Category Archives: Climate Change

Canada, Climate Change, First Nation treaty rights, Fossil fuel divestment, Fossil fuels, Public Health, Tar sands crude

Scientists call for end to tar sands mining

Repost from The Guardian
[Editor: This story is also covered (with great photos) in the National Observer, “Over 100 scientists call for oil sands moratorium.”  – RS]

North American scientists call for end to tar sands mining

More than 100 US and Canadian scientists publish letter saying tar sands crude should be relegated to fuel of last resort, because it causes so much pollution
By Suzanne Goldenberg, 10 June 2015 13.14 EDT 
The Syncrude tar sand site near to Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta, Canada
The Syncrude tar sand site near to Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta, Canada | Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

More than 100 leading US and Canadian scientists called for a halt on future mining of the tar sands, saying extraction of the carbon-heavy fuel was incompatible with fighting climate change.

In a letter published on Wednesday, the researchers said tar sands crude should be relegated to a fuel of last resort, because it causes so much more carbon pollution than conventional oil.

The letter, released two days after G7 countries committed to get off fossil fuels by the end of the century, added to growing international pressure on the Canadian government, which has championed the tar sands and is failing to meet its earlier climate goals.

“If Canada wants to participate constructively in the global effort to stop climate change, we should first stop expanding the oil sands. More growth simply shows Canada has gone rogue,” Thomas Homer-Dixon, professor of governance innovation at the University of Waterloo, said in a statement.

The researchers included a Nobel prize winner, five holders of Canada’s highest national honour, and 34 researchers honoured by Canadian and US scientific societies.

The researchers said it was the first time that scientists had come out as professionals in opposition to the tar sands. The letter offered 10 reasons for the moratorium call, ranging from extraction’s impact on local First Nations communities to destruction of boreal forests and climate change, and argued that foregoing tar sands production would not hurt the economy.

They said they hoped to present those findings to Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, who has lobbied hard in Washington and European capitals for the tar sands.

“We offer a unified voice calling for a moratorium on new oil sands projects,” the scientists said in the letter.

“No new oil sands or related infrastructure projects should proceed unless consistent with an implemented plan to rapidly reduce carbon pollution, safeguard biodiversity, protect human health, and respect treaty rights.”

They said the decisions made by Canada and the US would set an important example for the international community, when it comes to fighting climate change. “The choices we make about the oil sands will reverberate globally, as other countries decide whether or how to develop their own large unconventional oil deposits,” the scientists said.

Since 2000, Canada has doubled tar sands production, and Harper has lobbied Barack Obama to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would open up new routes to market for Alberta oil.

The crash of oil prices will likely put some future projects on hold, but are unlikely to affect current production, analysts said.

The organisers of the letter said all future projects should be shelved unless Canada put in place safeguards to protect local people and environment and prevent climate change.

“The oil sands should be one of the first fuels we decide not to develop because of its carbon intensity,” said Thomas Sisk, professor of environmental science at Northern Arizona University, and one of the organisers of the letter.

“It is among the highest emitting fuels in terms of greenhouse gas emissions … If we are trying to address the climate crisis this high carbon intensive fuel should be among the first we forego as we move to an economy based around cleaner fuels.”

Researchers including Sisk first outlined reasons for opposition to the tar sands in Nature last year.

Wednesday’s intervention deepens an emerging political and economic distinction around coal and tar sands among climate campaigners.

As a fossil fuel divestment movement moves from college campuses to financial institutions, a number of prominent supporters, such as Rockefeller Brothers Fund, moved swiftly to ditch coal and tar sands holdings, but plan more gradual moves away from oil and gas.

Scientists agree that two-thirds of known fossil fuel reserves will need to stay in the ground to avoid warming above 2C, the internationally agreed threshold on catastrophic climate change.

The Guardian supports the fossil fuel divestment campaign, and has called on two of the world’s largest health charities, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, to rid its holdings of coal, oil, and gas.

Air Quality, Big Oil, California Regulation, Cap-and-trade, Carbon pricing systems, Carbon taxes, Clean energy, Climate Change, Global warming, Greenhouse gas emissions

Why U.S. oil companies clash with EU peers on global warming

Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle

Why U.S. oil companies clash with EU peers on global warming

By David R. Baker, Sunday, June 7, 2015 11:37 am
John Watson, CEO of the Chevron Corporation, speaks during an energy summit in Washington, D.C., in 2011. Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images
John Watson, CEO of the Chevron Corporation, speaks during an energy summit in Washington, D.C., in 2011. Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images

The fight against climate change has opened a trans-Atlantic rift in an industry often seen as a monolith — Big Oil.

