The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) just released data on greenhouse gas emissions for 2007. The news is all bad. The levels of two major drivers of global climate change, carbon dioxide and methane, reached new record highs.
Last year alone global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, increased by 0.6 percent, or 19 billion tons. Additionally methane rose by 27 million tons after nearly a decade with little or no increase.
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Carbon dioxide - the George W. Bush of greenhouse gases
One picture is worth a thousand words.
The 2007 rise in global carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations is tied with 2005 as the third highest since atmospheric measurements began in 1958. The red line shows the trend together with seasonal variations. The black line indicates the trend that emerges when the seasonal cycle has been removed.
Our emissions of carbon dioxide have not slowed despite growing awareness that greenhouse gases threaten our existence on this planet. Not only did we hit a new record level, the rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions was among the largest on record. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. We have seen the flashing red lights at railroad crossing, but decided to hit the gas.
Viewed another way, last year’s carbon dioxide increase means 2.4 molecules of the gas were added to every million molecules of air, boosting the global concentration to nearly 385 parts per million (ppm). Pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels hovered around 280 ppm until 1850. Human activities pushed those levels up to 380 ppm by early 2006.
The rate of increase in carbon dioxide concentrations accelerated over recent decades along with fossil fuel emissions. Since 2000, annual increases of two ppm or more have been common, compared with 1.5 ppm per year in the 1980s and less than one ppm per year during the 1960s.
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According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, approximately half of all carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by vegetation, oceans, and soil, with the other half remaining free in the atmosphere to help toast our stupid asses for hundreds of years. Along with our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels, failure to protect the carbon dioxide "sinks" through deforestation and development will accelerate the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Methane - the Dick Cheney of greenhouse gases
Methane levels rose last year for the first time since 1998. Methane is 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but there’s far less of it in the atmosphere—about 1,800 parts per billion. When related climate affects are taken into account, methane’s overall climate impact is nearly half that of carbon dioxide.
Rapidly growing industrialization in Asia and rising wetland emissions in the Arctic and tropics are the most likely causes of the recent methane increase, said scientist Ed Dlugokencky from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory.
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Coal - the achilles heel of our presidential candidates
We need to put the latest data on global greenhouse gas emissions into a larger context. Coal is the biggest threat among fossil fuels when it comes to greenhouse gases. There is no such thing as "clean coal." Clean coal is a catch phrase developed by the coal and energy companies in the 1970s to signify that new plants would emit less sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, mercury, and arsenic than old plants. Greenhouse gas emissions were never part of the equation.
Clean coal has achieved new buzzword status with promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is a long way from reality. The industry - government partnership to develop sequestration technology (Futuregen) will not have functioning demonstration plants until 2015. The Bush administration just cancelled the first demonstration project plant to be built in Illinois because of cost overruns. Once developed, replacing all existing "dirty" coal-fired power plants will be expensive. Large coal reserves in the United States will provide additional pressures to ramp up coal consumption. Even if we get a handle on other fossil fuels emissions, coal will push us to the suspected "tipping point" of climate change.
Both Clinton and Obama push the idea of "clean coal."
Clinton:
I think we have got to take a hard look at clean coal. I have advocated carbon sequestration, I have advocated power plants looking for ways to use coal more cleanly and efficiently. I doubt very much that using coal in liquid form for transportation could ever pass the environmental test, but I am willing to do the research to prove one way or another.
The political pressure [to use coal] will remain intense, and I think you have got to admit that coal -- of which we have a great and abundant supply in America -- is not going away. So how do we best manage the possibility of using clean coal, but having very strict environmental standards? It is not going to do us any good if we substitute one dirty energy source for another.
Obama:
Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology: Obama will significantly increase the resources devoted to the commercialization and deployment of low-carbon coal technologies. Obama will consider whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities, to ensure that we move quickly to commercialize and deploy low carbon coal technology.
Both have made statements in coal states suggesting the need for "balance" between economic and environmental concerns when it comes to coal. Whenever balance is discussed, short-term economic considerations always win out over long-term environmental considerations. Always.
Europe provides the perfect example of the seduction of coal. The New York Times has a lengthy article on a new coal boom in Europe.
At a time when the world’s top climate experts agree that carbon emissions must be rapidly reduced to hold down global warming, Italy’s major electricity producer, Enel, is converting its massive power plant here from oil to coal, generally the dirtiest fuel on earth.
Italy’s Civitavecchia power plant is converting from oil to coal. Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent.
And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades.
I see little reason for hope that we will slow greenhouse gas emissions if coal becomes the new fossil fuels drug of choice.