Fred Krupp: EDF Voices

A professor of mine at the University of Michigan Law School once said that problems become more solvable when people lower their voices and work things out.

Few in Washington have been lowering their voice in recent years. As I noted in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Congress rarely produces little more than partisan rancor, which made the recent passage of a historic chemical safety law so exceptional – and inspiring.

I’m referring to the Lautenberg Act, the most important environmental legislation in two decades, which the House and Senate passed overwhelmingly and President Obama signed into law last month.

In the midst of the final negotiations over that bill, I found myself on the phone with Sen. James Inhofe, the conservative Oklahoma Republican best known in my circles for throwing a snowball on the Senate floor to mock global warming. But we didn’t talk about any of that.

Instead we discussed our shared commitment to finding a way forward to reform an outdated law that failed to keep toxic chemicals out of homes, schools and workplaces.

That conversation helped me realize how right my teacher had been. Despite our profound and public disagreements over the years on climate change, we had found a way to work together and make progress.

It reminded us of old-fashioned legislating, where parties work toward common ground rather than jockey for partisan advantage. The subsequent victory showed that some of the oddest bedfellows in Washington can, in fact, deliver major reform.

Two developments broke the stalemate

Health and environmental advocates had spent more than two decades pushing for an overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act, our main chemical safety law that had remained unchanged since the era of bell-bottoms and disco. Despite the law’s obvious flaws, efforts at reform stalled.

In every Congress for the past decade, Democrats introduced strong legislation, bills that my organization supported. And each time they were blocked by those worried about overregulating the chemical industry.

That’s until two developments tipped the scale.

First, consumers’ rising concerns over unregulated chemicals in everyday products began to register with retailers, product manufacturers and state lawmakers. Companies began reformulating products to remove certain ingredients, and retailers asked suppliers to do the same. 

Spurred by activists, states stepped in to fill the void left by the broken federal system that couldn’t even regulate a known danger like asbestos. This, in turn, created a patchwork of overlapping rules that manufacturers found confusing and onerous, adding more pressure on lawmakers from both parties to craft a national solution.

Second – and here’s the clincher – negotiating partners sought and found common ground. Like the old days on Capitol Hill

The late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat and public-health champion who got smoking banned on airplanes in the 1980s, introduced the first bipartisan reform bill with Sen. David Vitter, a Republican Louisiana legislator typically more concerned with reducing environmental regulations.

When Sen. Lautenberg died in 2013, Sen. Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat and long-time environmental advocate, stepped up to lead the effort to advance and improve the legislation.

Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Tom Carper and Cory Booker threw their support behind the bill after securing changes to strengthen the role of states, among other improvements. Sen. Barbara Boxer, after attaining concessions preserving additional authority for her home state of California and other states, eventually signed on as well.

Sen. Inhofe, who had recognized that a national regulatory program would bring greater certainty to the business community, led negotiations on the Republican side.

The House assembled its own set of unusual partners: Republicans John Shimkus and Fred Upton worked with Democrats such as Frank Pallone, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer.

Broad, bipartisan coalition demanded progress

Bipartisan negotiations ultimately  produced legislation that won near unanimous support in Congress – and, critically, a strong endorsement from the White House. It worked because we built a broad coalition demanding progress on this issue, and because lawmakers worked hard to navigate outside interests and pressures.

For too many in Washington, even talking to the opposition, much less working across the aisle, is a sin. In an era of narrow majorities and divided government, that is a recipe for certain failure. 

It appears some are looking at the moral calculation in the wrong way. Because if a willingness to work with people you normally oppose leads to fewer hazardous chemicals in our children’s lives, we have all won.

3 things to know about the new law

Rachel Carson knew she would be criticized for connecting pesticides to the death of songbirds when Silent Spring was published in 1962. As a scientist, though, she didn’t expect to be vilified by an entire industry, or to be called an alarmist and Communist.

Despite the attacks, she had the courage to keep going, all the way to the White House where she met with President John F. Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee, and to Capitol Hill where she testified before senators.

That determination is what ultimately made Carson the most significant American environmentalist of the past century, and why she’s been an inspiration to me since I was a teenager.

Carson opened our eyes to the harm we were doing to the environment, ultimately making our nation a better steward of our natural heritage. Everyone in the environmental community follows in her footsteps.

It’s been nearly 50 years since Environmental Defense Fund was founded on her legacy. We, like so many of our peers, are part of a long green line that started with her signal work, relentlessly following the science, even when it leads to unexpected places.

We work every day to open eyes – just like Carson did in the early days of the environmental movement.

“Who can carry on my work?”

In 1985, I found myself in a magnificent villa perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the central California coast. It belonged to Margaret Owings, an EDF trustee, and great protector of wild animals.

We sat in her living room with a spectacular view of the ocean when Margaret told me a moving and humbling story. More than two decades earlier, before Carson’s untimely death from breast cancer, the two women had met in New York City when Carson received the Audubon Medal.

After the ceremony, they had talked about the future of environmentalism and how to keep the fledgling movement alive. Carson, who was very ill, told Owings she didn’t know who would carry on her work. 

Her words made a big impression on Owings. Recounting their meeting to me, she said she had since felt almost a personal responsibility to continue the fight, to take the baton.

Her story helped me see the power of continuity. It was as if Carson was still there with us, telling us to keep going.

We’ve come a long way since Silent Spring, but we also know our work will always go on.

With a vote in Congress or the rap of a judge’s gavel, protections for which our activists worked years can be weakened or eliminated.

We know that in an instant, environmental progress can be reversed, and that requires vigilance by all of us. With a vote in Congress or the rap of a judge’s gavel, protections for which our activists worked years can be weakened or eliminated.

When that happens, we just get back up, dust off and continue the fight. Because we know that environmental stewardship is good for the economy, for business and for people.

Unlike Carson in her day, we can now mobilize the support of hundreds of thousands, even millions, and we have the backing of a new generation of leaders.

Executives calling for a price on carbon

The founder of Moms Clean Air Force, with half a million activists, Dominique Browning is one such leader working for a clean and healthy environment. It makes her a fitting recipient of Audubon’s Rachel Carson award later this month.

By enlisting parents and educating others about what’s happening to our air and climate, Browning and her organization have made a real difference for America’s children and grandchildren. This is in the best tradition of Rachel Carson.

She, too, is part of that green line running from one decade to the next, and from one courageous leader to another, as we continue our work, day in and day out, to defend our environment.

Join us today

Editor’s note Aug. 22, 2016: This post has been updated to reflect, among other things, the historic methane reduction and clean energy announcement by the United States, Canada and Mexico in June of this year. 

Environmental Defense Fund has long argued that methane, that “other important greenhouse gas,” should be part of any serious discussion about national and global climate action. This year, we’re finally having that discussion.

Thanks to a confluence of recent events in the United States and beyond, methane – which today accounts for one-quarter of the warming Earth is experiencing – has become a topic of global conversation. All we need now is the will to act.

We know affordable and effective solutions exist to prevent, detect and repair leaks in the oil and gas sector. Here are four reasons I believe this may finally be the year we begin to take truly comprehensive measures to address methane pollution, one of our most serious climate challenges today.

1) Aliso Canyon disaster energizes efforts

The Aliso Canyon disaster is the poster child for what happens when dilapidated oil and gas infrastructure meets poor maintenance, weak regulations and lax oversight.