Unwilling to sit on the sidelines of climate negotiations, Europe’s largest oil companies last month issued a joint statement calling for a worldwide price on the greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning their products. Such a price, they said, would help the global economy transition to cleaner sources of energy.

The CEOs of BP, Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Statoil and Total all signed the statement.

None of their American counterparts did.

Chevron Corp. CEO John Watson argued that his European colleagues are pushing a policy that consumers would never embrace. Focus instead on developing nuclear plants and natural gas reserves to fight global warming, he said.

“It’s not a policy that is going to be effective, because customers want affordable energy,” Watson said last week, at an OPEC seminar in Vienna. “They want low energy prices, not high energy prices.”

The split, analysts say, reflects the stark divide between climate politics in Europe and the United States.

Europe already has a cap-and-trade system for setting a price on greenhouse gas emissions. Public debate over global warming revolves around how best to fight it, not whether it exists.

In the United States, many conservatives still insist that warming is either a natural phenomenon or an outright hoax perpetrated by scientists, environmentalists and their political allies. Pricing carbon is a nonstarter for most Republicans in Washington, who are trying to block President Obama’s climate regulations. An effort to create a nationwide cap-and-trade system died in 2010, in part due to opposition from oil- and coal-producing states.

“The domestic politics for the U.S. companies is different from what it is for the Europeans,” said Raymond Kopp, a senior fellow with the Resources for the Future think tank. “Right now, this is a difficult conversation for them to have domestically.”

And that’s assuming they want to have it all.

Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson has expressed support for a tax on greenhouse gas emissions but hasn’t pushed for it. The company formerly supported groups that questioned the scientific consensus on warming. Billionaires Charles and David Koch, whose wealth comes largely from oil and gas, have poured money into the campaigns of political candidates who oppose action on climate change. The Koch brothers have announced plans to spend $889 million during the 2016 election cycle.

California policies

And while Chevron’s home base lies in the only U.S. state with a full-scale cap-and-trade program — California — the company has often criticized the state’s climate-change policies, warning they could push energy prices higher.

Last month’s statement from the European oil CEOs, in contrast, brands climate change “a critical challenge for our world” that must be tackled immediately. The executives urge governments that haven’t already done so to start putting a price on carbon.

The statement, issued as an open letter to two top international climate negotiators, is notably silent on whether the companies prefer a tax on greenhouse gas emissions or a cap-and-trade system. Such systems — including California’s, which began in 2012 — force businesses to buy credits for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit.

The CEOs make clear, however, that they eventually want a worldwide price.

“Pricing carbon obviously adds a cost to our production and our products,” they write. “But carbon pricing policy frameworks will contribute to provide our businesses and their many stakeholders with a clear roadmap for future investment, a level playing field for all energy sources across geographies and a clear role in securing a more sustainable future.”

Natural gas strategy

The CEOs also hint at how their companies could thrive in such a future, by producing more natural gas and investing in renewable technology. Indeed, the companies already have extensive natural gas holdings, analysts noted.

“If you’re on the board of directors of an oil company, you have to be asking yourself, ‘What’s our future in a low-carbon world?’ And with this letter, I think you see these companies trying to figure it out,” said Ralph Cavanagh, energy program co-director for the Natural Resources Defense Council environmental group.

Chevron and Exxon have also invested heavily in natural gas, which when burned in power plants produces roughly half the greenhouse gas emissions of coal. Regulations limiting emissions, including the Obama administration’s effort to cut emissions from power plants, could help them.

“I can’t imagine that Exxon or Chevron, which are companies that would benefit from a shift to natural gas, would be privately opposed to the Clean Power Plan,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, director of the energy and sustainability program at UC Davis.

Air Quality, Clean Power SF, Climate Change, Community Choice Aggregation, Marin Clean Energy

California Public utility & electrical workers running misinformation campaign

[Editor:  My home town, Benicia, California, has elected to join Marin Clean Energy as its electricity provider of choice.  Under California law, the current public utility, Pacific Gas and Electricity (PGE) now must compete with “Community Choice Aggregations” (CCA’s).   This week, a major regional supporter of PGE, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) sent out mailers to homes in Benicia full of misinformation.  The following letter from the MCE staff to their Board of Directors helps sift through the misinformation and the history behind it.  – RS]

Repost from an email, Thu 6/4/2015 11:49 AM

Dear all,

We just circulated the below email to our board regarding the misinformation campaign.  It provides context for the flyer and IBEW’s opposition to public power agencies.   Please feel free to use this information on NextDoor or in any other communications.  And let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you again for your support!

