Aggregator

A sign of things to come
Editorial by The Daily Comet (Lafourche Parish, La.). May 3, 2014.
“The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act is a long name for a federal law that has done a tremendous amount…” (read more)

Parishes, states await decisions on BP fines
By Xerxes Wilson, The Houma Courier (Houma, La.). May 3, 2014.
“Terrebonne Parish officials are confident large marsh creation projects locally will get a jump-start as paths for oil spill fine money…” (read more)

The survivor story Scott Pelley will never forget (+video)
By 60 minutes. May 4, 2014.
“It's been disastrous for the company," says Pelley. "I could not have imagined that BP would play the victim four years after that catastrophe…” (read more)

The truth behind the spin: What BP doesn’t want you to know about the Gulf oil spill
By Lindsay Abrams, Salon. May 4, 2014.
“The best time to find tarballs on Louisiana’s shorelines is directly after a thunderstorm, when the waves churn up the oil…” (read more)

Grand Isle businesses bet on oil, tourist influx
By John Harper, The Houma Courier (Houma, La.). May 2, 2014.
“Dean Blanchard still spends a lot of time fighting an ongoing public relations battle with oil giant BP…” (read more)

A sign of things to come
Editorial by The Daily Comet (Lafourche Parish, La.). May 3, 2014.
“The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act is a long name for a federal law that has done a tremendous amount…” (read more)

Parishes, states await decisions on BP fines
By Xerxes Wilson, The Houma Courier (Houma, La.). May 3, 2014.
“Terrebonne Parish officials are confident large marsh creation projects locally will get a jump-start as paths for oil spill fine money…” (read more)

The survivor story Scott Pelley will never forget (+video)
By 60 minutes. May 4, 2014.
“It's been disastrous for the company," says Pelley. "I could not have imagined that BP would play the victim four years after that catastrophe…” (read more)

The truth behind the spin: What BP doesn’t want you to know about the Gulf oil spill
By Lindsay Abrams, Salon. May 4, 2014.
“The best time to find tarballs on Louisiana’s shorelines is directly after a thunderstorm, when the waves churn up the oil…” (read more)

Grand Isle businesses bet on oil, tourist influx
By John Harper, The Houma Courier (Houma, La.). May 2, 2014.
“Dean Blanchard still spends a lot of time fighting an ongoing public relations battle with oil giant BP…” (read more)

By Marita Mirzatuny

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of participating on a panel hosted by the Texas Tribune that centered on the future of Texas’ power grid and electric reliability. Joining me was John Fainter, president and CEO of Association of Electric Companies of Texas, Inc; Trip Doggett, president and CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas; and Doyle Beneby, president and CEO of CPS Energy, San Antonio's municipal utility. The panel, entitled Keeping the Lights on in Texas, took place at and was broadcasted from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. It's a worthwhile watch and I'm encouraged that Texas Tribune is dedicated to investigating Texas' energy issues.

For about an hour, we discussed a variety of aspects in the current and future energy landscape of the Lone Star State. In particular, I focused on the exciting shift to give people power over their electricity use, save money, and help the environment with every flip of the switch.

This mostly high-level overview strikes a good balance of being informative yet understandable, and highlights the need for further discussion. I highlighted areas where EDF is working to advance clean energy in the state, advocating for the expansion of demand response, rooftop solar energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, large-scale renewables like wind farms, and energy storage. As Mr. Beneby joked, we could've talked for hours about demand response, an innovative tool leveraged by utilities to reward people who use less electricity during times of peak, or high, energy demand.

Throughout the panel, it rang clear that people and businesses are an essential part of Texas’ energy future and they must be engaged and equipped with knowledge. Individual engagement is essential as a two-way relationship between electric utilities and people replaces the outdated electric system created 100 years ago. People will have control over the creation and reduction of their energy use in ways we have never experienced.

By Marita Mirzatuny

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of participating on a panel hosted by the Texas Tribune that centered on the future of Texas’ power grid and electric reliability. Joining me was John Fainter, president and CEO of Association of Electric Companies of Texas, Inc; Trip Doggett, president and CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas; and Doyle Beneby, president and CEO of CPS Energy, San Antonio's municipal utility. The panel, entitled Keeping the Lights on in Texas, took place at and was broadcasted from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. It's a worthwhile watch and I'm encouraged that Texas Tribune is dedicated to investigating Texas' energy issues.

For about an hour, we discussed a variety of aspects in the current and future energy landscape of the Lone Star State. In particular, I focused on the exciting shift to give people power over their electricity use, save money, and help the environment with every flip of the switch.

This mostly high-level overview strikes a good balance of being informative yet understandable, and highlights the need for further discussion. I highlighted areas where EDF is working to advance clean energy in the state, advocating for the expansion of demand response, rooftop solar energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, large-scale renewables like wind farms, and energy storage. As Mr. Beneby joked, we could've talked for hours about demand response, an innovative tool leveraged by utilities to reward people who use less electricity during times of peak, or high, energy demand.

Throughout the panel, it rang clear that people and businesses are an essential part of Texas’ energy future and they must be engaged and equipped with knowledge. Individual engagement is essential as a two-way relationship between electric utilities and people replaces the outdated electric system created 100 years ago. People will have control over the creation and reduction of their energy use in ways we have never experienced.

By Elizabeth Sturcken

I just returned from Walmart’s first Sustainable Products Expo, where thousands of suppliers gathered to talk about sustainability, show off their products and make commitments for action. There’s a new energy behind sustainability thanks to Walmart’s increasing efforts over the past ten years and their dynamic new CEO, Doug McMillon.

Elizabeth Sturcken addressing the crowd at the Walmart Sustainable Products Expo

Environmental Defense Fund has been there every step of the way, pushing Walmart hard to set and follow through on aggressive yet achievable goals that can drive the kind of change that only a company that has over 100,000 global suppliers and 250 million customers a week can.

Strong Goals:  A Powerful Driver of Action

After 25 years of working with business, we know that setting goals matters in making real and lasting change.

This week’s Expo is a great example: we worked with Walmart for years to set and announce their groundbreaking goal of reducing 20 million metric tons (MT) of greenhouse gas emissions from its global supply chain. And on stage with them this week, we saw leading brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kellogg’s and General Mills stepping forward and committing to action on fertilizer and recycling — two of the biggest areas of opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Walmart’s supply chain — directly as a result of that 20 million MT goal.

Walmart and their suppliers are seeing opportunities to make improvements not because they’re required to do so, but because it’s just good business.

Closing the Loop on Recycling

9 companies came together with the Walmart Foundation to start The Closed Loop Fund, a $100 million initiative to help communities finance recycling infrastructure projects. Their goal is to ensure that 100 percent of U.S. consumers have access to recycling.

These companies — Walmart and the Walmart Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies, Keurig Green Mountain, Inc., PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson and Unilever — have been facing a big hurdle in including more postconsumer recycled content in their products: recycling rates are stagnant and they can’t get enough materials from recycling streams to meet their goals. The Fund is part of Walmart’s holistic strategy to ask suppliers to include more postconsumer recycled content in their packaging while moving away from materials that are problematic for recycling.

Right-Sizing Fertilizer Use

From the same stage, six more companies’ CEOs — Campbell Soup Company, Monsanto, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), General Mills, Kellogg Company and PepsiCo, plus Cargill’s chairman of the board — committed to make their agricultural operations more sustainable, with goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fertilizer and water use. For many of them, this was in addition to work that they’ve already launched with Walmart to optimize fertilizer use in its supply chain. If fully implemented, this could result in greenhouse gas reductions of 7 million metric tons, reduce fertilizer runoff and help farmers cut costs.

