Why We're Already Beginning To Solve Global Warming

Washington, D.C. -- The world just got a wonderful winter solstice present: the Energy Information Agency (EIA), the official U.S. government scorekeeper on where our energy sector is headed, has dramatically lowered its "business as usual" projections for how much CO2 the US will emit in 2030. As the Sierra Club has been saying for some time, America is already beginning to move to a lower carbon future.

EIA now estimates that, by comparison with its projections a year ago, we will reduce our 2030 emissions by 9.4%. EIA attributes most of this decline to the fact that they now believe that there will be 100 fewer coal-fired power plants in 2030 than they projected just a year ago -- more than half of the new coal plants they expected a year ago have been stopped already! The Sierra Club's Move Beyond Coal campaign, which has been leading the fight against these facilities, had scored only 85 plants as blocked, but we expect to block far more in 2009. So EIA's estimates here are, perhaps, a bit generous, but only by a few months.

"[This] reflects the behavior of investors and regulators who, in their investment evaluation process, are implicitly (or explicitly) adding a cost to many proposed power plants that employ GHG-intensive technologies. Additions of new coal-fired power plants are significantly reduced from earlier projections."

The remaining reductions in the 2030 projections come from lower emissions from cars (the higher fuel economy standards Congress has passed) and buildings (the energy efficiency provisions of the 2007 energy bill). Again, EIA did not score the savings that will result once the Obama Administration and the Courts allow California and 18 other states to proceed with emission limits on CO2 from vehicles, nor did EIA take into account the recently passed 18-20% improvement in building codes. So here they are. Significantly conservative.

What this shows is that even with George Bush in the White House, providing no leadership, citizen action and pressure at the state, local, and Congressional levels were able to begin moving America away from the catastrophic high carbon pathway it has been on. Just imagine what we ought to set as our goals now that we have a partner in Washington!

Happy holidays, everyone!

Comments

[Dr. James Singmaster]

We can not solve global warming until the public and/or political leaders recognize that all present proposals do nothing to remove one molecule of carbon dioxide from the 35% and growing overload of that gas in our biosphere. All they do is slow the adding of more of that gas to the overload.
Carl: I will e-mail directly to you a proposal sent to Change, Org. group that claims to be preparing a priority list for Obama. Perhaps you can forward your endorsement of it to the group as the proposal is for using pyrolysis on the massive ever-expanding messes of organic wastes and sewage having all kinds of germs, toxics and drugs that are getting loose to pollute water systems. I should think that Sierra Club members ought to be very concern about what is going on with those messes as EPA just held a conference on risks of drugs in drinking water.
The pyrolysis process will convert about 50% of the carbon in biochemicals in the wastes into inert charcoal for real removal of recycling carbon and destroy germs, toxics and drugs to greatly reduce water pollution problems. Dr. J. Singmaster