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GREENS PRESSURE NEWS NETWORKS TO CALL CLIMATE CHANGE A ‘CRISIS’: Environmental groups are launching a new campaign to put pressure on all major news networks to begin referring to climate change as a “crisis” or emergency.
The groups, including Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Hip Hop Caucus and others, sent a letter Thursday to the heads of Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN to update their language in describing climate change to their viewers.
“We are urging you to call the dangerous overheating of our planet and the lack of action to stop it what it is — a crisis — and to cover it like one,” the letter to the network CEOs read.
The effort came on the heels of the Spanish-language news network Telemundo updating its editorial guidelines on Thursday to begin referring to climate change as an “emergency.” The Guardian, a U.K.-based left-leaning newspaper, was the first publication to say it would begin referring to climate change as the “climate crisis” a month ago.
The groups said there is a need for urgency in reporting on global warming due to “an alarming disconnect” between the “dire warnings” of the scientific community and how U.S. citizens perceive the issue, the letter said.
The groups refer to new polling from Yale and George Mason University that show 56% of Americans hear about climate change once a month from the media. Another 27% say they hear reports on the issue throughout the year, but not on a consistent basis.
The universities’ climate polling organizations also called on the networks to begin more consistent reporting on the issue.
The environmental groups said in the letter that earlier polling from Yale showed only 29% of Americans say they are very worried about climate change.
Moving toward the 2020 election: The issue of climate change has struggled to become a top issue going into presidential election seasons. In 2016, it was barely touched upon in debates, and did not rise to become a central issue in anyone’s campaign.
This election season might be different — but not different enough for the Democratic National Committee to have a debate solely focused on climate change. Democratic presidential contender Jay Inslee, who called for the climate debate, said the committee told him Wednesday that it wouldn’t host such a debate. The committee also said he would be barred from other debates if he participated in an outside climate debate.
“You can’t make up much ground on this issue in my opinion because all leading [Democrats] are different only by small measure, and when we get to general [election], there won’t be much focus on it because most Americans really don’t care,” said Frank Maisano, head of the policy group at Bracewell Law in Washington. Maisano has tracked how the issue stacked up in the last election, and sees only marginal improvement from 2016 going into the 2020 election cycle.
Maisano tells John that climate falls slightly below the list of issues he is tracking, but it is tacking upward from the previous presidential election.
During the 2018 midterm elections, climate change was the 11th issue on a list of concerns by voters, just missing the top 10 spot and falling far below the top three issues of healthcare, the economy, and immigration, according to the pollster Gallup.
Gallup showed that 75% of Democrats thought climate change was an important issue in the midterms, while only 27% of Republicans found it a concern.
More recent polling done for CNN showed 96% of Democrats think the U.S. should take action to curb global warming.
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CARBON IMPORT TAX PROPOSED BY BIDEN AND INSLEE WOULD BE UNWORKABLE, ECONOMISTS WARN: Presidential candidates Joe Biden and Inslee both took a shot at China and other heavy-polluting countries this week by releasing climate change plans that would tax imports of carbon-intensive goods.
But economists warn such a policy, known as a border carbon adjustment, would be unworkable unless the U.S. imposed a carbon tax on its own domestic goods. Neither Biden, the former vice president, nor Inslee, Washington’s governor, has proposed a carbon tax.
“In a world without a carbon tax, we would basically be saying we are applying this somewhat arbitrary tax to your goods even though we’re not applying it to our goods,” Noah Kaufman, an economist at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told Josh. “I can’t see other countries taking that well.”
The big problems: Economists, however, say there are two primary problems with imposing a border carbon adjustment — meant to protect the competitiveness of domestic industries — without a domestic tax on carbon emissions.
The first is an accounting question: It would be difficult to come up with a fair rate at which to tax imports without a domestic carbon tax as a point of comparison.
The second problem, economists said, is a border carbon adjustment without a U.S. carbon tax could run afoul of the World Trade Organization rules.
“It’s hard to get to where you can defend a border carbon adjustment system especially at the WTO that has a lot of rules on being fair and not prejudicial,” said Catrina Rorke, vice president at the Climate Leadership Council.
AUTOMAKERS MAKE LAST PUSH TO STOP TRUMP’S ‘CLEAN CAR’ ROLLBACK: Leading U.S. automakers are making an 11th-hour push to stop the Trump administration from dramatically weakening Obama-era fuel efficiency standards, warning doing so would bring “untenable” uncertainty and lead to drawn-out litigation.
In a letter to President Trump, 17 companies, including Ford, General Motors, Toyota and Volvo, urged his administration to return to the negotiating table with California to find a compromise solution. The companies also sent a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, requesting the same thing.