The specific commitments each company made range from reducing the amount of GHG emissions and water used per ton of food produced (Campbells) to increasing farmers’ utilization of sustainable farming practices (Cargill, DFA, General Mills, Kellogg Company, PepsiCo).

What Really Matters:  Getting It Done

The work that Walmart and its suppliers is doing, catalyzed by the 20MMT goal, is not easy — it’s rooted in the notion that to get the kind of environmental results needed to address an issue like climate change, you need a systems approach and you need to work with suppliers. Even the world’s largest company working alone is not enough.

This week Walmart used its clout to bring together leading companies and give them a platform from which to make their commitment. Together, these companies represent more than a trillion dollars in total revenue. That’s a lot of power in the marketplace being leveraged for sustainability goals. Of course, in the end we’ll judge them all by  results— significant, measurable and transparent impacts of their efforts — and we expect Walmart to help hold them accountable for this progress.

By Elizabeth Sturcken

I just returned from Walmart’s first Sustainable Products Expo, where thousands of suppliers gathered to talk about sustainability, show off their products and make commitments for action. There’s a new energy behind sustainability thanks to Walmart’s increasing efforts over the past ten years and their dynamic new CEO, Doug McMillon.

Elizabeth Sturcken addressing the crowd at the Walmart Sustainable Products Expo

Environmental Defense Fund has been there every step of the way, pushing Walmart hard to set and follow through on aggressive yet achievable goals that can drive the kind of change that only a company that has over 100,000 global suppliers and 250 million customers a week can.

Strong Goals:  A Powerful Driver of Action

After 25 years of working with business, we know that setting goals matters in making real and lasting change.

This week’s Expo is a great example: we worked with Walmart for years to set and announce their groundbreaking goal of reducing 20 million metric tons (MT) of greenhouse gas emissions from its global supply chain. And on stage with them this week, we saw leading brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kellogg’s and General Mills stepping forward and committing to action on fertilizer and recycling — two of the biggest areas of opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Walmart’s supply chain — directly as a result of that 20 million MT goal.

Walmart and their suppliers are seeing opportunities to make improvements not because they’re required to do so, but because it’s just good business.

Closing the Loop on Recycling

9 companies came together with the Walmart Foundation to start The Closed Loop Fund, a $100 million initiative to help communities finance recycling infrastructure projects. Their goal is to ensure that 100 percent of U.S. consumers have access to recycling.

These companies — Walmart and the Walmart Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies, Keurig Green Mountain, Inc., PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson and Unilever — have been facing a big hurdle in including more postconsumer recycled content in their products: recycling rates are stagnant and they can’t get enough materials from recycling streams to meet their goals. The Fund is part of Walmart’s holistic strategy to ask suppliers to include more postconsumer recycled content in their packaging while moving away from materials that are problematic for recycling.

Right-Sizing Fertilizer Use

From the same stage, six more companies’ CEOs — Campbell Soup Company, Monsanto, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), General Mills, Kellogg Company and PepsiCo, plus Cargill’s chairman of the board — committed to make their agricultural operations more sustainable, with goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fertilizer and water use. For many of them, this was in addition to work that they’ve already launched with Walmart to optimize fertilizer use in its supply chain. If fully implemented, this could result in greenhouse gas reductions of 7 million metric tons, reduce fertilizer runoff and help farmers cut costs.

The specific commitments each company made range from reducing the amount of GHG emissions and water used per ton of food produced (Campbells) to increasing farmers’ utilization of sustainable farming practices (Cargill, DFA, General Mills, Kellogg Company, PepsiCo).

What Really Matters:  Getting It Done

The work that Walmart and its suppliers is doing, catalyzed by the 20MMT goal, is not easy — it’s rooted in the notion that to get the kind of environmental results needed to address an issue like climate change, you need a systems approach and you need to work with suppliers. Even the world’s largest company working alone is not enough.

This week Walmart used its clout to bring together leading companies and give them a platform from which to make their commitment. Together, these companies represent more than a trillion dollars in total revenue. That’s a lot of power in the marketplace being leveraged for sustainability goals. Of course, in the end we’ll judge them all by  results— significant, measurable and transparent impacts of their efforts — and we expect Walmart to help hold them accountable for this progress.

By Elizabeth Sturcken

I just returned from Walmart’s first Sustainable Products Expo, where thousands of suppliers gathered to talk about sustainability, show off their products and make commitments for action. There’s a new energy behind sustainability thanks to Walmart’s increasing efforts over the past ten years and their dynamic new CEO, Doug McMillon.

Elizabeth Sturcken addressing the crowd at the Walmart Sustainable Products Expo

Environmental Defense Fund has been there every step of the way, pushing Walmart hard to set and follow through on aggressive yet achievable goals that can drive the kind of change that only a company that has over 100,000 global suppliers and 250 million customers a week can.

Strong Goals:  A Powerful Driver of Action

After 25 years of working with business, we know that setting goals matters in making real and lasting change.

This week’s Expo is a great example: we worked with Walmart for years to set and announce their groundbreaking goal of reducing 20 million metric tons (MT) of greenhouse gas emissions from its global supply chain. And on stage with them this week, we saw leading brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kellogg’s and General Mills stepping forward and committing to action on fertilizer and recycling — two of the biggest areas of opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Walmart’s supply chain — directly as a result of that 20 million MT goal.

Walmart and their suppliers are seeing opportunities to make improvements not because they’re required to do so, but because it’s just good business.

Closing the Loop on Recycling

9 companies came together with the Walmart Foundation to start The Closed Loop Fund, a $100 million initiative to help communities finance recycling infrastructure projects. Their goal is to ensure that 100 percent of U.S. consumers have access to recycling.

These companies — Walmart and the Walmart Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies, Keurig Green Mountain, Inc., PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson and Unilever — have been facing a big hurdle in including more postconsumer recycled content in their products: recycling rates are stagnant and they can’t get enough materials from recycling streams to meet their goals. The Fund is part of Walmart’s holistic strategy to ask suppliers to include more postconsumer recycled content in their packaging while moving away from materials that are problematic for recycling.

Right-Sizing Fertilizer Use

From the same stage, six more companies’ CEOs — Campbell Soup Company, Monsanto, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), General Mills, Kellogg Company and PepsiCo, plus Cargill’s chairman of the board — committed to make their agricultural operations more sustainable, with goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fertilizer and water use. For many of them, this was in addition to work that they’ve already launched with Walmart to optimize fertilizer use in its supply chain. If fully implemented, this could result in greenhouse gas reductions of 7 million metric tons, reduce fertilizer runoff and help farmers cut costs.

The specific commitments each company made range from reducing the amount of GHG emissions and water used per ton of food produced (Campbells) to increasing farmers’ utilization of sustainable farming practices (Cargill, DFA, General Mills, Kellogg Company, PepsiCo).

What Really Matters:  Getting It Done

The work that Walmart and its suppliers is doing, catalyzed by the 20MMT goal, is not easy — it’s rooted in the notion that to get the kind of environmental results needed to address an issue like climate change, you need a systems approach and you need to work with suppliers. Even the world’s largest company working alone is not enough.

This week Walmart used its clout to bring together leading companies and give them a platform from which to make their commitment. Together, these companies represent more than a trillion dollars in total revenue. That’s a lot of power in the marketplace being leveraged for sustainability goals. Of course, in the end we’ll judge them all by  results— significant, measurable and transparent impacts of their efforts — and we expect Walmart to help hold them accountable for this progress.