The methane that leaked from Aliso Canyon between October 2015 and February 2016 has the same 20-year climate impact as burning nearly a billion gallons of gasoline. Our infrared videos of the plume made the crisis visible to millions. And helicopter flyovers of more than 8,000 well pads show that leaks can and do happen anywhere.

During the leak, and even now as the clean-up of the Aliso Canyon disaster continues, no one can deny that this single event helped focus the nation’s attention on the methane problem and lack of industry oversight. As a result, natural gas storage facilities are now getting a closer look

These 10 climate solutions have a big impact

A federal multi-agency task force is leading the first-ever review of the nation’s 400-plus, aging underground storage facilities. Such efforts are in tandem with new rules now underway to make operators monitor and maintain their equipment.

As Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz noted recently, “Regrettably, there’s a broader theme than Aliso Canyon.”

More than 94,000 tons of methane escaped from Aliso Canyon, the worst natural gas leak in U.S. history. 

2) States take methane action into own hands

Colorado was the first state to regulate oil and gas pollution, and its efforts are yielding a significant decrease in methane emissions at low cost.

California, the nation’s second-largest user of natural gas is not far behind. By the end of the year, the state should have a comprehensive new program in place to stop leaks from the well to the household, making it the first state anywhere to do so.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf recently announced nationally leading controls and more frequent monitoring and repair for wells, pipelines, compressors and other infrastructure to capture methane leaks. Importantly, these proposed protections would cover more than 5,000 wells and facilities already operating. 

And in Ohio, a new state permitting policy requires natural gas companies to check facilities for leaks on a quarterly basis, using infrared cameras or handheld analyzers – and to quickly fix the leaks they find.

Many of the cost-effective technologies already at work – which can cut methane pollution in half over the next few years – were, in fact, developed in Ohio.

Fixing methane leaks is both affordable and effective.

3) Unprecedented federal rules set new course

New federal regulations will step up monitoring of new oil and gas infrastructure nationwide. 

But addressing future facilities doesn’t help us with the emissions that already exist. Recently revised estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that the oil and gas industry pumps more than 9.8 million metric tons of methane into the atmosphere every year. That’s 34 percent higher than the agency’s previous estimates.

So in March, President Obama also committed to rapidly curbing methane emissions from existing operations. The EPA is in the early stages of researching and crafting this new rule.

Meanwhile, a separate rule addressing methane pollution and waste from already-existing facilities on public and tribal lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management is moving forward.

Collectively, these actions will have a real impact on emissions and help us slow the pace of global warming.

Hydraulic fracturing in Utah. Photo: WildEarth Guardians

4) U.S. and Canada methane pact inspires world

In June, the leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico announced historic agreements to source half of the continent’s electricity from clean energy by 2025, and to cut methane emissions from oil and gas industries by up to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025.

The central place of methane in this new pact – and as a top priority for all three governments – underscores the growing international momentum on the issue. 

Oil and gas production carries a responsibility to deal with the impacts that follow – to protect our environment, but also so we can ensure that natural gas accelerates, rather than impedes, our transition to a lower-carbon, clean energy future.

Let’s make 2016 the year we, as a global community, realize and act upon this responsibility.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure – true in business and true in environmental protection.

Fortunately, what can and can’t be measured is changing fast, thanks to a new generation of sophisticated sensors combined with powerful data analytics. They’re giving people the power to see and track the invisible like never before.

Nowhere is this trend advancing more rapidly than in the oceans, which cover 71 percent of our planet.

Next-generation sensors – including robots and drones in a wide variety of shapes and sizes that sail through the seas – are collecting information on everything from salinity, oxygen levels and temperature to seismic tremors, undersea volcanic eruptions and even the abundance of schooling fish.

This sophisticated technology can help us make smarter decisions as we work to improve ocean health and the communities, large and small, that depend on oceans – while we’re also learning to better use the data that already exists.

Ocean observatories transmit real-time data

My organization, Environmental Defense Fund, is guided by science and technological innovation. Twice a year, we select a cutting-edge topic and convene experts to brief us on the latest advances, with a recent “science day” being devoted to advances in sensor technology.

John Delaney, a professor of oceanography at the University of Washington and one of the presenters that day, is a world authority on how to collect ocean data. He has spearheaded the development of an impressive network of sensors linked by fiber-optic cable that stretches for 300 miles across the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate in the Northeast Pacific.

Sensors traverse ocean depths humans can’t reach.

Once built out to cover the global ocean and complemented with mobile robots mapping habitats and counting fish, this sensor network will create a virtual underwater observatory. It can track what happens below the seafloor, on the seafloor, in the ocean and where the ocean intersects with the air.

This observatory will advance our scientific understanding of a resource on which an estimated 3 billion people depend for protein, and maybe one day help transform struggling fisheries worldwide.

Fishermen worldwide can benefit

An international web of 38 million fishermen and women in communities big and small make up the wild fishing sector today, contributing more than $270 billion to global gross domestic product. 

Because they produce relatively small revenues individually, however, governments won’t typically invest in expensive data collection programs to track their business. As a result, many of these fisheries are poorly known and mostly unmanaged, depleting fish populations and leading to low yields and profits.

Fishermen making the best use of low-cost information creates the potential for tremendous improvements in ocean health. 

EDF and our partners are overcoming this data limitation by promoting the use of analytical and interpretation methods that make the most of whatever data exists, or can be readily collected by fishermen themselves. Creating a stake in improved future fisheries also helps to repay their investment in such data.

Taken together, cutting-edge technology and new partnerships with fishermen making the best use of low-cost information creates the potential for tremendous improvements in ocean health. By harvesting smarter, not harder, we can increase yields, incomes and fish populations all at the same time.

From the moon to the bottom of the sea

More and better data is an important piece of the puzzle, and the emergence of a new generation of ocean sensor technologies that are inexpensive and easy to operate could be a key to unlocking the full potential of the world’s fisheries.

Let’s put ocean sensor pioneers in the same room as the practitioners who are trying to save the ocean and improve human welfare, but need more data to do their jobs. Working arm-in-arm with fishermen, we can steer the technology to making a real contribution in meeting these needs.

We have put 12 people on the moon, four times as many as have visited the deepest reaches of the Marianas Trench. Realizing the promise of the ocean frontier is also within our grasp.

Report: How to turn around fisheries within years

2015 was a breakthrough year for our environment – one of the most important in decades.

The nations of the world agreed to a climate deal that finally gives us a chance to turn the corner toward safety. America put in place the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from its largest source, power plants. And the Senate passed sweeping bipartisan legislation that promises to fix our chemical safety system, which has been broken for 40 years.

At Environmental Defense Fund, we’re proud to have played key roles in all of these breakthroughs.

Still, even with all that we accomplished, I expect 2016 to top the year now coming to an end.

The twin drivers of progress in the next 12 months will be ambition and accountability – two mutually dependent qualities the environmental movement must have to thrive.

Ambition without accountability is just rhetoric, and accountability without ambition is merely record keeping. Together, though, they are what made the recent Paris talks such a success, and they are how we’ll ratchet up global action in the year ahead.

Here’s why:

1. Paris set the tone

For the first time, the world got the message: Climate change is the race of our lives. And leaders responded with action on a global scale.

In support of the latest Conference of the Parties, or COP21, 187 countries covering almost 99 percent of global emissions submitted commitments to take action on climate.

The agreement reached in Paris doesn’t solve climate change, but it created a framework through which the world can take measurable, verifiable action to see emissions peak, stabilize and eventually decline.

And it requires countries to track progress and increase ambition over time, further improving the odds that we can keep warming below catastrophic levels.

