with Paulina Firozi
The U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent federal agency that monitors energy use, is projecting a reversal of trends that seem like progress. Since the mid-2000s, annual U.S. carbon emissions have crept down as coal plants close and more fuel-efficient cars make their way to the road.
The new report, released as part of the agency's “Annual Energy Outlook,” projects carbon dioxide emissions from the power and transportation sectors to continue to fall through the current decade as the cost of solar and wind energy declines and as states implement tighter renewable energy requirements. Yet it predicts emissions will resume “modest growth” in the following decade.
There are several reasons for this. The biggest source of future growth for carbon emissions is heavy industry, which EIA modeling suggests will come to increasingly rely on cheap natural gas.
And the string of closures of coal-fired power plants over the past several years will come to a halt as all of the oldest and most uneconomic ones are taken offline, causing emissions from electricity generation to plateau after years of decline.
“We are seeing shallow decarbonization in the power sector with the big shift to gas and away from coal,” said David G. Victor, an international relations professor at the University of California at San Diego. “But in a few years that well runs dry and EIA projects that electricity emissions will stop falling. That will be a watershed for the U.S.A. because the one sector that accounts for nearly all of the progress the country has made on emissions — however scant — has been from the power sector.”
And without any new rules requiring automakers to produce more efficient cars and light trucks, emissions from the transportation sector will begin ticking up in the 2030s, too. Not helping the transportation emissions situation is the Trump administration, which is trying to weaken mileage standards for new vehicles through model year 2026, a move backed by the petroleum industry but opposed by California and other left-leaning states.
In a news conference announcing the report, Energy Information Administration chief Linda Capuano cautioned their work “is a projection, not a prediction.”
Ernest Moniz, former energy secretary under President Barack Obama, said the report underscores the need for massive government research for a hard-to-decarbonize industrial sector, including investing in technologies that convert electricity into clean-burning hydrogen fuel for factories or that capture carbon before it reaches smokestacks.
“Their outlook is based on no policy change and no major technology breakthrough. So it's basically business as usual, and it's no surprise that there is no large carbon emissions reduction in that scenario,” he said.
By 2050, annual emissions will be 4 percent lower than 2019 levels, according to the EIA modeling. In contrast, the world's top climate scientists, in a major U.N. report in November, said global greenhouse gas emissions must begin falling by 7.6 percent each year starting in 2020 to meet the aims of the 2015 Paris climate accord, an international agreement in which nations volunteered to reduce emissions.
Neither the United States nor the rest of the world is cutting greenhouse gas emissions anywhere near that rate. In fact, global greenhouse gas emissions rose slightly in 2019 to hit another record high, according to an estimate last month from the Global Carbon Project.
And to boot, President Trump has promised to pull the United States out of the accord by the end of 2020.
For environmentalists, there is at least one bright spot: The EIA projects electricity generation from renewable sources to surpass that from natural gas sometime during the 2040s, even after the current federal subsidies for wind and solar energy expire.
But the report's findings have political implications: It shows the enormous challenge that would face a Democrat, should one win the White House this year, in curbing climate change.
Nearly every candidate seeking the Democratic nomination for president has called for achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by at least the middle of the century. Former vice president Joe Biden vowed to end coal, oil and gas leasing on public lands; Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) go further by calling for bans on fracking and fossil fuel exports.
“This projection of relentless climate pollution is nothing short of terrifying,” said Jean Su of the Center for Biological Diversity’s energy justice program. “With Trump officials crippling emissions rules, climate-friendly lawmakers must build support for truly bold policies that avert the bleak future predicted by the EIA.”
POWER PLAYS
— Trump signs USMCA: The president signed his revamped trade agreement, called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which “creates new environmental and labor standards for the countries, while also giving farmers greater access to Canadian markets and ensuring car companies have to use a higher share of parts within North America in their production, among other changes,” The Post’s Jeff Stein reports. At a signing ceremony, which included no Democratic lawmakers, Trump called it a “cutting edge, state-of-the-art agreement that protects and defends the people of our country.”
- Reminder: “Many of the nation’s leading environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters, also blasted the agreement as failing to address climate change and helping 'corporate polluters,' " Stein adds.
— An infrastructure plan with climate ambitions: Democratic lawmakers released the outline of a $760 billion infrastructure plan that includes a focus on climate change. But the proposal doesn’t include details about how to fund the five-year infrastructure package that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged was a “big step, and a major expense,” Politico reports.
- The details: “The framework that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats released Wednesday includes an amalgamation of existing highway, transit and water legislation, of the type that Congress passes every few years, as well as new efforts to boost the availability of broadband internet and help communities counter the effects of climate change.”
- But: “The Democratic plan's climate focus could present significant obstacles to getting Republicans on board, however. On Tuesday, Republicans on the House Transportation Committee issued their own infrastructure principles, which mentioned a desire for more project and permit streamlining but nothing about climate goals.”
— Another new climate plan: Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released text of a draft climate bill that aims to decarbonize the U.S. economy within three decades. The draft with new plans to address greenhouse gas emissions also “relies on decades of existing environmental law to push the federal government's climate efforts to the limit,” E&E News reports.