By Marita Mirzatuny

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of participating on a panel hosted by the Texas Tribune that centered on the future of Texas’ power grid and electric reliability. Joining me was John Fainter, president and CEO of Association of Electric Companies of Texas, Inc; Trip Doggett, president and CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas; and Doyle Beneby, president and CEO of CPS Energy, San Antonio's municipal utility. The panel, entitled Keeping the Lights on in Texas, took place at and was broadcasted from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. It's a worthwhile watch and I'm encouraged that Texas Tribune is dedicated to investigating Texas' energy issues.

For about an hour, we discussed a variety of aspects in the current and future energy landscape of the Lone Star State. In particular, I focused on the exciting shift to give people power over their electricity use, save money, and help the environment with every flip of the switch.

This mostly high-level overview strikes a good balance of being informative yet understandable, and highlights the need for further discussion. I highlighted areas where EDF is working to advance clean energy in the state, advocating for the expansion of demand response, rooftop solar energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, large-scale renewables like wind farms, and energy storage. As Mr. Beneby joked, we could've talked for hours about demand response, an innovative tool leveraged by utilities to reward people who use less electricity during times of peak, or high, energy demand.

Throughout the panel, it rang clear that people and businesses are an essential part of Texas’ energy future and they must be engaged and equipped with knowledge. Individual engagement is essential as a two-way relationship between electric utilities and people replaces the outdated electric system created 100 years ago. People will have control over the creation and reduction of their energy use in ways we have never experienced.

Louisiana to receive money from 2010 oil spill disaster (+video)
By Tyana Williams, WAFB (Baton Rouge, La.). May 1, 2014.
“But she says lawmakers have a bad habit of using one-time money to fill gaps in the budget. For example, she says this week, lawmakers took 51 million dollars from the Coastal Protection Fund…” (read more)

New levees could knock down the next Katrina, but are they enough? (+video)
By John Snell, WVUE (New Orleans, La.). May 1, 2014.
“…Tulane's Mark Davis worries maintenance costs could suck up dollars that would otherwise build coastal projects, restoring or simply protecting areas that once provided natural defenses.…” (read more)

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Announces Completion of National Wetlands Database and Interactive Mapping Tool
By KCSG (St. George, Utah). May 1, 2014.
“To coincide with American Wetlands Month, which begins May 1, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is announcing the completion of the most comprehensive and detailed U.S. wetland data set ever produced…” (read more)

Shoreline fortification a sign of the future
By Xerxes Wilson, The Houma Courier (Houma, La.). May 1, 2014.
“State and federal conservationists hope a recently completed rock barrier will keep then Gulf Intracoastal Waterway from swallowing marshes beyond its bank…” (read more)

Could wind power knock down hurricane strength? (+video)
By Dennis Woltering, WWL TV. May 1, 2014.
“It almost sounds too good to be true: Install tens of thousands of wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico…” (read more)

Louisiana to receive money from 2010 oil spill disaster (+video)
By Tyana Williams, WAFB (Baton Rouge, La.). May 1, 2014.
“But she says lawmakers have a bad habit of using one-time money to fill gaps in the budget. For example, she says this week, lawmakers took 51 million dollars from the Coastal Protection Fund…” (read more)

New levees could knock down the next Katrina, but are they enough? (+video)
By John Snell, WVUE (New Orleans, La.). May 1, 2014.
“…Tulane's Mark Davis worries maintenance costs could suck up dollars that would otherwise build coastal projects, restoring or simply protecting areas that once provided natural defenses.…” (read more)

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Announces Completion of National Wetlands Database and Interactive Mapping Tool
By KCSG (St. George, Utah). May 1, 2014.
“To coincide with American Wetlands Month, which begins May 1, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is announcing the completion of the most comprehensive and detailed U.S. wetland data set ever produced…” (read more)

Shoreline fortification a sign of the future
By Xerxes Wilson, The Houma Courier (Houma, La.). May 1, 2014.
“State and federal conservationists hope a recently completed rock barrier will keep then Gulf Intracoastal Waterway from swallowing marshes beyond its bank…” (read more)

Could wind power knock down hurricane strength? (+video)
By Dennis Woltering, WWL TV. May 1, 2014.
“It almost sounds too good to be true: Install tens of thousands of wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico…” (read more)

By EDF Blogs

This post was co-authored by Kritee, Senior Scientist, International Climate; Richie Ahuja, Regional Director, Asia; and Tal Lee Anderman, Tom Graff Fellow – India Low-Carbon Rural Development

National Geographic's May cover story, “Feeding 9 billion,” offers valuable insights into how to feed a growing global population while reducing agriculture’s environmental impacts. But it omits some key connections with a critical issue: climate change.

Drought in the U.S. causes withering of corn. (Photo credit: Ben Fertig, IAN, UMCES)

As the Food and Agriculture Organization recently documented in great detail, climate change is likely to fundamentally alter the structure of food systems around the globe. With about 43% of the world’s population employed in agriculture, it’s vital that farmers have the knowledge and tools they need both to adapt to climate change and to help mitigate it.

Author Jonathan Foley, who directs the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, lays out several steps for “Feeding 9 billion.” Though he starts by acknowledging that agriculture emits “more greenhouse gases than all our cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes combined,” he doesn’t explicitly mention how his plan relates to a changing climate.

The first of his steps – halting conversion of additional forests and grasslands to agriculture – is crucial to stopping climate change, given the vast quantities of greenhouse gases released in these conversions. As the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on mitigation noted, protecting forests and increasing carbon content of the soils can decrease global emissions by as much as 13 gigatons CO2eq/year by 2030 – more than a quarter of current annual global emissions.

Foley also highlights the need to reduce meat consumption, because only a very limited portion of calories consumed by animals yield edible food for humans, and to reduce food waste. According to the IPCC, these consumer-level steps have the potential to decease agricultural emissions by 60% below the current trajectory. While Foley didn’t acknowledge these mitigation potentials, we agree that these are important steps to feeding the world’s population and protecting our environment.

But it’s his steps calling for improving productivity – both by growing more food on existing farms, and by using fertilizer, water and energy more efficiently – where the interactions with climate are more complex and need special attention.

Climate adaptation and resilience in agriculture

Foley rightly points out that to feed the world’s future population, more food needs to grow on existing farms. However, he doesn’t note that some of the effects of climate change – droughts, floods and heat waves in many parts of the world – are already reducing crop yields, and these effects and their consequences are expected to worsen.

The IPCC’s recently published 5th Assessment Report on adaptation concludes that:

• Climate change is already negatively affecting yields of crops and abundance of fish, and shifting the regions where crops grow and fish live
• Future changes in climate will increase competitiveness of weeds, making it difficult and more expensive to control them
• By 2050, changes in temperature and precipitation alone will raise global food prices by as much as 84% above food prices projected without these two climatic factors
• Major grains like wheat, corn, and rice could see as much as a 40% decrease in yield from a 20C increase in local temperatures. That’s because of the changing rainfall frequency and intensity, unpredictability and irregularity of growing seasons, and higher ozone levels that often accompany high CO­2 levels

To deal with these consequences and ensure food security and livelihoods, adaptation to climate change is essential. Indeed, adopting carefully chosen adaptation and resilience measures could improve crop yields as much as 15-20%. The IPCC recommendations include:

• Altering planting/harvesting dates to match the shifting growing seasons
• Using seed varieties that might be more tolerant of changing climatic patterns
• Better managing water and fertilizer use

A farmer training session, led by EDF’s partner NGO in India (Photo credit: Accion Fraterna)

Achieving high yields requires enabling farmers all over the world to adapt, build and restore the resilience of agricultural ecosystems in the face of continued climate change. Given that many farmers in developed countries have already reached what are currently maximum possible yields, it’s particularly urgent to work with farmers in the developing world.A vast majority of these farmers in developing countries own small-scale farms (less than two acres in size) and have limited resources, and as a result are on the frontline of experiencing the unfolding impacts of climate change. These farmers are already growing the majority of the world’s food – more than 90% of the world’s rice, over 65% of its wheat and 55% of its corn. Notably, as opposed to our recommendations for farmers in the developed countries, some of them might need to increase their fertilizer use to achieve better yields as opposed to decreasing it. Feeding a world of 9 billion thus requires facing the disproportionate effect that climate change has on the 2 billion people who depend on small-scale farms for their livelihood.