Best,
Allison

Allison Hang
MCE Account Manager
www.mceCleanEnergy.org 

From: Jamie Tuckey [mailto:jtuckey@mcecleanenergy.org] Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2015 10:54 AM
Subject: Misinformation Campaign Circulating Against MCE

Dear MCE Board of Directors,

On Monday the IBEW 1245 (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) issued the attached press release and proposed San Francisco ballot measure to stifle efforts to launch Clean Power SF (San Francisco’s proposed community choice aggregation program). The press release accuses MCE of falsely advertising our power as green, citing that we purchase brown, fossil-fuel power from Shell Oil and market it as green power. The information being distributed by the IBEW is misleading and confusing and seems designed to generate an emotional response from consumers to halt any further competition against PG&E.

Yesterday the attached mailer from the IBEW 1245, which makes similar arguments as the press release and encourages customers to opt out of MCE, was distributed in Richmond and Benicia. We are unaware of any mailers going out in our other member communities.

It is worth pointing out that while IBEW leadership has chosen to use the dues of their members for misinformation mailers in MCE communities where there is choice in power suppliers, and for a ballot initiative in a community that is seeking to allow choice, it is unlikely that the hundreds of IBEW workers who built solar and wind projects for MCE in the last year would vote in favor of that use of their dues.

Please see the information below that clears up the misinformation and provides insight as to why the IBEW would do this.

Facts to explain and respond to the IBEW ballot Initiative and misleading mailer:

What is the IBEW?

  • The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245 is a very large union whose members perform electrical work, such as power line maintenance, across California and Nevada. Of their 18,000 member employees, approximately 2/3 are employed by PG&E.

What is the intent of the IBEW’s San Francisco ballot initiative?

  • The IBEW’s ballot initiative is attempting to rewrite the definition of renewable energy so that no out of state supply would qualify as renewable. However, their proposed changes would not limit PG&E from marketing nuclear power as ‘green’.
  • The IBEW wishes to promote California sources of renewable energy because it wishes to promote jobs for its members.  While this is valuable, it should be presented in a clear way and should be considered together with the other goals of a power portfolio, such as greenhouse gas content, public safety, price and local economic benefits.

Why is the IBEW marketing against Clean Power SF and MCE?

  • The IBEW and its primary employer, PG&E, have demonstrated a strong interest in maintaining the power supply structure of the past which was centralized and controlled by a monopoly.
  • PG&E has a history of using misinformation and dollars, and the California ballot initiative process to confuse customers.

o   http://www.localcleanenergy.org/powergrab

  • The IBEW has a history of using misinformation and legal threats to stop municipalization and community choice across California. While IBEW 1245 claims that they are not opposed to community choice programs, they have opposed every community choice or municipalization effort in the last 15 years that might fracture PG&E, including:

o   Opposition to San Francisco municipalization efforts in 2001-2002

o   Opposition to SMUD expansion into Yolo County in 2006

o   Opposition to San Joaquin CCA efforts in 2007

o   Opposition to CleanPowerSF in 2013 and onward

o   Opposition to Sonoma Clean Power in 2014

o   Opposition to Davis Municipalization in 2014

o   Financing 2014 campaigns of politicians who will oppose CCA

o   … and of course, current hostility towards MCE

  • The IBEW has pushed aggressively for jobs even when it means squeezing out other trades and local labor from renewable projects by insisting their electricians have a monopoly on work, even unpacking and carrying solar panels across the work site.

Does MCE support unions and local jobs?

  • Yes. As of December 31, 2014, MCE’s contracted power projects have supported more than 2,400 California jobs.
  • MCE has adopted a Sustainable Workforce Policy that supports union labor, fair wages, local labor and apprenticeship programs.
  • In the last year 750,000 union work hours have been invested in MCE renewable projects.
  • MCE has contracted more than $200,000 with RichmondBUILD, the Marin City Community Development Corporation, and Rising Sun Energy Center to train and provide workers to help implement energy upgrades for our energy efficiency programs.
  • MCE has contracted with Schneider Electricto employ IBEW union workers that install energy efficiency load-control devices for MCE customer homes under the My Energy Insightprogram.
  • MCE’s first local solar feed-in tariff project at the San Rafael Airport was built with a local development and design team, local labor, and workforce trainees from the Marin City Community Development Corporation.
  • MCE’s largest local solar project in development requires prevailing wage and local labor, and MCE is working with RichmondBUILD to ensure locally trained workers are employed for the project.

