as the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Indus, and Colorado Rivers.

Energy Costs: Britain’s latest announcement is grim

For months, a tsunami of high energy costs has borne down on Europe. On Friday, the first big waves crashed ashore in Britain, with the news that household gas and electricity bills will nearly double in October.

The announcement, by Britain’s energy regulator, raised the specter of a humanitarian crisis in one of the world’s richest countries: Millions of Britons might not be able to afford to heat or light their homes this winter, unless the government steps in on an enormous scale to cushion them from the vagaries of the market.

Here’s how the rest of Europe is currently faring:

European gas and power prices surged as panic over Russian supplies gripped markets and politicians warned citizens to brace for a tough winter ahead.

Benchmark gas settled at a record high, while German power surged to above 700 euros ($696) a megawatt-hour for the first time. Russia said it will stop its key Nord Stream gas pipeline for three days of repairs on Aug. 31, again raising concerns it won’t return after the work. Europe has been on tenterhooks about shipments through the link for weeks, with flows resuming only at very low levels after it was shut for works last month.

Adaptation: One of the first things we think about to deal with the heat is air conditioning:

In the US:

Three-quarters of all homes in the United States have air conditioners. Air conditioners use about 6% of all the electricity produced in the United States, at an annual cost of about $29 billion to homeowners. As a result, roughly 117 million metric tons of carbon dioxide are released into the air each year. To learn more about air conditions, explore our Energy Saver 101 infographic on home cooling.

In Europe, on the other hand:

The energy-intensive cooling system used widely across the United States has grown increasingly attractive to Britons and other Europeans now dealing with brutal summer temperatures caused in part by human-induced climate change. In recent days, extreme heat has scorched much of Western Europe, kindling wildfires in France, Greece and Italy and causing the deaths of more than 1,000 people in Portugal alone.

Sales of portable air-conditioning units rose 2,420 percent in a week, British retailer Sainsbury’s said Monday. And a surge in demand for centralized AC units in London has some installation companies booked through the fall.

But why weren’t European households already equipped with air conditioning? And will Europe fall victim to a “U.S.-style addiction to AC,” as climate control researcher Stan Cox has warned? 

Meanwhile, the EU seems to be saving energy overall:

Figure 1 – Primary energy consumption in the EU (Source: Eurostat)

Most of the decrease in energy consumption shown in Figure 1 originates from the pandemic. Europe has tried to support Ukraine’s attempts to defend itself against invasion. In response, as “punishment,” Russia has disrupted its energy supply. So far, it’s too early (at least in my searches) to quantify the related impact of deliberate energy-saving efforts. Another contributor to carbon emissions is transportation:

Another contributor to carbon emissions is transportation:

If people around the world were as enthusiastic cyclers as they are in the Netherlands, we could cut an impressive amount of planet-heating pollution. The Dutch use bicycles to get around more than folks in any other country, cycling about 2.6 kilometers (1.62 miles) a day.

If that was the trend across the world, it would slash 686 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution a year, according to the authors of a new study published this week in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. That’s enormous — roughly equivalent to erasing one-fifth of CO2 emissions from passenger cars globally in 2015.

In the meantime, during our absence, the energy transition in the US got a big boost with the passage of the “Inflation Reduction Act.” I will return to the impact of this development after my trip to Germany.

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Vacation Notice

Posted on August 30, 2022 by climatechangefork

This week I am taking a break from the blog, so there will be no post. Please do come back next Tuesday, when I promise to continue our discussions.

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Can we Advance the Transition to a More Sustainable Future?

Posted on August 23, 2022 by climatechangefork

Where are we now and how can we advance or accelerate the energy transition to a more sustainable future?

I am now in Europe, and this is the last blog that I wrote before I left. In fact, I started to write this on Tuesday, July 26th. Figure 1 summarizes where we are in the transition to net-zero carbon sourcing for our energy supply; Figure 2 summarizes the state of the transition to a reduction in carbon emissions by developed countries or entities. Figure 1 shows that in terms of commitments to net-zero carbon emissions, we are still globally in the “word” stage: we are talking about it but have not committed to action. Most of us have made promises—some as oral declarations (words), some in document form. None of us has yet achieved (on a country basis) net-zero carbon emissions in our energy supply and only 14% of the countries on Earth have included such a commitment in their laws.

