Coal, cars and climate. Photo by Marcin Wichery.

This week delegates from more than 190 countries will meet in Poland to discuss climate change and a successor treaty for the expiring Kyoto Protocol.

In a sign of the challenges associated with forging any international agreement about how to act, they will find a country – and a region – that are torn by internal quibbles over climate change policies.

The Poznan meeting has been organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and takes place in preparation for a planned climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009.  At the Copenhagen meeting, a new international climate change treaty may be ratified to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.  

Bridging the differences of opinion about how to respond to climate change, however, could take at least another year or longer.

On the eve of next week’s Poznan conference, The New York Times’ blog Green Inc. has reported a squabble in Poland over the economic costs of implementing an emissions permitting system proposed for the European Union.  

The tiff began with the release of a September report that argued the permitting system would curb the country’s economic growth.  

Along with Italy, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk campaigned at a EU meeting in October against a new package of climate change policies, including the more stringent permitting platform.

This month, though, another report was released that found the proposed changes in climate policy could result in economic gains for Poland.  The new report’s findings, according to Green Inc., have been rejected by a number of Polish politicians, but embraced by The Polish Climate Coalition, an organization of environmental groups.

Meanwhile, the battle over climate policy literally spilled onto the streets of Poznan last week, as miners and Greenpeace activists scuffled near a bulldozer used for coal transport, according to Softpedia.

At the EU’s October meeting to discuss climate policies, criticism from Poland and Italy led the regional body to delay a final decision on the proposed 2020 goals for emissions reductions until the union’s next meeting in December.    

Unlike many other EU member states, Poland depends heavily on coal, using it to meet more than 90 percent of its energy needs.   

Poland, of course, is not the only EU country with industries that could lose out in a new climate change policy regime.  Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria all joined Poland’s campaign against the EU’s 2020 goals at the October meeting.

And, just last week, Germany began its own dissent, demonstrating that policy arguments about climate change defy any clean split between old and new, or wealthy and less wealthy, EU members.

Although Germany has traditionally been one of the EU’s economic powerhouses, its automobile industry would be hit hard by the proposed “polluter pay” principle.  Unlike in France or Italy, which manufacture compact cars, Germany’s carmakers are saddled with production lines that are geared to build larger vehicles.

All of these different positions – between Polish report writers, miners and Greenpeace activists on the one hand and between EU members on the other – are illustrative of what awaits delegates in both Poznan and Copenhagen.

As developed and developing nations endeavor to draft a new international treaty with binding emissions commitments, they will have to confront how their differing policy positions reflect the different challenges they each face in a competitive world market.     

It’s been another busy week for pronouncements and announcements about climate change.  Indeed, it seems with each passing day since Senator Barack Obama was declared President-elect, the Google alert lists for ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ grow longer.

At the start of the week, President-elect Obama signaled that climate change is a priority issue for his administration by addressing via video message an international conference on global warming hosted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. 

In his message, Obama reiterated his plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and pave the way for deeper reductions by 2050 with investments in clean energy. 

According to The Boston Globe, Obama said in his message:

“Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change,” he said in the video. “Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.”

Obama continued that “too often, Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office. My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process.”

He also told the conference participants he has asked members of Congress to attend the upcoming meeting of world leaders in Poland to discuss a new climate-change treaty and report back to him. 

Meanwhile, five major U.S. companies – Nike, Starbucks, Levi Strauss, Sun Microsystems and Timberland – called for congressional action on climate and energy policies in 2009.  The companies are working in partnership with Ceres, a national network of investors and environmental organizations. 

With the Ceres network, they have launched a new business coalition to lobby for clean energy legislation, according to The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch. 

To top it all off, on the same day that the U.S. Senate said farewell to its longest serving Republican, and oil industry favorite, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, a shakeup in the power structure of the U.S. House of Representatives took place that could speed passage of such legislation. 

In the shakeup, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) wrested the committee chairmanship position for the House Energy and Commerce Commitee from long-time chairman Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), who has frequently stalled action on climate change in the past.  For background on Rep. Dingell’s actions in the House, check out Frank O’Donnell’s post on Grist.

Once again it’s been a week of numbers.  The Dow Jones stock index rallied 11.3 percent over the last week, along with other stock measures around the world.  The Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan cut interest rates to grease lending and spending.  Consumer spending declined in the U.S. for the first time in 17 years, and a bailout’s now being considered for Detroit’s Big Three automakers. 

Courtesy of thisbluedot.net.

Despite – and perhaps because of – the maelstrom of mostly dark economic news over the last few weeks, there is now more and more talk about how dealing with climate change should figure into economic planning. 

On Monday former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern issued a warning that ignoring the risks posed by climate change could result in far greater consequences than ignoring risks in the financial system. 