Barriers to climate adaptation & mitigation in agriculture

The latest IPCC report also noted that the “nature” of the agriculture sector means:

“There are many barriers to implementation of available mitigation options, including accessibility to … financing, … institutional, ecological, technological development, diffusion and transfer barriers.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Many farmers, especially small scale land-owners in developing parts of the world, lack access to reliable scientific information and technology. In some cases, relevant information has not even been generated.

An Indian peanut farm where EDF is monitoring yield and greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo credit: Richie Ahuja)

For example, small-scale rice farmers in Asia lack access to information enabling them to determine what amounts of water, organic and synthetic fertilizer will optimize yields while also minimizing release of the greenhouse gases methane (which is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it is released), and nitrous oxide (which is nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide). EDF is working with the Fair Climate Network in India and with Can Tho University and other partners in Vietnam to help generate that information and facilitate its use by farmers.

More generally, agricultural institutions at all levels – international, regional, national and local – need to work closely with farmers to learn and promote evidence-based, locally appropriate agricultural adaptation and mitigation technologies and practices. Farmer access to finance can further help improve the adoption rate of these technologies. Larger investments in farming infrastructure and science from government and private sector also need to be channeled to promote food security through low-carbon farming.

Our food system cannot achieve high yields without building and restoring the resilience of agricultural ecosystems, and the system won’t be sustainable if agriculture doesn’t do its part to mitigate climate change.

To feed 9 billion people, we must overcome barriers to reducing climate change’s effects on agriculture, and agriculture’s effect on climate.

This post first appeared on EDF Talks Global Climate blog

By EDF Blogs

This post was co-authored by Kritee, Senior Scientist, International Climate; Richie Ahuja, Regional Director, Asia; and Tal Lee Anderman, Tom Graff Fellow – India Low-Carbon Rural Development

National Geographic's May cover story, “Feeding 9 billion,” offers valuable insights into how to feed a growing global population while reducing agriculture’s environmental impacts. But it omits some key connections with a critical issue: climate change.

Drought in the U.S. causes withering of corn. (Photo credit: Ben Fertig, IAN, UMCES)

As the Food and Agriculture Organization recently documented in great detail, climate change is likely to fundamentally alter the structure of food systems around the globe. With about 43% of the world’s population employed in agriculture, it’s vital that farmers have the knowledge and tools they need both to adapt to climate change and to help mitigate it.

Author Jonathan Foley, who directs the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, lays out several steps for “Feeding 9 billion.” Though he starts by acknowledging that agriculture emits “more greenhouse gases than all our cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes combined,” he doesn’t explicitly mention how his plan relates to a changing climate.

The first of his steps – halting conversion of additional forests and grasslands to agriculture – is crucial to stopping climate change, given the vast quantities of greenhouse gases released in these conversions. As the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on mitigation noted, protecting forests and increasing carbon content of the soils can decrease global emissions by as much as 13 gigatons CO2eq/year by 2030 – more than a quarter of current annual global emissions.

Foley also highlights the need to reduce meat consumption, because only a very limited portion of calories consumed by animals yield edible food for humans, and to reduce food waste. According to the IPCC, these consumer-level steps have the potential to decease agricultural emissions by 60% below the current trajectory. While Foley didn’t acknowledge these mitigation potentials, we agree that these are important steps to feeding the world’s population and protecting our environment.

But it’s his steps calling for improving productivity – both by growing more food on existing farms, and by using fertilizer, water and energy more efficiently – where the interactions with climate are more complex and need special attention.

Climate adaptation and resilience in agriculture

Foley rightly points out that to feed the world’s future population, more food needs to grow on existing farms. However, he doesn’t note that some of the effects of climate change – droughts, floods and heat waves in many parts of the world – are already reducing crop yields, and these effects and their consequences are expected to worsen.

The IPCC’s recently published 5th Assessment Report on adaptation concludes that:

• Climate change is already negatively affecting yields of crops and abundance of fish, and shifting the regions where crops grow and fish live
• Future changes in climate will increase competitiveness of weeds, making it difficult and more expensive to control them
• By 2050, changes in temperature and precipitation alone will raise global food prices by as much as 84% above food prices projected without these two climatic factors
• Major grains like wheat, corn, and rice could see as much as a 40% decrease in yield from a 20C increase in local temperatures. That’s because of the changing rainfall frequency and intensity, unpredictability and irregularity of growing seasons, and higher ozone levels that often accompany high CO­2 levels

To deal with these consequences and ensure food security and livelihoods, adaptation to climate change is essential. Indeed, adopting carefully chosen adaptation and resilience measures could improve crop yields as much as 15-20%. The IPCC recommendations include:

• Altering planting/harvesting dates to match the shifting growing seasons
• Using seed varieties that might be more tolerant of changing climatic patterns
• Better managing water and fertilizer use

A farmer training session, led by EDF’s partner NGO in India (Photo credit: Accion Fraterna)

Achieving high yields requires enabling farmers all over the world to adapt, build and restore the resilience of agricultural ecosystems in the face of continued climate change. Given that many farmers in developed countries have already reached what are currently maximum possible yields, it’s particularly urgent to work with farmers in the developing world.A vast majority of these farmers in developing countries own small-scale farms (less than two acres in size) and have limited resources, and as a result are on the frontline of experiencing the unfolding impacts of climate change. These farmers are already growing the majority of the world’s food – more than 90% of the world’s rice, over 65% of its wheat and 55% of its corn. Notably, as opposed to our recommendations for farmers in the developed countries, some of them might need to increase their fertilizer use to achieve better yields as opposed to decreasing it. Feeding a world of 9 billion thus requires facing the disproportionate effect that climate change has on the 2 billion people who depend on small-scale farms for their livelihood.

Barriers to climate adaptation & mitigation in agriculture

The latest IPCC report also noted that the “nature” of the agriculture sector means:

“There are many barriers to implementation of available mitigation options, including accessibility to … financing, … institutional, ecological, technological development, diffusion and transfer barriers.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Many farmers, especially small scale land-owners in developing parts of the world, lack access to reliable scientific information and technology. In some cases, relevant information has not even been generated.

An Indian peanut farm where EDF is monitoring yield and greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo credit: Richie Ahuja)

For example, small-scale rice farmers in Asia lack access to information enabling them to determine what amounts of water, organic and synthetic fertilizer will optimize yields while also minimizing release of the greenhouse gases methane (which is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it is released), and nitrous oxide (which is nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide). EDF is working with the Fair Climate Network in India and with Can Tho University and other partners in Vietnam to help generate that information and facilitate its use by farmers.

