WILD

100 Days over 100 Degrees

The White House recently released an interagency report detailing potential climate impacts in the United States. The “plain language” report entitled “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” includes data up to December 2008 and is therefore more up to date than the Fourth Assessment Report compiled by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The key conclusion of the report is that human induced climate change is already impacting the United States, and that our early actions today are critical to reduce the severity of the changes we will experience in the future. The longer we wait, the harder it gets, and the worse off we are. The list of impacts predicted in the report by the end of the century under worst case scenarios is all too familiar – we’ve seen it in the IPCC reports and we’ve heard it from Al Gore: expanding dead zones in coastal marine areas, flooding, more droughts, threats to agriculture from changes in temperature and precipitation patterns, and also from disease pathogens, pests and weeds expanding their ranges, fisheries shifting northwards, decreases in freshwater availability, increases in wildfires etc. etc. Maybe one of the more dramatic pieces of information was that under the “higher emissions scenario” large parts of Texas, Arizona and California could experience over 100 days over 100 degrees by 2080. The drastic implications for wilderness and wildlife – and definitely not just polar bears – are very troubling.

We can only hope that the release of this report, along with the threat of having the Environmental Protection Agency regulate CO2 as a pollutant, is part of a concerted strategy to place increasing pressure on Congress to pass climate change legislation by the end of the summer – and for the Senate to support the new climate agreement that the U.S. will negotiate in Copenhagen this December.

Unfortunately, to date the signs are very mixed for strong climate legislation. Under H.R. 2454, The American Clean Energy and Security Act (or “ACES”) proposed by the House, the U.S. is targeting emissions reductions of 17% by 2020. By contrast, the European Union is targeting a reduction of 20% by 2020, and is willing to up that to 30% if other developed countries follow suit. The difference between 17% and 20% doesn’t seem too bad – until you consider that the EU is aiming for reductions below 1990 emissions levels, while the U.S. is only aiming for reductions below 2005 levels. Those inclined to see the glass half full argue that while the U.S. target is too low, the activities called for in the bill will in fact lower emissions considerably more – maybe to as much as 17% below 1990 levels, which would be much better, and they also point to commitments to much deeper cuts by 2050.

From a wilderness standpoint, the U.S. legislation does a good thing – it recognizes that protecting forests around the world is a great way to fight climate change. So ACES sets up an auction system for emissions permits and uses 5% of the revenue from these permits to help fight deforestation internationally. Given auction revenue is expected to be in the 60 billion dollar range, this would amount to roughly 3 billion dollars – a significant ratcheting up of the U.S. has contribution to international conservation efforts. 1% of auction revenues (scaling up to 4%) would go to helping countries adapt to the impacts of climate change, which could also involve conservation benefits if these measures involve nature-based adaptation projects.

But the U.S. is only auctioning 15% of its emissions permits. 85% will be given out for free, greatly reducing the incentive for emissions reductions. It may not be realistic politically to ask for more. But think of how much more we could do for our wilderness areas around the world, for all the people who depend on them, and to fight climate change if we set more aggressive targets and auctioned even just 30% of the emissions permits. Based on the report just released by the White House, it turns out we would benefit here in the United States as well.

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