“Automakers share the environmental idealism of California and the economic pragmatism of the administration in Washington,” said Gloria Bergquist, a vice president at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing major automakers. “Choosing one or the other is neither necessary nor prudent. It’s a false choice. Somewhere between the two is a workable compromise that appropriately balances both of these crucial obligations.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler previously told Josh the Trump administration won’t compromise on its final proposal to be introduced this summer, and will move to revoke a waiver granted to California and other states to set tougher fuel efficiency rules.
TRUMP’S KEYSTONE XL COURT VICTORY MAY BE SHORT-LIVED: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought by environmentalists to block the Keystone XL pipeline, ruling that the lawsuit was moot because of a new permit Trump issued in March.
Trump had issued the new permit after a lower court in Montana ruled that the environmental review under the original pipeline permit done by the State Department was inadequate.
Trump issued a new presidential permit in an attempt to defeat the court ruling in the appeals court, an effort that appears to have worked.
But the victory may be short-lived, as tribal groups already sued in April to block the new permit. TC Energy, the company building the pipeline, recently told investors that it does not plan to begin construction in 2019.
Environmental groups also said they would begin looking for other legal means to hobble the pipeline.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG GIVES $500M TO CAMPAIGN TO KILL COAL AND WOUND NATURAL GAS: Former New York City mayor and climate change crusader Michael Bloomberg announced Friday he is giving $500 million to a campaign to finish killing coal and start killing oil and gas.
“The largest coordinated campaign to tackle climate change” ever to occur in the U.S., Bloomberg says, aims to close all of the nation’s coal plants by 2030, and put the country on track discontinue fossil fuel use altogether.
A tougher task: The campaign, called “Beyond Carbon,” is an expansion of the “Beyond Coal” campaign that Bloomberg has partnered on with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups that has helped retire more than half the nation’s coal plants, 289 out of 530, since it began in 2010.
But while Beyond Coal has benefited from piggybacking off coal’s existing market-driven economic challenges, Bloomberg will have a harder time with his secondary goal of preventing the construction of new gas plants.
It’s natural gas, which emits half the carbon of coal, that has mostly replaced coal in the electricity sector.
Natural gas was the fastest-growing energy source in the world last year, according to a new International Energy Agency report (read more below).
GLOBAL NATURAL GAS DEMAND CONTINUES TO RISE: Natural gas accounted for 45% of worldwide energy consumption growth in 2018, driven by strong demand from Asian countries — primarily China — and an increase in liquified natural gas (LNG) trade.
Demand for natural gas grew 4.6% in 2018, its fastest annual pace since 2010, and is projected to increase more than 10% over the next five years, according to the IEA’s annual market report released Friday. The U.S. is set to meet that demand as it becomes a top-three exporter of LNG.
Fatih Birol, IEA’s executive director, credited natural gas with helping limit the rise in carbon emissions, but said its continued use means the industry must do better to prevent leaks of methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon.
While power generation remains the largest consumer of natural gas, industrial use of gas for chemicals and feedstock are the biggest drivers of growth, expected to account for almost half the rise in global consumption over the next five years.
MANCHIN REFUSES TO ENDORSE SENATE PARIS DEAL BILL: Sen. Joe Manchin refused to join the rest of the Democratic caucus in co-sponsoring a bill introduced Thursday barring Trump from using federal funds to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord.
Manchin, D-W.V., the coal state top Democrat of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he held out on backing the bill because he “never believed the Paris Agreement created a level playing field amongst nations.”
“I believe climate change is an urgent threat we must address,” Manchin said in a statement explaining his decision. “That is why I am focused on bipartisan proposals that allow for U.S. leadership on climate science and technology.”
The Senate legislation is a companion to a bill passed by the Democratically-controlled House last month. All House Democrats backed that bill. It likely won’t advance in the GOP-led Senate.
The Rundown
Reuters US tightens Venezuela oil sanctions, indicates more actions to come
Bloomberg Saudis ‘sure’ of OPEC+ cuts extension after talks with Russia
Houston Chronicle Carbon removal machines entice politicians, even as cost projections run high
Calendar
SATURDAY | June 8
1 p.m., Omni Shoreham hotel. The non-partisan Citizens Climate Lobby holds its monthly call with advisory board member Dr. Shi-Ling Hsu open to the public. Hsu is Associate Dean at Florida State University College of Law.
MONDAY | June 10
9 a.m., Philadelphia. The Edison Electric Institute, representing the investor-owned utility industry, holds its 2019 annual convention in Philadelphia, June 10-11.
TUESDAY | June 11
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee holds a hearing with former EPA administrators Lee Thomas, William Reilly, Christine Todd Whitman, and Gina McCarthy testifying.
THURSDAY | June 13
10 a.m., 366 Dirksen. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to examine the outlook for wildland fire and management programs for 2019.