More generally, agricultural institutions at all levels – international, regional, national and local – need to work closely with farmers to learn and promote evidence-based, locally appropriate agricultural adaptation and mitigation technologies and practices. Farmer access to finance can further help improve the adoption rate of these technologies. Larger investments in farming infrastructure and science from government and private sector also need to be channeled to promote food security through low-carbon farming.

Our food system cannot achieve high yields without building and restoring the resilience of agricultural ecosystems, and the system won’t be sustainable if agriculture doesn’t do its part to mitigate climate change.

To feed 9 billion people, we must overcome barriers to reducing climate change’s effects on agriculture, and agriculture’s effect on climate.

This post first appeared on EDF Talks Global Climate blog

By Erin Greeson (National Audubon Society) and Alisha Renfro (National Wildlife Federation)

While there is no question that large-scale action is urgently needed to add address Louisiana’s land loss crisis, some questions surround the scientific solutions necessary to address this challenge. As the state of Louisiana advances its Coastal Master Plan and the comprehensive set of restoration projects within it, experts have opened discussion to communities to provide information, share science and encourage dialogue.

This week in New Orleans, the Expert Panel on Diversion Planning and Implementation had their second meeting, which offered an opportunity for scientists and community members to reconvene for updates and discussion on sediment diversions – one of the key tools in Louisiana’s coastal restoration toolbox. In addition to addressing environmental concerns, the panel addressed social and economic questions about river diversions and the communities they will impact.

At the start of the meeting, Mr. King Milling, Chair of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation, delivered a powerful reminder of Louisiana’s disappearing coast:

“Demise of this delta would be an environmental impact of international proportions: disaster for economy, culture, communities – all the things we do and live for in the delta. If we don’t proceed urgently, we will lose the delta. Nothing will stop this damage if we don’t proceed in an orderly fashion with large-scale, comprehensive solutions. This is not a time for debate. Our role is to address the issue of remarkable deterioration, and the state’s diversion committee will be addressing issues and conflicts. Its position is to focus on the larger picture of how we can preserve as much as we can, and how can we create a system that will protect as much as we can.”

The first day of the meeting was open to the public, and the agenda reflected many of the areas of focus that require follow-up from the panel’s first meeting. Presentations from the Army Corps of Engineers, The Water Institute of the Gulf and Biedenharn Group focused on the Hydrodynamic Study, which is collecting data in the river and using models to represent conditions in the river as it is today, predicting what the river will be like in the future without diversion projects and how the construction and operation of diversion projects change the river compared to the future without the diversions. They also briefly discussed the Mississippi River Delta Management Study, expected to begin soon, which will focus on the basin-side effects of diversions and evaluate combinations of diversion projects that maximize the number of acres of wetlands built or sustained over time.

Presentations from David Lindquist from the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) summarized the current state of knowledge on fisheries and wildlife response to existing freshwater diversions. Craig Colten, Ph.D. from the Water Institute of the Gulf highlighted the importance of considering the influences of restoration projects on communities.

A presentation from Micaela Coner and Bob Beduhn narrowed the discussion down to the engineering and design considerations of a single project – the Mid-Barataria Diversion. Ms. Coner, CPRA, discussed the Mid-Barataria sediment diversion project within the context of the 109 Coastal Master Plan projects. Speaking to the plan’s theme of reconnecting the river with its estuaries, she described sediment diversions as the best opportunity to build, maintain and sustain land.

Dr. Robert Twilley

Dr. Robert Twilley, Louisiana State University, described how the river once built natural resource wealth: “Natural resource economies and the flooding of the river once coexisted. The wealth of fisheries, and the wealth of the river building wetlands, once coexisted. Today, there’s a conflict. Historically, the river built land during big flood events. Nature had this figured out. We’re forcing a conflict. There is a resolution to this.”

During the closing portion of the meeting, attendees had opportunities to provide comments to the Expert Panel. Mississippi River Delta Restoration Coalition leaders were among the conversation.

David Muth, NWF

David Muth of the National Wildlife Federation urged the panel to consider the historical context of the river in addressing site-specific questions about diversions: “We have glimpses from historical record about how productive this system once was. But for the past 300 years, we have been choking off that system.”

John Lopez of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation described the coastal land loss crisis in powerful terms and underscored for a sense of urgency: “This house is on fire. Lives are at risk. We have a great scientific challenge, but we don’t have time to delay.”

More background on the Expert Panel:

During its first meeting in January, the Expert Panel was asked to focus on the topics of uncertainty – underlying natural variability and limitations in knowledge – they perceived surrounding the design and operation of major freshwater and sediment diversions. A report summarizing their findings and recommendations from that first meeting was released in February.

In this report the panel focused on identifying six areas that should be answered or considered as sediment diversions move further from idea into planning, engineering and design:

1. Data collection is important for understanding the system as it is today and for evaluating performance of individual diversion projects.
2. A controlled sediment diversion does not currently exist, but some information needed to understand the time scales and extent of land building that could be expected from a controlled sediment diversion can be gleaned from natural crevasses.
3. The response of plant, fish and wildlife communities to the operation of sediment diversions should be incorporated into modeling of different scenarios, both capacity and operation, of a diversion.
4. The potential social and economic influences of a diversion project need to be considered to minimize any potential negative impacts that can be foreseen.
5. Planning and design of diversion projects need to be explored under present day and possible future conditions (e.g. sea level rise, changes in precipitation) to maximize project success in the very near and long-term future.
6. Communications between planners and stakeholders to discuss the realities and limitations of any predictions is essential for project success.

By Erin Greeson (National Audubon Society) and Alisha Renfro (National Wildlife Federation)

While there is no question that large-scale action is urgently needed to add address Louisiana’s land loss crisis, some questions surround the scientific solutions necessary to address this challenge. As the state of Louisiana advances its Coastal Master Plan and the comprehensive set of restoration projects within it, experts have opened discussion to communities to provide information, share science and encourage dialogue.

This week in New Orleans, the Expert Panel on Diversion Planning and Implementation had their second meeting, which offered an opportunity for scientists and community members to reconvene for updates and discussion on sediment diversions – one of the key tools in Louisiana’s coastal restoration toolbox. In addition to addressing environmental concerns, the panel addressed social and economic questions about river diversions and the communities they will impact.

At the start of the meeting, Mr. King Milling, Chair of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation, delivered a powerful reminder of Louisiana’s disappearing coast:

“Demise of this delta would be an environmental impact of international proportions: disaster for economy, culture, communities – all the things we do and live for in the delta. If we don’t proceed urgently, we will lose the delta. Nothing will stop this damage if we don’t proceed in an orderly fashion with large-scale, comprehensive solutions. This is not a time for debate. Our role is to address the issue of remarkable deterioration, and the state’s diversion committee will be addressing issues and conflicts. Its position is to focus on the larger picture of how we can preserve as much as we can, and how can we create a system that will protect as much as we can.”

The first day of the meeting was open to the public, and the agenda reflected many of the areas of focus that require follow-up from the panel’s first meeting. Presentations from the Army Corps of Engineers, The Water Institute of the Gulf and Biedenharn Group focused on the Hydrodynamic Study, which is collecting data in the river and using models to represent conditions in the river as it is today, predicting what the river will be like in the future without diversion projects and how the construction and operation of diversion projects change the river compared to the future without the diversions. They also briefly discussed the Mississippi River Delta Management Study, expected to begin soon, which will focus on the basin-side effects of diversions and evaluate combinations of diversion projects that maximize the number of acres of wetlands built or sustained over time.

Presentations from David Lindquist from the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) summarized the current state of knowledge on fisheries and wildlife response to existing freshwater diversions. Craig Colten, Ph.D. from the Water Institute of the Gulf highlighted the importance of considering the influences of restoration projects on communities.