In other words, Paris is the starter’s gun.

2. Markets are ramping up

The Paris agreement sent a powerful, immediate signal to global markets that the clean energy future is open for business. It’s a message markets are primed to receive: Emissions trading systems are already at work in more than 50 places that are home to nearly 1 billion people.

With the Paris framework in place, momentum for bottom-up, decentralized market-based policies will only increase – and at the core of such systems are transparency and integrity.

It’s a principle of economics that as participation grows, activity accelerates. We reach economies of scale, new investment is drawn in, and businesses come to depend on the new market tools.

3. Private sector is coming onboard

The corporate world is ready to play a larger role, too.

More than 100 savvy businesses ran an ad in The Wall Street Journal just before the Paris talks, supporting action to reduce United States emissions that achieve or exceed national commitments, “and increase ambition in the future.”

By pledging, these companies also invite us to hold them accountable.

4. Clean energy investments are rising

Domestically and internationally, 2015 was a breakthrough year for clean and efficient energy, and 2016 should see the amplification of smart policies and investments.

On the domestic front, the U.S. Department of Energy released a new standard to cut emissions from commercial air conditioners and furnaces. It’s expected to save more energy than any other standard the agency has issued so far.

The promise of clean energy is global, and another critical piece of the Paris agreement is that it invites the developing world to participate in the rising flow of clean energy investments.

Emerging economies such as China and India are expected to spend $2.7 trillion on renewable energy between 2015 and 2040, far outpacing industrialized nations.

Now all nations, rich and poor, will be able to show that these investments pay off.

5. Market solutions grow on land, at sea

The “no net loss” habitat standards the Obama administration announced in late 2015, and is set to ramp up in 2016, call for landscape-scale, market-based solutions that bring net benefits for wildlife on working lands.

At the same time, successes in the U.S. commercial fishing sector are expanding globally. Fishing rights management programs are transforming the industry, increasing prosperity in fishing communities and abundance in fish populations.

These two, ambitious initiatives are built on demonstrable results. Look for more progress in 2016 as they continue to expand.

2016: A year of opportunity

While we’re making extraordinary environmental gains, there is, of course, still much to be done.

We need to continue to work with government and industry partners to identify and mitigate methane leaks from the oil and gas sector. We know it can be done at low cost and have tremendous impact.

We also need to ensure that a strong bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act emerges from the House-Senate negotiations and is signed into law. Americans deserve to know their everyday products are safe to use.

The era of delay is over. We must be ambitious and hold our public officials, our business leaders, and ourselves accountable. We need smart, flexible solutions that can ratchet up environmental protection over time.

Ambition plus accountability accelerates progress.

Are we entering a golden age for carbon markets? Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

As I write this, a massive methane leak from a ruptured natural gas storage facility in California is causing, every day, as much climate damage over the next 20 years as seven million cars on the road.

And as the climate talks here in Paris continued over the weekend, The Washington Post noted an increased focus on short-lived climate pollutants such as methane. This focus is an absolute necessity: If we want to solve climate change, we have no choice but to tackle methane emissions.

According to data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane pollution is responsible for 25 percent of the warming our planet is experiencing today. It has this incredible impact because it’s 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over the short term.

The largest industrial source of methane emissions is the oil and gas industry, and their environmental impact is staggering: A short-term climate impact equivalent to 40 percent of global coal combustion. That’s a lot of potential benefit to the climate, if we can make significant reductions.

That math is why the danger of unchecked methane pollution also offers us such an opportunity.

Better data is on the way

The need for better methane data is something I heard a lot about several years ago when I was part of a panel looking at the environmental impacts of natural gas.

That’s why Environmental Defense Fund brought together close to 50 leading academic and scientific intuitions and 50 oil and gas companies to launch 16 discrete studies to better quantify oil and gas methane emissions in the United States. More than two dozen peer-reviewed papers have been published from this effort, the latest just this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Based on this model, EDF announced a collaborative effort this week with three international oil and gas producers to work toward a series of rigorous, scientific studies to understand global oil and gas methane emissions.

What we’ve found so far

Studies in the U.S., Canada and Mexico indicate we can cut 40 percent of methane pollution for about 1 cent per thousand cubic feet.

And industry is confirming that meaningful reductions can be achieved for pennies on the dollar. This past year, Noble Energy, a large oil and gas producer in Colorado, spent just $3 million of its $1 billion in capital budget – three tenths of 1 percent – to comply with state regulations that deliver a 40 percent reduction.

As a whole, the U.S. has committed to a 40-45 percent oil and gas methane reduction by 2025 while Alberta, Canada, has committed to a 45-percent reduction in the same time frame, both goals backed by regulations.

These are encouraging and necessary measures, but more is needed. The International Energy Agency says it will be a “missed opportunity” unless more governments set well-regulated methane goals. 

Just as better data in the U.S. and Canada is driving and improving policies there, we hope that better global data will accelerate global oil and gas methane reductions and help the global community tap the potential of these reductions.

With existing technology, we can cut this harmful pollution while increasing the amount of energy available. If we get methane right, it can help the world transition to a cleaner lower carbon future. If we get it wrong, it will make things a lot worse.

Ambition, data, the right regulations and commitment are required, but evidence suggests we’re on the right path. If we get it right, as we can and must, we’ll be closer than ever to turning the corner on climate.  

Adam CohnImage caption: A plant in China flares natural gas into the atmosphere. Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

While data suggests that 2015 will likely go down as the hottest year on record, this has also been a year when we’ve made extraordinary environmental progress in five key areas. We have the numbers to prove it.

1. Most Americans now want climate action – and they’re being heard

The Clean Power Plan, finalized this year, puts the first-ever national limits on pollution from United States power plants – our single largest source of greenhouse gases.

The numbers show the plan is a win on multiple fronts, and another data set offers further encouragement: An October poll found that 76 percent of Americans believe climate change is happening, including 59 percent of Republicans. That’s up from 47 percent among Republicans as recently as March.

As my colleague Keith Gaby noted recently, the fight over climate change or the Clean Power Plan isn’t over. But with the changing attitudes among Americans everywhere, the shift in the political landscape is clear.

We’re finally moving in the right direction.

2. Nations step up to the plate to cut emissions

When it comes to sheer numbers, it’s hard to top China, with the world’s largest population and the most greenhouse gas emissions of any nation.

Seven carbon trading pilots are now underway in five cities and two provinces in China, covering 250 million people and a quarter of China’s gross domestic product. These markets are giving the nation’s top leadership the experience and confidence it needs to launch a national carbon market in 2017.

Getting the emissions numbers right is key to viable markets, however, and in 2015 we saw China taking important steps to verify this crucial data. The country also standardized calculations of greenhouse gas emissions from 10 major industries.  

Data will also be the foundation of a successful climate agreement in Paris – and what comes after Paris. Today, we’re seeing countries prioritizing good baseline emissions data in a way they haven’t before, all with the goal of meeting their climate targets.

My statement on the historic COP21 agreement

3. A new era between the U.S. and Cuba brings relief for troubled ocean

The normalization of political relations between the U.S. and Cuba began to yield another data boon as our countries embarked on a project to map and inventory marine life in the Florida Straits and the Gulf of Mexico.

With new and high-quality data, scientists from both countries are able to better manage fish populations and critical habitats in a collaborative way. Boosting marine science in our shared waters is of vital interest to both countries. 