Figure 1 – Where countries stand on net-zero emissions energy goals (Source: Fostering Effective Energy Transition 2022 via World Economic Forum)

Figure 2, on the other hand, shows the progress/setbacks in actually reducing emissions from 1990 to 2019. The population and GDP of all five “entities” (the EU is not a country) grew over this period, however, only the emissions of the EU significantly decreased over this period. Those of Japan and the US didn’t change but those of Canada and Australia increased considerably.

graph of Changes in carbon emissions since 1990

Figure 2 – Changes in carbon emissions since 1990 (Source: Climate Action Tracker By The New York Times)

What can we do to accelerate the transition?

One obvious obstacle that the transition faces is that energy is not only about emissions, but also (or mainly) about availability, including resilience to shortages. Just look at the Venn diagram in the August 4, 2020 blog. For instance, the Russian invasion of Ukraine makes resilience a major consideration because people need energy and the war stands in the way of the energy transition to non-carbon sources. Energy resilience is now a much bigger issue for Europe than it is for the US because of Europe’s larger dependence on energy imports from Russia (see February 8, 2022 blog).

Psychology might be of help here. The classical definition of climate change reads as follows:

Climate change refers to significant changes in global temperature, precipitation, wind patterns and other measures of climate that occur over several decades or longer.

Because of the four last words in this definition, attribution of weather events to climate change has become a big issue; the science is difficult to follow. We can use the example of trying to explain the threat of forest destruction to two-year-old kids:

Efforts to conserve the carbon stored in tropical forests would be enhanced by linking the work to the charismatic, threatened primates that live there, Oregon State University ecologists assert today in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Most kids at this age don’t, as yet, conceptualize the forest but they do conceptualize lions, tigers, monkeys, and elephants, even if they have only seen them in the zoo. It is through that pathway that we can illustrate what’s going on.

Efforts to conserve the carbon stored in tropical forests would be enhanced by linking the work to the charismatic, threatened primates that live there, Oregon State University ecologists assert today in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Integrating the concept of weather and climate with “observable” entities can help in mobilizing public opinion and accelerate the energy transition:

News outlets have long cited extreme weather events as examples of how greenhouse gas emissions affect the climate. In response, experts typically would emphasize the distinction between weather and climate, warning that any given hurricane or heat wave cannot be attributed to long-term changes in average temperatures. But it turns out that climatologists and meteorologists sometimes can establish such causal relationships.

“First of all, it’s important to highlight that every climate extreme weather event has multiple causes,” Friederike Otto, an Oxford University climate researcher associated with the World Weather Attribution (WWA) collaboration, told MIT Technology Review in 2020. “So the question of the role of climate change will never be a yes or no question. It will always be, ‘Did climate change make it more likely or less likely, or did climate change not play a role?’”

These may be difficult questions to answer but that comes with the territory: the future, as with all abstract thinking, always has a large degree of uncertainty.

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Back to ESG

Posted on August 16, 2022 by climatechangefork

ESG (Environmental Social & Governance) is back at the forefront of discussion as an investment tool. Put ESG into this blog’s search box and you will get a few entries. The May 24, 2022 blog provides some details and connections to the IPAT identity, and both the January 8th and March 5, 2019 blogs provide some information about using the Bloomberg Terminals to be able to estimate the entries. The table below, from the site of an investment advisor with the associate reference, provides a summary of the topics that are included in the concept.

ESG (Source: Leonard Rickey)

I will try to put the discussion here on a solid footing by quoting the corresponding Wikipedia entry about the history of the concept:

In the 1960s and 1970s, Milton Friedman, in direct response to the prevailing mood of philanthropy argued that social responsibility adversely affects a firm’s financial performance and that regulation and interference from “big government” will always damage the macro economy.[13] His contention that the valuation of a company or asset should be predicated almost exclusively on the pure bottom line (with the costs incurred by social responsibility being deemed non-essential), underwrote the belief prevalent for most of the 20th century (see Friedman doctrine). Towards the end of the century, however, a contrary theory began to gain ground. In 1988 James S. Coleman wrote an article in the American Journal of Sociology titled Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital, the article challenged the dominance of the concept of ‘self-interest’ in economics and introduced the concept of social capital into the measurement of value.[8]

There has been uncertainty and debate as to what to call the inclusion of intangible factors relating to the sustainability and ethical impact of investments. Names have ranged from the early use of buzz words such as “green” and “eco”, to the wide array of possible descriptions for the types of investment analysis—”responsible investment”, “socially responsible investment” (SRI), “ethical”, “extra-financial”, “long horizon investment” (LHI), “enhanced business”, “corporate health”, “non-traditional”, and others. But the predominance of the term ESG has now become fairly widely accepted. A survey of 350 global investment professionals conducted by Axa Investment Managers and AQ Research in 2008 concluded the vast majority of professionals preferred the term ESG to describe such data.

