Energy Resources & Access

The most recent round of UN climate negotiations ended last month in Warsaw, and the outcome was familiarly inconclusive: Nations agreed to keep negotiating and making voluntary efforts to reduce emissionsof greenhouse gases. After nineteen years of negotiations little has changed. Or has it?

California’s landmark renewable energy policy, the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS), establishes a clear blueprint for clean energy investment in the short-run: by 2020, all utilities are required to source 33 percent of their retail electricity sales from renewables. The big question now is what happens after that? What role should renewables play in California’s long-term goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050? Read more

Energy efficiency is particularly critical in affordable housing developments, says Jeremy Hays, Chief Strategist for State and Local Initiatives at Green For All, a sustainability advocacy group with offices in Oakland and Washington, D.C. According to Hays, apartment buildings built before 1970 use 55 percent more energy than those built after 1990, while low-income residents spend 400 percent more of their monthly income on utility bills than the average American.

Measuring the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of biofuels has become increasingly important in recent years. Studies have shown a significant amount of variation in biofuels made from different feedstocks. In some cases, biofuels are only marginally better than fossil fuel counterparts. In other cases, there are significant improvements in GHG performance.

Last week BBC News published the first results from a year-long project launched at London’s Science Museum in March, 2013. The study found that people were more likely to take positive steps towards reducing climate change when presented with action steps in game form rather than in the midst of a deluge of gloomy facts and figures.

The varied crowd meant Jonathan Raab, another consultant and facilitator, got sometimes conflicting results when he polled the gathering.

The Rev. Stephen Blackmer, a long-time environmental activist turned Episcopal priest, did not mince words about what he believes is coming, saying he draws a "distinction between optimism and hope." "I find very little reason to be optimistic that we will summon the will or the skill or the energy to prevent serious harm from happening to us," Blackmer told a crowd of about 50 people during the forum at the Exeter Congregational Church.

Today, President Obama issued an executive order that establishes a task force on "climate preparedness and resilience." It directs federal agencies to begin dealing with the quandaries of planning for a world of bigger storms and rising seas. The order acknowledges that the impacts of climate change "are already affecting communities, natural resources, ecosystems, economies, and public health."

Ninety health, environmental and sportsmen’s groups asked the federal government Thursday to clamp down on the release of methane gas by the petrochemical industry, asserting that the United States cannot reach its goal for reducing heat-trapping emissions without addressing the issue.