Unlocking the potential of fisheries

4. Sensor technology shows the way

In 2015, a new generation of electronic sensors continued to make what used to be invisible, visible – resulting in some remarkable developments.

Last spring, I was among 28 people who wore a special wristband for a week to detect chemicals in my environment. The results were troubling. For example, 24 of the wristbands detected various types of toxic flame retardants, seven kinds in all.

Sensor technology such as these simple wristbands could be powerful and actionable, particularly when combined with the best chance in a generation to update our toxic chemicals policy.

5. Methane data inspires change, business growth

Five years ago, there was a critical lack of data on emissions of methane, a potent and rapidly growing greenhouse gas. So my colleague Steven Hamburg organized a massive collaboration with more than 100 academic institutions, think tanks and energy companies to conduct a series of 16 research projects.

The data that surfaced led last year to Colorado’s first-in-a-nation rules to slash methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by more than 30 percent.

This and other state efforts, in turn, prompted the Obama administration in early 2015 to set a goal to reduce U.S. methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, which was followed by a proposal for the first-ever national rules to directly regulate this potent pollution.  

A burgeoning methane mitigation industry is now turning methane data into high-paying jobs.

Just the beginning

We want to attach a data-driven market cost to climate pollution, clear the thicket of regulations to open markets to clean energy entrepreneurs, and get the incentives right so that the market rewards farmers and fishermen who become stewards of land and water.

Such stewards include not only the farmers on 750,000 acres in 12 states who have cut fertilizer loss by an average 25 percent over the past decade, but also several international food companies that stepped up efforts in 2015 to improve growing practices for their products.  

In all, these companies have pledged to cut fertilizer runoff and soil loss on 23 million acres across the continent by 2020, which will improve water quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

2015 was a year data helped drive progress in all these areas. What’s in store for 2016?

5 reasons progress will accelerate in 2016 AP Photo/Andrew Harnik Image caption: President Obama and China's President Xi Jinping laid out details of their national climate strategies at a meeting in Washington in September. Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

This is an adaptation of an essay by Fred Krupp and Nat Keohane for the International Emissions Trading Association’s Greenhouse Gas Market 2015/2016 report. 

There was a time when market-based approaches seemed to fall off the radar in discussions of climate policy, but carbon markets are back.

Well-designed emission trading systems offer the combination of flexibility, incentives and guaranteed results that help polluters meet their targets – while leaving it up to the market to figure out the best way to meet them, driving costs down.

This is why so many companies are staunch supporters of emissions trading, and why national and international efforts are taking off.

Here are three indications  we may be entering a golden age for carbon markets and what it means for COP21, the international climate talks that begin in Paris later this month.

1. Carbon markets are going global

Climate progress in the United States and China is changing the global dynamic.

Gone are the days when the two largest emitters blame each other for inaction, and their bilateral progress is inspiring commitments around the world. All told, cap-and-trade programs are in place in more than 50 jurisdictions worldwide that are home to nearly a billion people.

Quebec and California have linked their carbon markets, creating North America’s largest cap-and-trade system, becoming the first example of subnational jurisdictions in different countries launching a joint market. And more programs are in the works.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and home to a significant manufacturing base, is developing a cap-and-trade program to launch by 2017 and link to California and Quebec’s market by 2018. Having the largest U.S. state and Canadian province in a formal, linked carbon market will help lay the foundation for further carbon market collaboration in North America and beyond. 

China, meanwhile, is set to open a national carbon market in 2017, the world’s largest.

2. New sectors are eyeing markets to meet goals

One of the most exciting opportunities is in international aviation.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is developing a market-based mechanism for consideration at its next Triennial Assembly in 2016 to help the sector meet its stated commitments to carbon-neutral growth from 2020 and a 50-percent cut by 2050.

That would cap emissions from a global sector that accounts for roughly 2 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and growing fast, and would set a powerful precedent for international cooperation on climate change.

Another opening is in the forest sector.

Tropical forests are not only crucial to stabilizing the climate – they are critical to sustainable economic development for the communities and nations that rely on them. Carbon markets can play a key role in driving a new model of green growth in the tropics.

By allowing jurisdictional REDD+ credits (short for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) into their compliance markets, California – and, perhaps soon, the ICAO – have the opportunity to create positive economic incentives for forest protection at a landscape scale.

3. Existing markets are thriving

Since 2006, when California’s climate change program was signed into law, the state has received more clean tech venture capital investment than all other states combined. Bloomberg News recently ranked the Golden State the best place in the U.S. to do business, citing the state’s visionary leadership on climate change as one of the markers of its success.

A good illustration of how market-based policies can promote greater ambition is the landmark U.S. cap-and-trade program for sulfur dioxide. This program reduced national average concentrations of the pollutant by 76 percent since 1990 – taking an enormous step toward solving the problem of acid rain ahead of schedule and well below the estimated cost while creating hundreds of billions of dollars in annual benefits.

And despite well-publicized ups and downs – attributable in large part to the worst recession since the 1930s – the European Union’s emissions trading system is now performing well. It has over-achieved its goals, leading to more reductions at lower cost than expected.

To COP21 in Paris…and beyond

How can we capitalize on this political moment and build on the momentum we are seeing, to keep carbon markets growing around the globe?

A durable climate regime established by the Paris agreement will be one that harnesses market forces in the hunt for solutions, mobilizes private sector energies, enhances national self-interest and, through rigorous and transparent reporting, allows countries to demonstrate to each other that they are meeting their commitment.

A United Nations agreement is only one of many tools available to address climate change. It will take continuing strong action by leading emitters and leading carbon market jurisdictions to spur the technological, political and institutional transformations that will support more ambitious action in the years to come.

Why environmental progress will accelerate in 2016 epSos.de Blog Category for Navigation: Economics

Thirty years ago, several of our scientists snuck into our New York City headquarters on a weekend to take over the organization’s entire computer system and run data analytics on acid rain.

To make room for their calculations, they moved all our computer files off the system and onto magnetic tape. By Sunday night, they were scrambling to restore those files, hoping to finish before the office opened on Monday morning.

One of the scientists finally owned up to this recently – now that he works for a university and is no longer on my payroll.

“And today,” he said, “I could do it all on my phone!”

That’s the change that time has wrought.

When I lived in Connecticut in the 1970s, the governor shut down air pollution monitors in four cities because they showed elevated readings of heavy metals. That won’t happen today because in 2015, we have low-cost sensors providing pollution data directly to citizens and advocacy groups.

Unlike 30 years ago, when Environmental Defense Fund fought to reduce acid rain, no politician will be able to cut off access to the data needed to protect our environment and our health. Because now it’s showing up on a smart phone you’re holding in your hand, or on an inexpensive gadget you bought online.

Sophisticated, inexpensive sensors combined with powerful data analytics are transforming environmental protection – by giving people the power to see like never before.

We now have wristbands that measure our exposure to toxic chemicals, Google mapping vehicles that measure methane leaks in our neighborhoods, inhalers equipped with GPS that help identify asthma hot spots, and smart meters that track our energy use every 15 minutes.

This is how knowledge brings power.

7 ways sensor technology is changing the world Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

Editor’s note: This blog post was updated on Sept. 29, 2015.

Seven months ago, I made a strong statement that may have left some people shaking their heads. I said that we can turn the corner on climate change – end the centuries-long rise in greenhouse gas emissions and see them peak and begin to decline – in just five short years.  

As it turns out, 2015 is shaping up to be a year of giant steps toward that goal.