What is MCE’s relationship with Shell? Where does MCE get its power?  

  • Shell Energy North America (SENA) is one of 14 power suppliers that MCE has contracts with. MCE entered into a contract with SENA in 2010 because, of the options that we had available, they allowed us to launch service with the highest amount of renewable energy and were the only company to offer stable rates.
  • The contract with SENA is scheduled to terminate at the end of 2017. As we approach that time, more of our energy comes from other suppliers and less of our energy purchases come from SENA.
  • All of MCE’s long-term contracts (5-25 years) are with non-SENA providers and are for renewable energy supply in California.

Does MCE ‘slam’ customers? What is ‘slamming’?

  • No, MCE does not ‘slam’ customers, but starts service for customers according to state law.
  • The term “slamming” is used to get an emotional response and refers to an illegal practice of switching a consumers transitional wireline telephone company for another service without permission. It was a contentious issue in the late 80s when telephone companies would falsely notify another telephone company that their customer had elected to switch their service.

What is a REC?

  • A Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) is created when one megawatt-hour of renewable energy is generated and added to the electric grid. As the US Environmental Protection Agency describes it, “The REC product is what conveys the attributes and benefits of the renewable electricity, not the electricity itself.”
  • All energy companies in California must use RECs to track and report any renewable energy purchase made.
  • A REC can be purchased ‘bundled’ together with the corresponding electrons or ‘unbundled’ representing the green attribute of the power but without the corresponding electrons.
  • Many unbundled RECs purchased in California correspond to power produced out of state.
  • The IBEW has argued that bundled renewables do not have RECs and represent real power reaching customers’ homes and businesses – make no mistake that bundled renewable resources are also tracked via RECs. The bundled renewables are loaded onto the grid but customers receive substitute power at their homes and businesses based on the most proximal resources. This is the nature of the electric grid and energy markets.
  • The IBEW’s concerns about the usage of unbundled RECs appear to be limited to programs competing with their primary employer, PG&E. Power providers across the state, including PG&E, have long used unbundled RECs in far greater volumes than are used by MCE.

Does MCE use RECs?

  • Yes. In 2014, 30% of MCE’s power supply was from unbundled RECs, mostly sourced from wind farms in the pacific northwest (such as Oregon and Washington State), and 27% of MCE’s power supply was from bundled REC purchases from renewable energy produced in California.
  • In 2015, MCE’s unbundled REC purchases will reduce to 15% of its power supply and bundled, in-state purchases will increase to 35%. This increase is caused by new California renewable energy projects becoming operational for MCE in 2015 as described below. This transition to new California supply has been planned and in progress since MCE’s launch.

Fact: MCE buys California power and supports new power development.

  • MCE buys power in California through many suppliers.
  • MCE has committed $515.9 million to 195 MW of new California renewable energy projects. This includes $353.9 million for solar, $44.7 million for wind, and $117.2 million for waste-to-energy projects.
  • Attached is the current list of all California renewable resources currently under contract with MCE. Some projects that have already come online including:

o   RE Kansas, 20 MW Solar, King County, operational in December 2014

o   Cottonwood, 23 MW Solar, Kern County, operational in May 2015

o   Rising Tree, 99 MW Wind, Kern County, operational in May 2015

Fact: MCE offers more renewable and greenhouse gas free content than PG&E.

  • MCE’s greenhouse gas emissions are lower than PG&E and MCE’s renewable content is higher than PG&E.  Both have been true since MCE’s launch five years ago.
  • Since May 2010, MCE customers have reduced more than 59,421 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to:

o   removing 12,500 cars from the road for one year,

o   the carbon sequestered by 48,705 acres of U.S. forests in one year, or

o   eliminating the energy use of 5,422 homes for one year.

Fact: MCE offers lower rates.

  • MCE has saved customers over $6 million due to lower rates and offers programs to help customers save even more on energy bills.

Fact: MCE is creating demand for local renewable energy projects.

