“We’re on the cusp of a clean energy revolution,” says the voice on Clean Energy Ministerial site. The biggest corporations used to be tobacco, alcohol, fossil fuels; now they are Google, Facebook, Apple and all have committed to 100% renewal energy asap. The global economic and energy landscape is indeed changing and its not all bleak!
Wow! Hope is a thing with feathers, said Emily Dickenson. For me, it’s the reasoning voice of Michael Krasny and friends on KQED’s Forum, largest audience for NPR across the nation; just now hearing about the 7th Clean Energy Ministerial, taking place in SF June 1-5. So Michael Krasny invited Michael Brune, Ex. Dir., Sierra Club, and Danny Kennedy, CA Clean Energy, to bring the picture of what can move forward through this gathering. It’s a furthering of the legal committment of 55 countries and participation of 196 countries in the Paris Climate talks known as COP21 last Dec.*
Micheal Brune says we need to focus on going 100% electric asap – commit to less car and plane travel; replace whatever with electric alternative energy sources – solar, wind, whatever works. Don’t even have to talk coal or keep fossil fuels in the ground; just focus on replacement with electric – but what about our infrastructure? Well, one crisis at a time?
So there was criticism of our leader, Jerry Brown, of course responsible for CA Conservation Corps and for bringing hope to the Paris Climate talks. Recall a UN rep. saying if the world would just follow CA’s example, climate crisis could be reversed. Perhaps an overstatement? But we ARE making fast progress it seems, even if we can fault Jerry for NOT banning fracking and NOT jumping on the NO COAL SHIPMENTS THROUGH OAKLAND issues. We do hope he gets around to these and takes the only logical position (ban fracking; ban shipping coal through Oakland’s major shipping facilities).
I am encouraged by Michael Brune’s letting us know Germany is calling on its energy companies to pay for storage/disposal of nuclear wastes – of all related wastes – as that country moves away from nuclear energy due to high costs and the huge challenge of disposal of wastes. And the idea that recycling and disposal costs should always be part of the real cost of energy, of goods, is core to the whole picture and needs to be core to our own economy. Buy a car – pay for recycling parts; buy a refrigerator; pay for reuse or disposal of these big, heavy, polluting objects up front – poof! Tragic piles of useless garbage turned into useful goods. Not easy but way to go.
The Forum program via Twitter: KQED Forum (@KQEDForum) 43 mins ago – View on Twitter
ON AIR: The biggest gathering on #clilmatechange since last year’s Paris meeting is happening in SF. Listen at kqed.org/listenlive.
Clean Energy Ministerial – CEM7
www.cleanenergyministerial.org/News/tag/43051/CEM7
San Francisco, California, will host the seventh Clean Energy Ministerial … The 21st United Nations climate conference (COP21) in Paris brought the … says CEM7 an opportunity for follow-up action to advance clean energy revolution. U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today …
*(WIKIPEDIA on Paris COP21 conference) The conference negotiated the Paris Agreement, a global agreement on the reduction of climate change, the text of which represented a consensus of the representatives of the 196 parties attending it.[2] The agreement will become legally binding if joined by at least 55 countries which together represent at least 55 percent of global greenhouse emissions.[3][4][5] On 22 April 2016 (Earth Day), 174 countries signed the agreement in New York[6], and began adopting it within their own legal systems (through ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession).
According to the organizing committee at the outset of the talks,[7] the expected key result was an agreement to set a goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (°C) compared to pre-industrial levels. The agreement calls for zero net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to be reached during the second half of the 21st century. In the adopted version of the Paris Agreement,[3] the parties will also “pursue efforts to” limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.[2] The 1.5 °C goal will require zero emissions sometime between 2030 and 2050, according to some scientists.[2]
Prior to the conference, 146 national climate panels publicly presented draft national climate contributions (called “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions”, INDCs). These suggested commitments were estimated to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100.[8] For example, the EU suggested INDC is a commitment to a 40 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to 1990.[9] The agreement establishes a “global stocktake” which revisits the national goals to “update and enhance” them every five years beginning 2023.[3] However, no detailed timetable or country-specific goals for emissions were incorporated into the Paris Agreement – as opposed to the previous Kyoto Protocol. (OUCH.)
Me again: Don’t despair; spring has sprung; we get the fruits born by El Nino rains – and some serious folk are working night and day so we can continue to reap the rewards of living in the luxury of Northern California.