In a deeply reported New York Magazine piece, political writer Jonathan Chait calls it “the year humans finally got serious about saving themselves.” Says Chait, “The world is suddenly responding to the climate emergency with – by the standards of its previous behavior – astonishing speed.”

I agree. Here are four reasons I believe we’re headed in the right direction:

1. America is tackling greenhouse gas pollution

The United States remains among the world’s largest per-capita emitters of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants. But thanks to this year’s action by the Environmental Protection Agency, America now has a Clean Power Plan that will cut emissions from power plants, our single largest source of carbon, by 32 percent over the next 15 years.

The era of unlimited climate pollution is over.

On the heels of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan came a proposed rule to cut methane from newly built facilities in the oil and gas industry. More needs to be done, but this is an important step in dealing with a potent greenhouse gas that accounts for 25 percent of Earth’s current warming.

These climate laws will help the U.S. meet our target to reduce emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, a commitment we made to the international community that is key to getting other large polluters to do their share.

We’ll need further reductions, but this is a very significant start.

3 states have surprising head start

2. China is building momentum for global action

In September 2015, China announced it will roll out a national carbon trading program in 2017, the world’s largest. China also submitted its climate plan to the United Nations in June, confirming it will let emissions peak by 2030 – and possibly sooner.

I know from my colleague Dan Dudek in China that “sooner” is possible because this is a country that’s serious about climate action.

Pollution is choking Chinese cities and threatening economic growth, but the country’s leaders also see opportunity in the emerging clean energy industry. China, the world’s No. 1 greenhouse gas emitter, has pledged to have 20 percent of its energy come from wind, solar and other non-fossil energy sources within 15 years – a massive investment in a nation of 1.4 billion.

This year alone, China is expected to add 18 gigawatts of new solar capacity. By comparison, the U.S. recently surpassed 20 gigawatts total.

To have China and the U.S. making such significant commitments has transformed the dynamic going into the U.N. climate summit in Paris. Instead of making excuses for inaction, the leading emitters have launched a virtuous cycle of increasing ambition.

That changes everything. 

3. Clean energy is lifting people out of poverty

One billion people worldwide still have no energy, and more than 1 billion live in extreme poverty. Turning the corner on climate cannot mean that economies can’t develop.

But just as some developing economies adopted cellular technology without ever having land lines, some will leap-frog the dirty energy phase of economic development and go straight to clean.

In fiscal 2014, the World Bank more than doubled lending for renewable energy projects to nearly $3.6 billion – or 38 percent of its total energy lending.  

As Rachel Kyte, the bank’s vice president and special envoy for climate change, recently said, what poverty-stricken people of the world need now is a “a low-carbon revolution.”

And this is starting to happen. In 2014, the emerging economies of China, India, Brazil and South Africa invested $131 billion in clean energy, just 6 percent less than the developed world did.

4. Pope Francis is galvanizing world opinion 

When Pope Francis released his much-anticipated encyclical on environmental stewardship in June, he made an urgent moral appeal to the world. 

As my colleague Paul Stinson noted at the time, “A leading voice without political boundaries, the pope has the ability to reach people who previously could not or would not face the reality of climate change.”

Pope Francis called on us to push harder to replace fossil fuel with renewable energy sources – and people are listening.

The day he speaks to Congress later this month, a climate rally is expected to draw many thousands to the nation’s capital in a unified call for action. Environmental Defense Fund will be there, too.

The momentum is growing. We’re on our way to turn the corner on climate change – and the race of our lives is on.

Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

With the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan now final, the era of unlimited carbon pollution from America’s power plants is finally coming to an end.

That’s excellent news, because climate change has put us in the race of our lives – and the countries that move the fastest toward clean energy will be the most competitive, create the most jobs and have the healthiest air. It’s a race to the top, and the Clean Power Plan gives the United States a better chance of winning.

Below are excerpts from an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal where I lay out the opportunities this groundbreaking initiative will bring to our nation.

It will put power in consumers’ hands

“States should use this watershed moment to remove existing barriers to energy freedom and consumer choice. Outmoded rules in many states make it harder for homeowners to install solar panels – and Americans across the political spectrum have made it clear that they want more control over the electricity they use.

Photo: Save the Ozarks

It ramps up the clean energy market

“Driving down carbon emissions will ramp up the energy transformation that is already happening across America. What once seemed exotic electric cars, highly efficient appliances, competitively priced clean energy is becoming commonplace.

“In 2014, the clean-energy market in the U.S. expanded by 14 percent, to almost $200 billion. That is bigger than the domestic airline industry.

“Clean energy now delivers three times as many jobs per dollar invested as fossil-fuel investments.

Photo: Duke Energy

It builds a more prosperous future

“The EPA’s plan gives companies the incentive to make investment decisions that focus on cleaner energy. For the customer in states that lower emissions by creating opportunities for more efficient use of energy, the plan will mean that home electric bills will be lower and individual control of electricity use will be higher.

“Bill Gates recently said, ‘If we create the right environment for innovation, we can accelerate the pace of progress, develop and deploy new solutions, and eventually provide everyone with reliable, affordable energy that is carbon free.’

I believe that the Clean Power Plan will help establish that environment for innovation and lead us to a cleaner, healthier and more prosperous future.”

Paxson Woelber Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

Last week I had the honor of receiving a 2015 William K. Reilly Award for Environmental Leadership from American University’s Center for Environmental Policy. I want to share this recognition with my colleagues at Environmental Defense Fund - and with our partners and allies.

I find it particularly meaningful that the award is named in honor of my good friend Bill Reilly.

I’d been at EDF barely two years in 1986 when I found myself featured alongside Bill in the Los Angeles Times under the headline, Third Wave Alters Course of Environmental Movement. The story said that the Conservation Foundation, where Bill was president, as well as EDF and others, were charting a new path forward. We were moving away from confrontation and lawsuits and toward constructive alliances.

I remember telling the L.A. Times reporter that I’d been on a Chicago radio station discussing this approach. One of the founders of Earth First! called in and said we need to be uncompromising. He said the goal is not to appear to be reasonable, but to save the planet.

I told him I thought being reasonable was exactly the way to save the planet. I still believe that today, and Bill has supplied some of the evidence.

Bill was head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency when we worked together on the acid rain cap and trade program. He was with Texas Pacific Group when we worked together to persuade TXU to drop plans to build eight new coal-fired power plants. 

Five years ago, Bill was co-chair of the BP oil spill commission when we worked together to persuade Congress to dedicate 80 percent of BP’s Clean Water Act penalties to restore Gulf of Mexico ecosystems. So you can see the environment owes a lot to Bill - and so do I.

Today, our country is reducing carbon dioxide emissions through a combination of vehicle mileage standards, state-level actions, low natural gas prices, federal commitments like the one President Obama announced earlier this week, and the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

China’s climate commitment is also heartening, and EDF has been proud to play a role in China’s pilot carbon trading programs. The International Energy Agency recently announced that global carbon dioxide emissions did not increase last year, while the global economy expanded.

Of course, CO2 emissions must not just stop going up. They also must start coming down. So must emissions of methane, which accounts for one-quarter of the global warming we now experience. And so must emissions of nitrous oxide, caused in part by inefficient use of nitrogen fertilizer.

We have our work cut out for us

When Congress passed the acid rain law in 1990, the vote was 89 to 11 in the Senate and 401 to 21 in the House. In fact, no major environmental law has been passed except in a bipartisan manner.