- The details: “The more than 600-page draft of the "Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation's (CLEAN) Future Act” would establish plenty of initiatives — such as a federal clean energy standard and a national climate bank — and provide massive new funding authorizations,” per the report. “…But much of the bill would reauthorize existing programs at more ambitious funding levels, or play around with current regulatory authority to push agencies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and EPA to go further, rather than creating new authorities and programs.”
— Sanders releases plan to address PFAS chemicals: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), along with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a bill that would designate polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances, better known as PFAS, as hazardous substances and would also allow the EPA to offer cleanup grants for households and communities looking to filter the toxic compounds from drinking water.
- To quote: “As hundreds of communities across the country are dealing with toxic PFAS contamination in their drinking water, it is unconscionable that huge corporations like DuPont have, for decades, concealed evidence of how dangerous these compounds are in order to keep profiting at the expense of human health,” Sanders said in a statement. “Congress must pass this legislation to put an end to corporate stonewalling and criminal behavior and tackle this public health crisis.”
NEW: More than 55 scientists sign letter supporting @BernieSanders' climate plan #GreenNewDeal pic.twitter.com/xfRvjei7st
— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) January 28, 2020
— Dozens of scientists back Sanders’s Green New Deal: A group of 57 scientists signed a letter of support backing Sanders's sweeping Green New Deal. The campaign unveiled the list of supporters after former vice president Joe Biden declared that “not a single solitary scientist thinks it can work” during a campaign stop in New Hampshire last week.
- What they say: “The Green New Deal you are proposing is not only possible, but it must be done if we want to save the planet for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and future generations,” the scientists write in the letter. “Not only does your Green New Deal follow the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s] timeline for action, but the solutions you are proposing to solve our climate crisis are realistic, necessary, and backed by science. We must protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the planet we call home.”
- More to know: “The Sunrise Movement, the youth-led grassroots group that’s campaigned for a Green New Deal and endorsed Sanders for president earlier this month, is helping lead the signature campaign,” HuffPost reports.
— Movement within the Energy Department: Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette is making some changes to the agency, including shifting a policy office under the direction of the undersecretary of energy to be under his direction, E&E News reports. He also named Benjamin Reinke, one of his key advisers on nuclear issues and a former Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staffer, to be the executive director, and moved the executive director as well as the principal deputy director to other offices in the department.
- Why it matters: “The changes are the most significant yet for Brouillette, who last month succeeded Rick Perry in the job. The changes appear similar to a policy shop launched in 2013 by Obama-era Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who created an Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis and stocked it with talent from the climate and energy arenas.”
— Investors urge companies to ignore Trump rollbacks: A group of investors that represent almost $113 billion in assets sent a letter to 58 energy, mining and timber companies including Chevron and ExxonMobil calling on them to decline to take advantage of the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks, Reuters reports. The investors wrote that doing so would put them and the companies at “significant risk of public backlash and stranded assets, should these actions be legally challenged or protections be restored by the courts or by future administrations.” It’s the latest move by investors to push companies to address climate and environmental concerns.
— Well-known advocate for monarch butterflies found dead: Homero Gómez González, a former logger-turned-prominent monarch butterfly defender in central Mexico was found dead Wednesday, The Post’s Kevin Sieff reports. He was found floating in a well not far from the butterfly sanctuary he worked to preserve. The cause of death is not yet known.
- Gómez González had been missing since Jan. 13: His disappearance sent “a shock wave through communities of environmental conservationists in the United States and Mexico. Local authorities created search teams, and the state attorney general launched an investigation. Almost immediately, his fellow activists suspected loggers and criminal groups whom Gómez González might have upset in his conservation efforts."
— Man, it’s a hot one: NASA satellites that can detect thermal energy at the Earth’s surface reveal patterns of warmth from 2019, which was determined to be the second-warmest year on record worldwide, according to data analyzed by NASA, NOAA and the U.K. Met Office. Santa Fe-based company Descartes Lab examined data from NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites going back to 2003, and The Post’s graphics team produced maps showing temperature rankings over different time periods.
- What we can see: “The top map shows areas that had one of their top five warmest years in 2019. Immediately the warmth in Australia, Alaska, Europe, most of Africa, South America, Greenland and Southeast Asia pop out. The main exceptions are large parts of the United States and Canada, which did not experience record warmth in 2019,” The Post’s Andrew Freedman and John Muyskens write.
- More to see: Other maps from The Post team here show where on Earth 2019 was the hottest recorded year, as well as other temperature records by year.
DAYBOOK
Coming Up
- The House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight holds a hearing on “Management and Spending Challenges within the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy” on Feb. 5.
- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources holds a legislative hearing on Feb. 5.
- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies holds an oversight hearing on the Energy Department’s role in advancing biomedical sciences on Feb. 5.
EXTRA MILEAGE
— Greta wants to trademark her name: The teen activist announced on Instagram that she applied to trademark her name as well as her movement, Fridays for Future, to prevent misuse.