A presentation from Micaela Coner and Bob Beduhn narrowed the discussion down to the engineering and design considerations of a single project – the Mid-Barataria Diversion. Ms. Coner, CPRA, discussed the Mid-Barataria sediment diversion project within the context of the 109 Coastal Master Plan projects. Speaking to the plan’s theme of reconnecting the river with its estuaries, she described sediment diversions as the best opportunity to build, maintain and sustain land.

Dr. Robert Twilley

Dr. Robert Twilley, Louisiana State University, described how the river once built natural resource wealth: “Natural resource economies and the flooding of the river once coexisted. The wealth of fisheries, and the wealth of the river building wetlands, once coexisted. Today, there’s a conflict. Historically, the river built land during big flood events. Nature had this figured out. We’re forcing a conflict. There is a resolution to this.”

During the closing portion of the meeting, attendees had opportunities to provide comments to the Expert Panel. Mississippi River Delta Restoration Coalition leaders were among the conversation.

David Muth, NWF

David Muth of the National Wildlife Federation urged the panel to consider the historical context of the river in addressing site-specific questions about diversions: “We have glimpses from historical record about how productive this system once was. But for the past 300 years, we have been choking off that system.”

John Lopez of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation described the coastal land loss crisis in powerful terms and underscored for a sense of urgency: “This house is on fire. Lives are at risk. We have a great scientific challenge, but we don’t have time to delay.”

More background on the Expert Panel:

During its first meeting in January, the Expert Panel was asked to focus on the topics of uncertainty – underlying natural variability and limitations in knowledge – they perceived surrounding the design and operation of major freshwater and sediment diversions. A report summarizing their findings and recommendations from that first meeting was released in February.

In this report the panel focused on identifying six areas that should be answered or considered as sediment diversions move further from idea into planning, engineering and design:

1. Data collection is important for understanding the system as it is today and for evaluating performance of individual diversion projects.
2. A controlled sediment diversion does not currently exist, but some information needed to understand the time scales and extent of land building that could be expected from a controlled sediment diversion can be gleaned from natural crevasses.
3. The response of plant, fish and wildlife communities to the operation of sediment diversions should be incorporated into modeling of different scenarios, both capacity and operation, of a diversion.
4. The potential social and economic influences of a diversion project need to be considered to minimize any potential negative impacts that can be foreseen.
5. Planning and design of diversion projects need to be explored under present day and possible future conditions (e.g. sea level rise, changes in precipitation) to maximize project success in the very near and long-term future.
6. Communications between planners and stakeholders to discuss the realities and limitations of any predictions is essential for project success.

By John Finnigan

Source: Chris Chan Flickr

Energy efficiency is a proven value. In Ohio alone, energy efficiency programs have saved people a total of $1 billion since 2009. What’s more is that these savings far outweigh the costs to implement Ohio’s energy efficiency programs, which amount to less than half of the total savings. Yet Ohio utilities, particularly FirstEnergy, and large industrial companies want to kill it. Why? Because they lose when customers use energy efficiency programs.

One would think that the billions in customer energy savings would easily trump the utilities’ and large industrial companies’ efforts to kill energy efficiency. But we live in challenging times. The utilities and large industrial companies are spending big money on this issue, and they might win the day unless we can convince our elected leaders to save energy efficiency.

Since 2009, Ohio law has required utilities to meet energy efficiency goals by offering  energy savings programs, which have proven to be wildly successful.  A recent study from Ohio Advanced Energy reviewed all Ohio utility energy efficiency programs since they began in 2009. The study found that these programs have saved customers $1 billion to date and will save a total of $4.1 billion through existing programs. Much greater savings will be available if utilities continue to introduce new programs.

These energy savings are happening not just in Ohio, but all over the country. A March 2014 study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reviewed 1,700 energy efficiency programs in 31 states over a three-year period (including 170 Ohio programs). The researchers found that the average cost for procuring the energy efficiency savings was 2.1¢ per kilowatt-hour – five times less expensive than the 10.13¢ per kilowatt-hour customers pay for electricity. The programs cost $5.2 billion and will save 353,585 gigawatt hours of electricity, valued at over $25 billion, as illustrated below:

Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Program Administrator Cost of Saved Energy for Utility Customer-Funded Energy Efficiency Programs, page 20 (March 2014).

Utilities and large industrial companies have a strong motive to kill these programs, just as horse and buggy makers might have wished to kill the automobile. Utilities make money by selling more electricity, so when customers use energy efficiency programs to lower their electricity bills, the utilities lose revenue. Large industrial companies can afford to hire full-time engineers to design custom-tailored energy savings programs, so they don’t want to pay for the utility programs. These large companies have a powerful competitive advantage over smaller companies, who can’t afford this and rely on utility energy efficiency programs to save money.

The utilities and large industrial companies are throwing big money at this issue and working in several states across the U.S. with well-funded corporate interests, such as the Koch Brothers, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council to overthrow these energy efficiency programs. They won in one state, when Indiana repealed its energy efficiency goals in March, and a similar bill, SB 310, which would freeze any additional energy efficiency mandates after 2014, is being debated in the Ohio state legislature right now.

The irony is that when Ohio utilities file their annual energy efficiency reports with the Ohio Public Utilities Commission, they wax eloquently about energy efficiency’s benefits. AEP said its 2015-2019 energy efficiency plan will save customers “approximately $1.5 billion and create over 4,000 new jobs.” DP&L said that “[f]rom 2009 through 2012, DP&L’s residential and business programs helped customers save 659,605 megawatt hours of energy, or enough energy to power 54,967 homes for a year.” And FirstEnergy reported that its customers save two dollars for every one dollar the company spends on energy efficiency programs.

If the utilities were acting in their customers’ interests, they would issue public statements of support for the current energy efficiency goals. But the utilities are simply acting in their own self-interest and so they are working behind the scenes to kill energy efficiency.

Hopefully common sense will prevail in Ohio and energy efficiency will remain intact.  But this is too important an issue to take for granted. Tell your elected leaders today that you want to save energy efficiency – so you can continue saving money on your electricity bill.

By John Finnigan

Source: Chris Chan Flickr

Energy efficiency is a proven value. In Ohio alone, energy efficiency programs have saved people a total of $1 billion since 2009. What’s more is that these savings far outweigh the costs to implement Ohio’s energy efficiency programs, which amount to less than half of the total savings. Yet Ohio utilities, particularly FirstEnergy, and large industrial companies want to kill it. Why? Because they lose when customers use energy efficiency programs.

One would think that the billions in customer energy savings would easily trump the utilities’ and large industrial companies’ efforts to kill energy efficiency. But we live in challenging times. The utilities and large industrial companies are spending big money on this issue, and they might win the day unless we can convince our elected leaders to save energy efficiency.

Since 2009, Ohio law has required utilities to meet energy efficiency goals by offering  energy savings programs, which have proven to be wildly successful.  A recent study from Ohio Advanced Energy reviewed all Ohio utility energy efficiency programs since they began in 2009. The study found that these programs have saved customers $1 billion to date and will save a total of $4.1 billion through existing programs. Much greater savings will be available if utilities continue to introduce new programs.

These energy savings are happening not just in Ohio, but all over the country. A March 2014 study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reviewed 1,700 energy efficiency programs in 31 states over a three-year period (including 170 Ohio programs). The researchers found that the average cost for procuring the energy efficiency savings was 2.1¢ per kilowatt-hour – five times less expensive than the 10.13¢ per kilowatt-hour customers pay for electricity. The programs cost $5.2 billion and will save 353,585 gigawatt hours of electricity, valued at over $25 billion, as illustrated below:

Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Program Administrator Cost of Saved Energy for Utility Customer-Funded Energy Efficiency Programs, page 20 (March 2014).