This year, we have a chance to pass bipartisan legislation to improve the safety of chemicals used in consumer products. And we have a chance to begin to depolarize the politics surrounding the climate debate.

As my college engineering professor Charlie Walker, a tall and soft‑spoken Texan, once told me: People could solve many more problems if we would just lower our voices. We must engage more widely, listen more carefully, find common ground and help common sense prevail.

Brian Hillegas Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

When it comes to climate action, it’s a good thing that smart people keep building scenarios for cleaning up global energy production. Those visions of the future are necessary – but they tend to lack an essential ingredient.

One team of researchers recently reviewed 11 such studies, all of them offering plans for “50 to 90 percent reductions in global CO2 emissions by mid-century.” But as the writer David Roberts observed last month in Grist, “most decarbonization scenarios are thought experiments, not practical roadmaps…We need to start thinking in practical terms about how to get the technologies we need ready.”

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, for the past, year Environmental Defense Fund has been drawing up a short-term blueprint for climate action, part of new strategic plan that will guide all of our work for the next five years.

We came up with a program to accomplish something audacious: stopping once and for all the centuries-long rise in global greenhouse gas emissions and seeing them peak, level off and begin to decline within the next five years. We call it turning the corner toward a stable climate.

WATCH: Getting to climate stability

Of course it won’t be easy and EDF can’t do it alone – it will take hard work by people all over the world. But the window of opportunity is open. Though global CO2 emissions from energy use are still going up, in recent years their rate of increase has been cut in half.

To capitalize on that and turn the corner once and for all, here are four of the big levers we need to pull now:

1. Focus on the biggest emitters: The U.S., China and Europe.

For the United States, turning the corner by 2020 means seeing through the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed limits on carbon pollution from power plants – our single biggest source of carbon pollution – while making sure the billions of dollars that will be spent on upgrading our electric grid are invested wisely.

In the U.S. and Europe alike, it means sweeping aside outdated regulations that are getting in the way of clean energy and energy efficiency – which is why our fastest-growing program at EDF is devoted to doing just that. 

And for China, where EDF has been working for 20 years, it means, by 2020, capping half of the nation’s carbon emissions, improving energy efficiency by 25 percent and shifting the country’s energy mix to one-third renewable energy, natural gas and nuclear – up from 15 percent in 2013.

In November, the U.S. and China made a historic announcement about cutting global warming pollution and committing themselves to the clean energy path. Now we’re going pedal to the metal down that road.

2. Reduce short-lived climate pollutants such as methane.

Methane is 84 times more dangerous to our climate than carbon dioxide in the short term, and it accounts for about 25 percent of the warming we’re experiencing today. Any serious plan to combat global warming must address methane, which is is vented and leaked from wellheads, compressors, and pipelines all across the natural gas system. (Natural gas is mostly methane.)

A few years ago, when EDF began sounding the alarm about methane, almost no one was talking about it. Now we’re starting to make genuine progress. The federal government has proposed rules to control emissions and set a target of achieving a 40-45-percent reduction below 2005 levels by 2020 –something we can do at bargain prices.

According to a study by consultant ICF International, if we stopped 40 percent of methane emissions, the cost of a thousand cubic feet of natural gas would increase by an average of just one penny. It’s the biggest environmental bargain I know.

3. Halt deforestation in the Amazon.

Global deforestation is responsible for about 15 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, and clearing will go on until we make forests more valuable alive than dead. A global carbon marketplace where rainforest nations are rewarded for preserving their forests is a key strategy.

EDF has been working with the Kayapo and other Amazonian tribes while encouraging carbon markets in California and elsewhere to allow capital to flow to the forest defenders. Already, there are encouraging signs: Brazil has reduced its rate of deforestation by 70 percent over the past decade.

Our goal by 2020 is to see zero net emissions of greenhouse gases from Amazon deforestation.

4. Tackle the market failure that caused this problem in the first place.

The president and the EPA have used many, though not all, of the options they have to cut carbon pollution under existing law. Turning the corner by 2020 doesn’t depend on Congressional action – but we cannot solve the climate crisis without action in Washington.

Accelerating the clean energy technology we need for long-term decarbonization requires a price and limit on carbon, a trigger for a worldwide market correction that benefits clean energy.

It’s Economics 101: When putting carbon pollution into our common atmosphere is no longer free, industry will have a bottom-line incentive to find clean alternatives – and investors, inventors and entrepreneurs will join the race.

Making climate pollution a cost of doing business is the path many governments are already taking, from California to Brussels to Beijing. It’s time for Washington to follow their example.

These and other ideas for turning the corner are laid out in detail in EDF’s new strategic plan. Please let me know what you think – and even more important, please join us as we take on the hard work of turning this blueprint into reality.

See my earlier post for the climate breakthroughs in 2014 that give me hope for 2015 and beyond.

Support us today

With your help, we can reach our goal of turning the corner toward a stable climate.

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Olearys Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

As the year draws to a close, I’m grateful for three climate breakthroughs from 2014 that give me hope that we can still turn the corner toward a stable climate before it’s too late.

And I’m thankful to my colleagues at Environmental Defense Fund who crunched the numbers and determined how we can actually see global greenhouse emissions peak, level off and begin to decline in the next five years.

EDF can’t do it alone – it will take concerted action by allies and stakeholders around the world – and it won’t be easy. But we can do it.

We know we can do this, because it’s happening already: 

1. Colorado pioneers pollution controls for oil, gas

The first hopeful milestone came in February, when the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission voted to adopt landmark regulations that will substantially reduce air and climate pollution from the state’s oil and gas industry.

The regulations included the first anywhere in the United States to directly control emissions of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas that must be controlled along with carbon dioxide as part of any effective climate strategy.

The rules were endorsed by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who in 2013 asked EDF and three of the state’s largest producers; Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Encana Corporation and Noble Energy; to develop draft recommendations.

Each year, the new rules will reduce more than 100,000 tons of methane and some 90,000 tons of smog-forming VOCs (or volatile organic compounds), equal to the same amount produced by all the cars and trucks in Colorado. They provide a model for action by other states and the federal government.

2. EPA unveils plan to cut carbon from power plants

In June, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the Clean Power Plan, which will impose the first-ever national limits on carbon pollution that can be emitted by power plants.

The plan is moderate, flexible, and above all, necessary. It sets national standards, but gives states the freedom to design an approach that fits their circumstances. It encourages investors, inventors, and entrepreneurs to find new ways to cut pollution.

And it gives industry flexibility to find the most efficient path to a clean future.

3. China and U.S. make a historic announcement 

The third breakthrough came in November, when China and the U.S., the world’s two largest emitters, made a historic announcement to cut global warming pollution. Now that the two countries have set new goals, the argument that the U.S. can’t act because China won’t has finally begun to fade.

A very understandable anxiety – that America can’t cut carbon emissions while our biggest competitor keeps burning dirty energy with no end in sight – can now be put to rest.

This isn’t the first time China has shown its commitment: The country already has pilot cap-and-trade markets covering nearly 250 million people, is making huge investments in solar and wind energy, and also plans to create a national carbon market.

The China-U.S. announcement is a game changer that will begin to transform the way the world thinks about climate action. Having the world’s two biggest emitters commit to reduce carbon pollution is a huge shot in the arm for global climate cooperation. Instead of nations using each other as excuses for inaction, they will challenge each other to do better. 

Business trends favor climate action

But the China-U.S. climate deal is also a giant boost for clean-energy markets. Having the world’s two largest economies competing to accelerate the adoption of no-carbon and low-carbon technologies will send one of the most powerful market signals we have ever seen.