To date, 5 new local renewable projects are under contract with MCE. These include:

    • 1 MW solar project in San Rafael (San Rafael Airport)
    • 10.5 MW solar project in Richmond (Chevron brownfield)
    • 1.5 MW solar project in Novato (Cooley Quarry)
    • 1 MW solar project in Novato (Buck Institute)
    • 4 MW landfill waste-to-energy project in Novato (Redwood Landfill)

—

Jamie Tuckey
MCE Director of Public Affairs
mceCleanEnergy.org

Air Quality, Carbon pricing systems, Climate Change, Oil producers, United Nations

Why You Should Be Skeptical Of Big Oil Companies Asking For A Price On Carbon

Repost from ClimateProgress

Why You Should Be Skeptical Of Big Oil Companies Asking For A Price On Carbon

By Emily Atkin, June 3, 2015 at 4:19 pm

Shell, Statoil, Total, and BP were four of six companies to request a price on carbon be included in international policy frameworks. Six large European oil and gas companies are asking governments across the world to charge them for the carbon dioxide they emit.

In a letter released Monday, Shell, BP, Total, Statoil, Eni, and the BG Group told the chief of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that a price on carbon “should be a key element” of an international agreement to address global climate change. The letter came while U.N. negotiators met in Bonn, Germany to work towards that agreement.

For those who want to fight climate change, this is good news. But it’s not totally unprecedented. Other high-emitting companies, including Shell, have expressed support for a carbon price before. And big oil companies have been expecting some sort of carbon price for a long time — the biggest ones have already incorporated it into their business plans. Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, BP, Shell; they’re all financially prepared for a carbon price if and when it comes their way.

That more and more oil companies are now actively calling for a carbon price, though, is good for the climate fight. Total, BP, Statoil, and Royal Dutch Shell are all among the 90 companies causing the vast majority of global warming via their exorbitant carbon emissions. Now, they’re acknowledging they want to at least pay for some of those emissions, and that seems like a positive development.

At the same time, it’s not like any of those six companies are halting their plans to drill. They haven’t recognized the science that says two-thirds of all proven fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground to avoid catastrophic warming. Shell is still planning to explore for oil in the Arctic; BP just recently expanded its operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

More importantly, though — at least in terms of getting a carbon price in the final U.N. climate deal — the European companies that signed the letter wield little power within the U.S. Congress compared to other big oil companies. This matters because the terms of that deal will almost certainly have to be approved by Congress if it is to include an enforceable price on carbon. Under U.S. law, any international agreement that binds or prohibits the United States from actions not otherwise mandated by law must be ratified by Congress.

BP, Statoil, and Total might be actively calling for a carbon tax, but the three biggest U.S. oil companies — ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips — aren’t. (ExxonMobil says they would prefer a carbon tax to a cap-and-trade system, but they don’t outright support it). And those U.S. companies are spending much more to influence Congress than the letter-writing companies on campaign donations and lobbying.

Contributions include donations from company employees, PACs, and soft money contributions.
Contributions include donations from company employees, PACs, and soft money contributions. CREDIT: Patrick Smith

To be fair, European companies have more restrictions on how much they can give than U.S.-based companies do. But not only are the biggest U.S. companies spending far more to influence U.S. politics, their money is going to politicians who are actively fighting efforts to price carbon in the United States.

During the 2014 election, for example, the biggest receiver of funds from ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips was former Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA). Landrieu marketed herself, among other things, as the “key vote” that made sure a carbon pricing system wasn’t implemented by Congress in 2010. Other candidates supported by those three companies were John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Mark Begich, John Cornyn — all have said they oppose a price on carbon.

In fact, the Republican party as a whole in the United States is opposed to policies that price carbon. Though it says nothing about a carbon tax, the last official Republican party platform touts opposition to “any and all cap-and-trade legislation.” Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of all oil company campaign contributions is going to Republicans.

oillobby (1)
Oil Lobby CREDIT: Patrick Smith

There are other reasons to be skeptical of any big oil company fighting for a price on carbon. For one, some companies have said they would support a carbon tax, but only if they can avoid other climate-related regulations. As David Roberts pointed out for Grist back in 2012, “the fossil fuel lobby would never give a carbon tax their OK unless EPA regulations on carbon (and possibly other pollution regs) were scrapped.” It’s also reasonable to assume that oil companies see profits increasing in the markets for low-carbon natural gas while the high-emitting coal industry tanks, and realize that coal would be hurt far worse by the policy.

In other words, it is great that some of the world’s biggest contributors to climate change want to be charged for the carbon they emit. But we still have a long way to go before big oil actually joins the fight.