Stern is famous for a 700-page economic report he released in 2006, which claimed inaction on climate change could result in disasters on the scale of the Great Depression or World Wars I and II. 

According to Reuters:

As countries around the world move from deploying monetary and financial stabilization measures, to boosting fiscal spending to mend real economies, Stern said the opportunity was there to bring about a new, greener, carbon-reducing world order.

“The lesson that we can draw out from this recession, is that you can boost demand in the best way possible by focusing on low carbon growth in future.”

Stern, who has estimated it would cost 2 percent of GDP to tackle climate change, spoke at a conference in Hong Kong. 

Courtesy of Oxfam International.

Today United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon also added his voice to calls for action despite the global economic crisis.  During a visit to Bangladesh, which is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise and an increase in extreme weather events, Ban said:

“The leaders of the developed countries should not neglect the issue of global warming. A one-metre rise in sea levels would displace 30 million Bangladeshis and deal a catastrophic blow to economic growth and development.” (Reuters)

Meanwhile, according to a new survey, 63 percent of Americans think that addressing climate change will actually benefit the economy.  The survey was released by The Climate Group, a London-based non-profit working to create a coalition of governments and businesses committed to forging a path to a low-carbon future.  

This is so HOT. 

And I almost missed it.  But I took a minute to visit SolveClimate, an excellent blog about climate change, earlier tonight and found a notice about the new PBS documentary “HEAT” just in time to tune in. 

The full program, which was produced by the Frontline producer Martin Smith, is available to watch for free on the PBS Web site. 

“I have reported on the Cold War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the rise of Al Qaeda, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Smith. “But nothing matches climate change in scope and severity.”

The report, split into four chapters, investigates how governments and major companies, such as Exxon Mobil and General Motors, are responding to the threat of climate change. 

It starts with a brief introduction about climate-change impacts that are already being witnessed, and then continues to China and India, where development is expected to send the world’s carbon dioxide emissions skyrocketing over the next few decades. 

And from there the central question has been posed: if developing countries currently plan on using coal and other fossil fuels to bring a higher living standard to their populations, what are developed countries doing to demonstrate another way?

To answer the question, Smith presses the auto and coal industries for information about their efforts to develop electric cars and “clean coal.”  Pairing the two industries was a wise journalistic choice. 

Besides the fact that cars and coal are the largest sources of CO2 emissions, by setting the two side-by-side Smith is also able to draw a comparison between the ways that cleaner technologies have been pursued by both industries.  At the same time, he is able to pull in how the United States government has contributed to these pursuits, or non-pursuits. 

What emerges is not a reassuring picture.

While the electric car actually made it to market, it was “killed” by the Big Three automakers, and the U.S. government failed to intervene.  And, though “clean coal” is dependent on the controversial process of storing CO2 below ground, the U.S. government has invested huge sums in its development. 

In fact, Smith gets David Ratcliffe, the CEO of the utility Southern Company, which is one of the world’s largest emitters, to admit:

“We haven’t even come close to defining what are the legal liabilities and what are the permitting requirements” for removing carbon from coal and sequestering it underground. 

Along with the full program, the Web site features individual interviews with many of the key players that weighed in during “Heat.”  T. Boone Pickens – the oil billionaire who has been much in the news as of late for his efforts to develop wind energy and snatch up water rights – is in the lineup.  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner, and Jeffrey Sachs are also included, along with some 11 others. 

The Web site also provides information about how much venture capitalists are investing into various alternative energy sources (solar and biofuels are the big winners).  And there is a breakdown of the presidential candidates’ positions on climate change and energy policies.  

While the U.S. Congress has failed to pass legislation that would establish CO2 emissions reduction goals, individual states have been getting busy. 

According to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, at least 31 states have created plans that outline climate-change “mitigation” goals.  The plans outline a mix of policies directed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, from forest restoration efforts to energy-efficiency improvements. 

Last week, the state of Florida became the latest to jump on this new climate-planning bandwagon.

Republican Governor Charlie Crist issued an executive order in 2007, which tasked the state’s Department of Environmental Protection with developing a plan to deal with climate change. The result – “Florida’s Energy and Climate Change Action Plan” – was released Oct. 15.

The plan outlines 50 recommendations that its makers calculate would reduce emissions 51 percent below 2005 levels, and 33 percent below 1990 levels.  The reductions would be accomplished by making changes in a number of sectors: energy supply and demand, agriculture, forestry, waste management, transportation and land use.

As opposed to costing the state money, the planners estimate the policies will save the state $28 billion between 2009 and 2025, an average net savings of $18 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions removed. 

Along with “mitigation” policies, Florida’s plan also addresses “adaptation” measures, which look at how to prepare the state for changes in climate that it may be too late to avoid.  According to the plan:

Adaptation represents a unique challenge for Florida. The product of the adaptation investigation is a comprehensive planning framework to guide Florida over the coming years and decades to manage climate impacts that Floridians will likely face regardless of the success of state, national, or international mitigation efforts. 