The U.S. added more solar capacity in the past two years than in the previous 30 years combined. A host of companies and even whole industries are providing the goods and services that deliver cleaner, more efficient power to consumers.

Electric vehicles and smart home thermostats are trendy.

In Nevada, Tesla is building the world’s largest advanced automotive-battery factory. In New York, Solar City is building a massive solar-photovoltaic factory.

Meanwhile, market leaders such as Google and Walmart are making huge investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The clean energy future is now – making it easier for nations to commit to emissions reduction.

Political trends favor climate action

We know that some elected officials still oppose climate action and publicly question climate science. But the era of denial and delay is slowly coming to an end.

Many of those same officials understand that their public stance is not just untenable, but also unwise. Now and in the years ahead, being on the right side of this issue will be a matter of political survival for both Democrats and Republicans, since 85 percent of voters under 30 support limits on carbon pollution from power plants.

These breakthroughs and trends demonstrate our capacity to tackle climate change, and they give me hope that we will be able to turn the corner toward a stable climate by 2020.

Years ago, I learned the difference between optimism and hope. As the great environmental science professor Davis Orr told me, optimism is a prediction that everything will be OK, but hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.

We’re prepared to roll up our sleeves, and we have an action plan for the next five years – a plan to turn the corner on global warming.

In my next blog post, I’ll share the details of that plan.

Make a gift to support us WalmartImage caption: U.S. corporations have already installed more than 569 megawatts of solar energy around the country, and more is coming online. Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

Not so long ago, people who worried about pollution in their local environment had few options. Getting answers required hands-on testing by trained experts with specialized equipment, or finding and sifting through scarce, hard-to-come-by data.

Today all of that is changing. A convergence of tech trends – inexpensive sensors, cloud computing and data analysis, and social media – is transforming environmental protection by giving people and organizations like Environmental Defense Fund the ability to collect and analyze huge amounts of information, then publish results for all to see.

Three cars, 15 million readings

We launched one of these powerful projects today.

Thanks to a partnership with Google Earth Outreach, EDF has mapped thousands of natural gas leaks beneath three American cities – Boston, Indianapolis, and New York City’s borough of Staten Island. Using three of the company’s famous Street View cars equipped with special sensors, we gathered millions of individual readings over thousands of miles of neighborhood streets.

The maps are available now, with many more to come.

For the most part, these natural gas leaks don’t pose an immediate danger; utilities are required to monitor and repair the major ones and usually do a good job of it. But leaking gas, which is mostly methane, has a powerful effect on the global climate, packing up to 120 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide.

In fact, scientists say that methane and other short-term climate forcers account for about a third of the warming we’re experiencing today, with methane responsible for most of that. It’s urgent that we plug these leaks to reduce near-term climate impacts.

Our pilot project with Google gives citizens and local utilities data on pollution that used to be invisible. We show not just the location of thousands of leaks beneath the streets of three large American cities, but also assess how big the leaks are, giving utilities and regulators crucial information to accelerate and prioritize efforts to stop them.

Having access to this level of intelligence is something I could only dream of when I joined EDF 30 years ago.

The project – one of 16 studies coordinated by EDF to measure methane emissions across the entire natural gas system – underscores the challenge of controlling leaks from the local distribution sector, and the progress that can be made when cities work to tackle it aggressively.

Our sensors recorded just five leaks in Indianapolis, which has replaced many of its pipes in recent years. Never before has the public had access to so much transparent and usable data, and never before have we had an opportunity like this to address such an urgent, widely overlooked environmental problem head-on.

The future of environmental data

We are confident that our research will make it faster, easier and cheaper to gather and analyze data on methane leaks and other kinds of pollution. But breakthroughs like this don’t happen overnight.

Our research team spent two years working with scientists at Colorado State University to develop and test these new analytical tools. And we worked closely with a number of leading utilities to cross-check and validate their findings against real-world conditions.

Several of the utilities, including NationalGrid, worked directly with us to validate our findings.

We’re mapping more cities right now, while expanding our monitoring to other pollutants. We know Google Earth Outreach is interested in exploring others as well.

Google Street View covers 3,000 cities in 54 countries, so the possibilities truly are limitless.

People act, leaders react

Even more exciting is the larger trend.

Our maps are part of a powerful new era of environmental monitoring and protection. From Beijing and Fukushima to the rainforests of Brazil, technology is giving people new ways to see – and act on – pollution that is happening around them.

As former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg likes to say, you can’t manage what you don’t measure – and now people everywhere have the ability to take accurate measurements and publish them online, which applies pressure on authorities to step up their management.

You can nominate your city for methane mapping. And if you agree that thousands of small leaks add up to a big problem for the climate, contact your utility, your congressperson, or President Obama and tell them methane matters to you!

Send a message to the President Mathew Grimm Blog Category for Navigation: Climate

Today, I had the pleasure of joining His Royal Highness Prince of Wales, fishery leaders from governments around the world, conservation leaders and managers of major investment institutions at a gathering hosted by the prince to discuss ways to finance a transition to a sustainable blue economy.

During the gathering, Environmental Defense Fund and the prince’s International Sustainability Unit unveiled a new and innovative guide to accelerate investment in fishermen and fish-dependent business worldwide. The guide was developed by EDF and the ISU in collaboration with 50in10.

The good news is, we already know how to manage our fisheries sustainably and provide economic benefit for the communities that depend on them. What we lack is the appropriate level of investment to match the scale and pace of the challenge in front of us.

We hope this guide – or framework – will galvanize and channel funding from philanthropies, government and private investors. That has been a critically important missing link as we try to transition to a blue economy.

We also hope it will establish a common language for governments, philanthropists and private investors to work together on the critical mission to turn around our oceans.

Oceans need our help

It is hard to exaggerate the stakes.

Overfishing is one of the most urgent problems threatening the ocean today and it’s the single leading cause of depleted fisheries worldwide. It affects 3 billion people around the globe who depend on the ocean as an important source of protein and millions who depend on it for their livelihood.

Our new framework provides a set of tools for designing sustainable fisheries projects in a way that will attract investment from government, philanthropic and private investors – giving fishermen, communities, and small businesses the support they need to transition to sustainability.

By assembling the skills, knowledge and resources of government, philanthropic, and private investors, we will allow fishing communities to see a future with more fish in the sea, more food on the plate, and more economic prosperity.

The World Bank has estimated that some $50 billion dollars’ worth of additional value could be derived from the world’s fisheries each year, if they were managed in more sustainable ways.

The potential is enormous. But success requires working together.

We know what works

More and more countries are adopting new, smarter management for their fisheries and it’s paying off with more fish in the sea and more prosperous fishing communities.

• In Belize, smart policies have been put in place where fishermen are policing themselves more and fishing violations have dropped by 60 percent in some regions. 

• Reforms in Namibia’s fisheries have increased value and strengthened local control of fisheries resources, while improving sustainability.

• And in the United States, we have seen an increase in fish populations since 2009, while fishing industry jobs have risen 23 percent and fishermen revenues are up 30 percent. 

These real-world examples prove that fisheries can recover. We just need the capital and coordination to make it happen. 

Investors needed

By bringing our new framework to scale around the globe, we will transform our oceans into a sustainable, enduring resource for generations to come.

EDF believes that government, private, and philanthropic investors play key roles in putting the right solutions in place that will transition our economy to blue.