Utilities and large industrial companies have a strong motive to kill these programs, just as horse and buggy makers might have wished to kill the automobile. Utilities make money by selling more electricity, so when customers use energy efficiency programs to lower their electricity bills, the utilities lose revenue. Large industrial companies can afford to hire full-time engineers to design custom-tailored energy savings programs, so they don’t want to pay for the utility programs. These large companies have a powerful competitive advantage over smaller companies, who can’t afford this and rely on utility energy efficiency programs to save money.

The utilities and large industrial companies are throwing big money at this issue and working in several states across the U.S. with well-funded corporate interests, such as the Koch Brothers, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council to overthrow these energy efficiency programs. They won in one state, when Indiana repealed its energy efficiency goals in March, and a similar bill, SB 310, which would freeze any additional energy efficiency mandates after 2014, is being debated in the Ohio state legislature right now.

The irony is that when Ohio utilities file their annual energy efficiency reports with the Ohio Public Utilities Commission, they wax eloquently about energy efficiency’s benefits. AEP said its 2015-2019 energy efficiency plan will save customers “approximately $1.5 billion and create over 4,000 new jobs.” DP&L said that “[f]rom 2009 through 2012, DP&L’s residential and business programs helped customers save 659,605 megawatt hours of energy, or enough energy to power 54,967 homes for a year.” And FirstEnergy reported that its customers save two dollars for every one dollar the company spends on energy efficiency programs.

If the utilities were acting in their customers’ interests, they would issue public statements of support for the current energy efficiency goals. But the utilities are simply acting in their own self-interest and so they are working behind the scenes to kill energy efficiency.

Hopefully common sense will prevail in Ohio and energy efficiency will remain intact.  But this is too important an issue to take for granted. Tell your elected leaders today that you want to save energy efficiency – so you can continue saving money on your electricity bill.

By John Finnigan

Source: Chris Chan Flickr

Energy efficiency is a proven value. In Ohio alone, energy efficiency programs have saved people a total of $1 billion since 2009. What’s more is that these savings far outweigh the costs to implement Ohio’s energy efficiency programs, which amount to less than half of the total savings. Yet Ohio utilities, particularly FirstEnergy, and large industrial companies want to kill it. Why? Because they lose when customers use energy efficiency programs.

One would think that the billions in customer energy savings would easily trump the utilities’ and large industrial companies’ efforts to kill energy efficiency. But we live in challenging times. The utilities and large industrial companies are spending big money on this issue, and they might win the day unless we can convince our elected leaders to save energy efficiency.

Since 2009, Ohio law has required utilities to meet energy efficiency goals by offering  energy savings programs, which have proven to be wildly successful.  A recent study from Ohio Advanced Energy reviewed all Ohio utility energy efficiency programs since they began in 2009. The study found that these programs have saved customers $1 billion to date and will save a total of $4.1 billion through existing programs. Much greater savings will be available if utilities continue to introduce new programs.

These energy savings are happening not just in Ohio, but all over the country. A March 2014 study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reviewed 1,700 energy efficiency programs in 31 states over a three-year period (including 170 Ohio programs). The researchers found that the average cost for procuring the energy efficiency savings was 2.1¢ per kilowatt-hour – five times less expensive than the 10.13¢ per kilowatt-hour customers pay for electricity. The programs cost $5.2 billion and will save 353,585 gigawatt hours of electricity, valued at over $25 billion, as illustrated below:

Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Program Administrator Cost of Saved Energy for Utility Customer-Funded Energy Efficiency Programs, page 20 (March 2014).

Utilities and large industrial companies have a strong motive to kill these programs, just as horse and buggy makers might have wished to kill the automobile. Utilities make money by selling more electricity, so when customers use energy efficiency programs to lower their electricity bills, the utilities lose revenue. Large industrial companies can afford to hire full-time engineers to design custom-tailored energy savings programs, so they don’t want to pay for the utility programs. These large companies have a powerful competitive advantage over smaller companies, who can’t afford this and rely on utility energy efficiency programs to save money.

The utilities and large industrial companies are throwing big money at this issue and working in several states across the U.S. with well-funded corporate interests, such as the Koch Brothers, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council to overthrow these energy efficiency programs. They won in one state, when Indiana repealed its energy efficiency goals in March, and a similar bill, SB 310, which would freeze any additional energy efficiency mandates after 2014, is being debated in the Ohio state legislature right now.

The irony is that when Ohio utilities file their annual energy efficiency reports with the Ohio Public Utilities Commission, they wax eloquently about energy efficiency’s benefits. AEP said its 2015-2019 energy efficiency plan will save customers “approximately $1.5 billion and create over 4,000 new jobs.” DP&L said that “[f]rom 2009 through 2012, DP&L’s residential and business programs helped customers save 659,605 megawatt hours of energy, or enough energy to power 54,967 homes for a year.” And FirstEnergy reported that its customers save two dollars for every one dollar the company spends on energy efficiency programs.

If the utilities were acting in their customers’ interests, they would issue public statements of support for the current energy efficiency goals. But the utilities are simply acting in their own self-interest and so they are working behind the scenes to kill energy efficiency.

Hopefully common sense will prevail in Ohio and energy efficiency will remain intact.  But this is too important an issue to take for granted. Tell your elected leaders today that you want to save energy efficiency – so you can continue saving money on your electricity bill.

By John Finnigan

Source: Chris Chan Flickr

Energy efficiency is a proven value. In Ohio alone, energy efficiency programs have saved people a total of $1 billion since 2009. What’s more is that these savings far outweigh the costs to implement Ohio’s energy efficiency programs, which amount to less than half of the total savings. Yet Ohio utilities, particularly FirstEnergy, and large industrial companies want to kill it. Why? Because they lose when customers use energy efficiency programs.

One would think that the billions in customer energy savings would easily trump the utilities’ and large industrial companies’ efforts to kill energy efficiency. But we live in challenging times. The utilities and large industrial companies are spending big money on this issue, and they might win the day unless we can convince our elected leaders to save energy efficiency.

Since 2009, Ohio law has required utilities to meet energy efficiency goals by offering  energy savings programs, which have proven to be wildly successful.  A recent study from Ohio Advanced Energy reviewed all Ohio utility energy efficiency programs since they began in 2009. The study found that these programs have saved customers $1 billion to date and will save a total of $4.1 billion through existing programs. Much greater savings will be available if utilities continue to introduce new programs.

These energy savings are happening not just in Ohio, but all over the country. A March 2014 study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reviewed 1,700 energy efficiency programs in 31 states over a three-year period (including 170 Ohio programs). The researchers found that the average cost for procuring the energy efficiency savings was 2.1¢ per kilowatt-hour – five times less expensive than the 10.13¢ per kilowatt-hour customers pay for electricity. The programs cost $5.2 billion and will save 353,585 gigawatt hours of electricity, valued at over $25 billion, as illustrated below:

Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Program Administrator Cost of Saved Energy for Utility Customer-Funded Energy Efficiency Programs, page 20 (March 2014).

Utilities and large industrial companies have a strong motive to kill these programs, just as horse and buggy makers might have wished to kill the automobile. Utilities make money by selling more electricity, so when customers use energy efficiency programs to lower their electricity bills, the utilities lose revenue. Large industrial companies can afford to hire full-time engineers to design custom-tailored energy savings programs, so they don’t want to pay for the utility programs. These large companies have a powerful competitive advantage over smaller companies, who can’t afford this and rely on utility energy efficiency programs to save money.