Adaptation was a controversial concept for many years in environmentalist circles, the fear being that if it received attention it could undermine efforts to gain support for mitigation policies.  Some believed it might prompt people to ask ‘why change if we can adapt?’

The tide is now turning, however, as policymakers and officials are starting to worry about how climate change could impact sea level, water resources, and storm frequency, among other things. 

Florida, in particular, is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise and higher storm surges. 

With the markets in the midst of a crisis that many are comparing to the Great Depression, some environmentalists are starting to worry that the go-green wave may lose its momentum in the face of more pressing economic concerns.

From bloggers to scientists, a new speculative trend has now begun, with thinkers placing their bets on just what the economic downturn will mean for the environment.  And in the truly free market of ideas, there are always a lot of answers to choose from:

It will be bad: how will we ever find the capital to invest in green technology after handing out $700 billion to the financial industry?

It will be good: people will start wasting less, recycling more, and using less energy.

It will be bad: commodity prices are plummeting and, without a pinch at the gas station, interest in alternative energy sources will flag. 

It will be good: green jobs and the green industry will lead the rebirth of our economy. 

It’s about as much of a yo-yo as the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been in the last few weeks.  To get some perspective on the issue of how economic policies and the environment – specifically climate change – are related, I recently sat down with the University of Chicago geophysicist Raymond Pierrehumbert.

Geophysicist Raymond Pierrehumbert.

A geophysicist, you ask?  It’s true, Pierrehumbert is not an economic expert, but he is a climatologist who is involved in a new effort to bring scientists and economists together to talk about climate, energy and economics at the University of Chicago. 

In particular, they are looking at the question of what information economic models can provide about the costs or benefits of different strategies for reducing CO2 emissions. 

So, how does Pierrehumbert weigh in on how the economy and the environment intermix?

“There’s some obvious cases in which just making things expensive puts the right signals in the market,” he said.  “So the way that high gas prices and lower salaries or lower investment income has damped down the demand for SUVs.  That’s a case where the market price signals work, but making people poorer is not the right way.”

Instead of looking to a sputtering economy to spur lifestyle changes, Pierrehumbert thinks the economic downturn should be used as an opportunity to make structural adjustments that would both raise income levels and help the climate.  

“It’s a matter of reorienting the economy into things that build prosperity without emitting carbon and for that the sort of things that one should be looking at are efforts to restructure the economy.”  Subsidies to help people make their homes more energy efficient, support for developing alternative energy sources, urban planning that takes into account climate-change concerns – these are all simple things that could be done that would be good for both the environment and employment numbers, Pierrehumbert said. 

Both presidential candidates have said that green technologies and green jobs will be an important part of America’s economy.  Democratic nominee Barack Obama has proposed investing $150 billion in green technologies over the next ten years, which his campaign has said could create five million new jobs.  And, on the Republican side, John McCain’s energy platform contends the green economy will be “vital to our economic future.”

Besides redirecting resources to green industries, though, Pierrehumbert thinks the philosophical framework that underpins our economic system needs to be reformulated.  In particular, he points to risk-assessment methodologies that do a poor job of looking forward, and not just when it comes to mortgage repayment.   

“Economists tend to discount the future in a sense that a harm one year from now is 5 percent less expensive than a harm right now,” he said. 

“If you use standard economic discounting rates then something that wipes out the entire human population 1000 years from now is not even worth a cent to pay today.”

Given the events of the last few weeks, it’s little wonder the public’s confidence in the validity of investor confidence has taken a nosedive.  After all, it’s hard to have faith in their risk assessments when it looks like they made a miscalculation on the order of $700 billion plus. 

Yet, Florida’s chief financial officer, Alex Sink, recently made a bet that fund managers will play a critical role in protecting taxpayer dollars from risks associated with climate change. Check out the release.

He’s not going to trust the fund managers to do their own reporting, though. Instead, he’s partnered with RiskMetrics Group, an international risk management company, to analyze how well 21 different investment funds do when it comes to assessing climate risks.

The funds will be rated on how prepared the companies in their corporate bond portfolios are to deal with climate-change risks.  The key risks for Florida include increased hurricanes, storm surge and rising sea level. 

To evaluate the funds, RiskMetrics will be using a framework developed by the Investor Network on Climate Risk. The network was established in 2003, and its members manage more than $7 trillion in assets. 

A new study by Florida State University sets the losses associated with sea level rise projections at $6.7 billion for Florida’s Dade County alone, according to a recent story by ScienceDaily.

Currently, corporate bond investments represent $3.4 billion in the Florida Treasury’s portfolio.