That’s why today, as we unveil this new framework, EDF is calling on governments to establish policies that support sustainable, profitable fisheries, and on investors to support sustainably managed fisheries.

I believe that if we put our minds to it, we can create significant change in our lifetime.

Dennis Sabo/istockphotoImage caption: A reef in Belize, a nation where good policies have decreased illegal fishing by 60 percent. Blog Category for Navigation: Oceans

This post first appeared on The Huffington Post.

It has become an American tradition: For more than 30 years, the President and First Lady have invited special guests to join the First Lady in her private viewing box during the State of the Union Address -- not the famous and powerful, but everyday Americans who have done something extraordinary and represent the best our country has to offer.

Tyrone Davis, who joined the First Lady Tuesday night, certainly fits that profile.

Tyrone decided years ago that he would dedicate his life to protecting the environment. After earning a political science degree and Masters of Public Administration from North Carolina State University, he joined Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) Climate Corps program in 2010, which selects and trains top-tier graduate students from the nation's leading institutions to act as organizational change agents for energy management in companies, cities and universities.

His work in the program had enormous impact: He helped show the Elizabeth City State University how to save more than $31,000 annually and avoid 200 tons of carbon emissions every year. His work was so impressive that the school then hired him to complete a campus-wide sustainability plan. Thanks in part to his efforts, ECSU went on to make sustainability a core part of the school's mission.

Tyrone, who is legally blind, thrives on challenges. It's fitting that such an extraordinary young man -- who embodies everything we hope EDF Climate Corps can achieve -- was able to sit with the First Lady and hear President Obama renew his commitment to fighting climate change. Obama's call for common sense energy policies that will create jobs and reduce carbon pollution are central to the mission of EDF Climate Corps, which has trained hundreds of young leaders like Tyrone. Thanks to them EDF Climate Corps has amassed a remarkable record of achievement:

• More than 250 companies, cities and universities -- including Apple, Cisco, Facebook, CSX, General Motors and the U.S. Army -- have hired EDF Climate Corps fellows to take their energy management programs to the next level.
• EDF Climate Corps fellows have uncovered nearly $1.3 billion in energy savings and opportunities to avoid more than 1.3 million metric tons of carbon emissions.
• Our fellows have found enough energy savings to power 180,000 homes and avoid the yearly carbon emissions of 260,000 cars. And they are becoming the next generation of corporate sustainability leaders.

EDF Climate Corps' work reflects the growing interest of some of the largest corporations in America in tackling climate change head-on. As The New York Times recently reported, corporate giants like Coca-Cola and Nike recognize that climate change poses huge financial risks, and are taking action to address them. And two dozen of the biggest corporations in the United States -including five oil companies - are already including carbon prices in their financial plans in anticipation of an eventual government requirement for them to do so.

Stories like these are evidence that energy savings and environmental stewardship go hand in hand. And they are driving political momentum in support of the next crucial step toward a stable climate - new federal carbon pollution standards for power plants, the No. 1 source of climate pollution in the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency, as part of President Obama's Climate Action Plan, has proposed the nation's first-ever limits on carbon pollution from new power plants.

Most Americans would be shocked to know that there are no current limits whatsoever on carbon pollution from power plants, which produce 2 billion tons of this pollution each year, or about 40 percent of the nation's total. By setting the first such standards in history, these rules will help modernize our power system, ensuring that our electricity is reliable, affordable, healthy and clean. And they can give industry the flexibility it needs to make cost-effective investments in clean energy technologies.

There is still much work to be done before we can begin to say we are turning the corner toward a more stable climate. But young leaders like Tyrone Davis should give all of us hope.

@GinaEPAImage caption: "So cool. Got to meet Tyrone Davis, a future #climate leader, former fellow w/@EnvDefenseFund and guest at #SOTU" - EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy

The Environmental Protection Agency announced the nation’s first-ever carbon pollution standards for new power plants this morning—a major victory in the fight against climate change. Right now, there are no limits at all on carbon pollution from power plants, the single largest source of this pollution in the United States. These standards are a necessary, common sense step that will ensure cleaner power generation that helps protect our children from dangerous smog and our communities from extreme weather. They will also drive innovation, so that America can continue to lead the world in the race to develop cleaner, safer power technologies.

The standards are part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan to control dangerous carbon pollution. And, as you can see from these statements by premier health and medical organizations, the threat to our nation’s health and prosperity is very real:

• American Academy of Pediatrics journal publication:

"Anticipated direct health consequences of climate change include injury and death from extreme weather events and natural disasters, increase in climate-sensitive infectious disease, increases in air pollution-related illness, and more heat related, potentially fatal, illness. Within all of these categories, children have increased vulnerability compared with other groups."

• American Lung Association website:

"Scientists warn that the buildup of greenhouse gases and the climate changes caused by it will create conditions, including warmer temperatures, which will increase the risk of unhealthful ambient ozone levels. Higher temperatures can enhance the conditions for ozone formation. Even with the steps that are in place to reduce ozone, evidence warns that changes in climate are likely to increase ozone levels in the future in large parts of the United States."

• American Medical Association news/opinion piece:

"If physicians want evidence of climate change, they may well find it in their own offices. Patients are presenting with illnesses that once happened only in warmer areas. Chronic conditions are becoming aggravated by more frequent and extended heat waves. Allergy and asthma seasons are getting longer. . . . Rising air and water temperatures and rising ocean levels since the late 1960s have increased the severity of weather, including hurricanes and droughts, and the production of ground-level ozone. That means more asthma and respiratory illnesses, more heat stroke and exhaustion, and exacerbation of chronic conditions such as heart disease."

Cost-effective, low-carbon energy solutions are already helping spur the economy, create good jobs and reduce harmful pollution in red and blue states across the country. Industries are recognizing that these smart power solutions are not only good for people and the environment, but also very good for business.

Many major power companies have recognized the need to address carbon. When these standards were initially proposed, the CEO of PSEG, Ralph Izzo, said, “[t]he Agency’s action establishes a logical and modest standard for new electric power plants and provides the industry with much needed regulatory certainty. The EPA provides a framework for the industry to confront this problem in a cost effective manner.” And the CEO of American Electric Power, Nick Akins, said in June that the new Climate Action Plan can be carried out “without a major impact to customers or the economy.”

Wind topped all new power deployed in 2012, with especially strong growth in Kansas, Texas, Iowa, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and Oklahoma.  So-called “microgrids”—local generation networks that can run independent of the grid—are unlocking on-site clean power that expands clean energy choices for communities and consumers. And new financing models are driving more efficient use of energy at scale, cutting pollution while saving businesses and families money.

We know we must act now.

The costs of climate inaction are hitting home across the country as extreme weather events batter our communities. From the recent heartbreaking severe floods in Colorado to last year’s devastation from Superstorm Sandy in the Northeast, from crippling drought to terrible wildfires in the West, extreme weather is here and madeworse by rising temperatures. The two million Americans who supported the EPA’s initial proposal last year know that doing nothing about climate change is not free. We are paying costs now and will inflict even greater costs on our children and future generations if we do not begin taking aggressive action to reduce carbon emissions.

As Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said earlier this week, “every ton we emit you can check it off against our children and grandchildren.” The naysayers, as always, are out in force and will do everything they can to derail action on climate. Please join Americans across our nation and lend your voice of support during this crucial time. Together with health and environmental groups, businesses, parents and states – red and blue – we can work together to meet this challenge.

DonkeyHotey/flickr

Fred Krupp

(This post first appeared on The Huffington Post Green blog)

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