The utilities and large industrial companies are throwing big money at this issue and working in several states across the U.S. with well-funded corporate interests, such as the Koch Brothers, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council to overthrow these energy efficiency programs. They won in one state, when Indiana repealed its energy efficiency goals in March, and a similar bill, SB 310, which would freeze any additional energy efficiency mandates after 2014, is being debated in the Ohio state legislature right now.

The irony is that when Ohio utilities file their annual energy efficiency reports with the Ohio Public Utilities Commission, they wax eloquently about energy efficiency’s benefits. AEP said its 2015-2019 energy efficiency plan will save customers “approximately $1.5 billion and create over 4,000 new jobs.” DP&L said that “[f]rom 2009 through 2012, DP&L’s residential and business programs helped customers save 659,605 megawatt hours of energy, or enough energy to power 54,967 homes for a year.” And FirstEnergy reported that its customers save two dollars for every one dollar the company spends on energy efficiency programs.

If the utilities were acting in their customers’ interests, they would issue public statements of support for the current energy efficiency goals. But the utilities are simply acting in their own self-interest and so they are working behind the scenes to kill energy efficiency.

Hopefully common sense will prevail in Ohio and energy efficiency will remain intact.  But this is too important an issue to take for granted. Tell your elected leaders today that you want to save energy efficiency – so you can continue saving money on your electricity bill.

This post was co-authored by Kritee, Senior Scientist, International Climate; Richie Ahuja, Regional Director, Asia; and Tal Lee Anderman, Tom Graff Fellow – India Low-Carbon Rural Development National Geographic’s May cover story, “Feeding 9 billion,” offers valuable insights into how to feed a growing global population while reducing agriculture’s environmental impacts. But it omits some key connections […]

By Kritee

This post was co-authored by Kritee, Senior Scientist, International Climate; Richie Ahuja, Regional Director, Asia; and Tal Lee Anderman, Tom Graff Fellow – India Low-Carbon Rural Development

National Geographic's May cover story, “Feeding 9 billion,” offers valuable insights into how to feed a growing global population while reducing agriculture’s environmental impacts. But it omits some key connections with a critical issue: climate change.

Drought in the U.S. causes withering of corn. (Photo credit: Ben Fertig, IAN, UMCES)

As the Food and Agriculture Organization recently documented in great detail, climate change is likely to fundamentally alter the structure of food systems around the globe. With about 43% of the world’s population employed in agriculture, it’s vital that farmers have the knowledge and tools they need both to adapt to climate change and to help mitigate it.

Author Jonathan Foley, who directs the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, lays out several steps for “Feeding 9 billion.” Though he starts by acknowledging that agriculture emits “more greenhouse gases than all our cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes combined,” he doesn’t explicitly mention how his plan relates to a changing climate.

The first of his steps – halting conversion of additional forests and grasslands to agriculture – is crucial to stopping climate change, given the vast quantities of greenhouse gases released in these conversions. As the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on mitigation noted, protecting forests and increasing carbon content of the soils can decrease global emissions by as much as 13 gigatons CO2eq/year by 2030 – more than a quarter of current annual global emissions.

Foley also highlights the need to reduce meat consumption, because only a very limited portion of calories consumed by animals yield edible food for humans, and to reduce food waste. According to the IPCC, these consumer-level steps have the potential to decease agricultural emissions by 60% below the current trajectory. While Foley didn’t acknowledge these mitigation potentials, we agree that these are important steps to feeding the world’s population and protecting our environment.

But it’s his steps calling for improving productivity – both by growing more food on existing farms, and by using fertilizer, water and energy more efficiently – where the interactions with climate are more complex and need special attention.

Climate adaptation and resilience in agriculture

Foley rightly points out that to feed the world’s future population, more food needs to grow on existing farms. However, he doesn’t note that some of the effects of climate change – droughts, floods and heat waves in many parts of the world – are already reducing crop yields, and these effects and their consequences are expected to worsen.

The IPCC’s recently published 5th Assessment Report on adaptation concludes that:

• Climate change is already negatively affecting yields of crops and abundance of fish, and shifting the regions where crops grow and fish live
• Future changes in climate will increase competitiveness of weeds, making it difficult and more expensive to control them
• By 2050, changes in temperature and precipitation alone will raise global food prices by as much as 84% above food prices projected without these two climatic factors
• Major grains like wheat, corn, and rice could see as much as a 40% decrease in yield from a 20C increase in local temperatures. That’s because of the changing rainfall frequency and intensity, unpredictability and irregularity of growing seasons, and higher ozone levels that often accompany high CO­2 levels

To deal with these consequences and ensure food security and livelihoods, adaptation to climate change is essential. Indeed, adopting carefully chosen adaptation and resilience measures could improve crop yields as much as 15-20%. The IPCC recommendations include:

• Altering planting/harvesting dates to match the shifting growing seasons
• Using seed varieties that might be more tolerant of changing climatic patterns
• Better managing water and fertilizer use

A farmer training session, led by EDF’s partner NGO in India (Photo credit: Accion Fraterna)

Achieving high yields requires enabling farmers all over the world to adapt, build and restore the resilience of agricultural ecosystems in the face of continued climate change. Given that many farmers in developed countries have already reached what are currently maximum possible yields, it’s particularly urgent to work with farmers in the developing world.

A vast majority of these farmers in developing countries own small-scale farms (less than two acres in size) and have limited resources, and as a result are on the frontline of experiencing the unfolding impacts of climate change. These farmers are already growing the majority of the world’s food – more than 90% of the world’s rice, over 65% of its wheat and 55% of its corn. Notably, as opposed to our recommendations for farmers in the developed countries, some of them might need to increase their fertilizer use to achieve better yields as opposed to decreasing it. Feeding a world of 9 billion thus requires facing the disproportionate effect that climate change has on the 2 billion people who depend on small-scale farms for their livelihood.

Barriers to climate adaptation & mitigation in agriculture

The latest IPCC report also noted that the “nature” of the agriculture sector means:

“there are many barriers to implementation of available mitigation options, including accessibility to … financing, … institutional, ecological, technological development, diffusion and transfer barriers.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Many farmers, especially small scale land-owners in developing parts of the world, lack access to reliable scientific information and technology. In some cases, relevant information has not even been generated.

An Indian peanut farm where EDF is monitoring yield and greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo credit: Richie Ahuja)

For example, small-scale rice farmers in Asia lack access to information enabling them to determine what amounts of water, organic and synthetic fertilizer will optimize yields while also minimizing release of the greenhouse gases methane (which is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it is released), and nitrous oxide (which is nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide). EDF is working with the Fair Climate Network in India and with Can Tho University and other partners in Vietnam to help generate that information and facilitate its use by farmers.

More generally, agricultural institutions at all levels – international, regional, national and local – need to work closely with farmers to learn and promote evidence-based, locally appropriate agricultural adaptation and mitigation technologies and practices. Farmer access to finance can further help improve the adoption rate of these technologies. Larger investments in farming infrastructure and science from government and private sector also need to be channeled to promote food security through low-carbon farming.

Our food system cannot achieve high yields without building and restoring the resilience of agricultural ecosystems, and the system won’t be sustainable if agriculture doesn’t do its part to mitigate climate change.

To feed 9 billion people, we must overcome barriers to reducing climate change’s effects on agriculture, and agriculture’s effect on climate.