In January 2016, the PRI, UNEP FI and The Generation Foundation launched a three-year project to end the debate on whether fiduciary duty is a legitimate barrier to the integration of environmental, social, and governance issues in investment practice and decision-making.

This follows the publication in September 2015 of Fiduciary Duty in the 21st Century by the PRI, UNEP FI, UNEP Inquiry and UN Global Compact. The report concluded that “Failing to consider all long-term investment value drivers, including ESG issues, is a failure of fiduciary duty”. It also acknowledged that despite significant progress, many investors have yet to fully integrate ESG issues into their investment decision-making processes. In 2021, several organizations were working to make ESG compliance a better understood process in order to establish standards between rating agencies, amongst industries, and across jurisdictions. This included companies like Workiva working from a technology tool standpoint; agencies like the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) developing common themes in certain industries; and governmental regulations like the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

More recent discussions reflect the political polarization that I described in last week’s blog, starting with the suggestion that the concept should be reduced to a simple measure of emissions:

If you are the type of person who is loth to invest in firms that pollute the planet, mistreat workers and stuff their boards with cronies, you will no doubt be aware of one of the hottest trends in finance: environmental, social and governance (esg) investing. It is an attempt to make capitalism work better and deal with the grave threat posed by climate change. It has ballooned in recent years; the titans of investment management claim that more than a third of their assets, or $35trn in total, are monitored through one esg lens or another. It is on the lips of bosses and officials everywhere.

You might hope that big things would come from this. You would be wrong. Sadly those three letters have morphed into shorthand for hype and controversy. Right-wing American politicians blame a “climate cartel” for soaring prices at the petrol pump. Whistleblowers accuse the industry of “greenwashing” by deceiving its clients. Firms from Goldman Sachs to Deutsche Bank face regulatory probes. As our special report this week concludes, although esg is often well-meaning it is deeply flawed. It risks setting conflicting goals for firms, fleecing savers and distracting from the vital task of tackling climate change. It is an unholy mess that needs to be ruthlessly streamlined.

The alternative view advocates that everything should be kept except the environmental considerations:

ESG investing has been a boon for the industry. Fund managers have often promised investors higher returns while doing good with their money. However, ESG is a slippery concept, without widely accepted definitions, criteria, and metrics. Infamously, a single company’s ESG rating can vary widely between credible credit-rating firms.

That variance isn’t unreasonable. There are many ways to combine the three criteria into one score, and for any single one there can be honest disagreement about what good or bad actually looks like. For example, some might rank Shell highly on “E” because it has a plan to decarbonize its business, or poorly because it sells oil and plans to sell natural gas for years.

However, the scope for variance in environmental ratings is starting to narrow. European officials have set new rules for different categories of sustainable investments and are working on definitions of what is and isn’t green. The SEC is also working on its own set of rules. While the standards increase the compliance burden on fund managers, they should also help ensure investors are getting what they were promised, rather than just a lot of hot air.

Concerns about greenwashing—in which reality falls short of green claims—are widespread and recent events are only fanning the flames. The SEC recently fined Bank of New York Mellon $1.5 million for misleading claims about ESG funds. DWS reported far lower “ESG assets” in its most recent annual report than “ESG integrated” assets in the prior year. A whistleblower alleged last year that its disclosure was misleading. It will now be up to a new boss to draw a thicker line under the affair.

The concept of ESG is now starting to penetrate the global market. Especially important here is its context within the Chinese market:

A new set of voluntary guidelines for Chinese companies to report environmental, social and governance metrics take effect Wednesday, offering a glimpse of what mandatory disclosures might eventually look like in the country.

Developed by China’s biggest companies and government-backed think tanks, the standards list more than 100 metrics that generally align with the global benchmark of draft rules issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board. The differences are they’re more simplistic and add “Chinese characteristics” that measure things like corporate charity.

Below is a summary in the form of advice from the Harvard Business Review:

With the rush of money into ESG investment funds — more than $1 trillion in the last two years — it’s easy to think everyone clearly sees the business value of sustainability. But many leaders still see an inherent trade-off between choosing a more sustainable future and achieving business growth and profit. They see ESG-related spending — a capital expense to reduce energy use, opting for renewable energy, paying living wages, and so on — as purely cost, not investment. With little resistance, CEO’s will spend money on IT, training, new factories, R&D, and more; but when it comes to investing in the future of the business and humanity, they hesitate.

They shouldn’t.

Go to the original publications and form your own opinion!

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