This blogpost applies SEI's Climate Impact Equity Lens tool to the Caribbean to show the wide range of projected impacts from climate change on people in the region. The authors note that the Caribbean islands include the countries with the lowest and highest average incomes in the greater Latin American and Caribbean region: Haiti, at less than $500 per year, and the Cayman Islands, at $52,000, and there is great income diversity within countries as well.
Impacts on individuals also differ greatly depending on their source of income, with higher projected damages among those who work in agriculture, fisheries, tourism, or other climate-vulnerable sectors. And physical vulnerabilities such as exposure to sea-level rise and water scarcity also vary throughout the region.
This diversity of experiences, the authors argue, shows how crucial it is for policymakers to look beyond the regional average in order to understand the severity of impacts on the most vulnerable.
The link below leads to the Climate & Knowledge Development Network blog, where the article first appeared; it was also reposted on RealClimateEconomics.
Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, Calif., recently went on a field trip with SEI and University of California-Davis researchers to learn firsthand about Chinook salmon in Butte Creek, whose survival is threatened by climate change.
The interdisciplinary research team linked SEI's WEAP system to a salmon population dynamics model to analyze tradeoffs between different ecosystem services, including fish habitat and hydropower.
Spring-run Chinook salmon used to be plentiful in California's Central Valley but are now an endangered species, down from about a million fish to only about 16,000, and limited to a handful of watersheds. Because adults over-summer in freshwater streams before spawning in the fall, they are particularly threatened by climate change.
The Butte Creek study found that without changes in water management, the water in the streams will become too warm within decades, and Chinook salmon will likely go extinct in Butte Creek and all of California. The study also found that halting the diversion of water from Butte Creek at one major dam during the critical July-September holding period could significantly improve the salmon's survival chances, but at the expense of large amounts of power generation.
Regulation of coal-ash disposal at the federal level would lead to a net job gain, not massive losses as industry claims, a new SEI policy paper shows.
The paper addresses claims made in an industry-sponsored study that regulating coal ash under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the stricter of two options being considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, would lead to the loss of up to 316,000 jobs nationwide. SEI senior economist Frank Ackerman finds the study deeply flawed, on multiple levels.
Ackerman's own calculation, based on cost estimates from an industry-sponsored study and the IMPLAN model of the U.S. economy, shows a net gain of 28,000 jobs per year.
"The claim that hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost, especially in such troubled economic times, would seem to suggest that we can't afford to regulate coal ash, no matter what the benefits might be," Ackerman said. "But this report shows that what we can’t afford is such careless and exaggerated calculations of job impacts."
"Despite industry's claims to the contrary, strict regulation of coal-ash disposal would have a net positive effect on jobs," he added. "That fact doesn't, by itself, clinch the argument for regulation. But it does free us of the unfounded fear of massive job loss, allowing us to evaluate the regulation on its merits."
Launched by SEI and the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, CORE provides an up-to-date analysis and synthesis of the most influential carbon offset programs and activities. It reflects on lessons learned, and aims to inform consumers as well as offset program participants and designers.
The site includes three sections: in-depth information and analysis about offset design and policies; information for offset buyers; and information about GHG calculations from aviation for carbon offsetting.
With the re-launch, which is being phased in, the website is being updated to reflect recent program changes and policy debates. To learn more about the updates, click here.
SEI-U.S. research on California's spring-run Chinook salmon, how they are threatened by climate change, and the implications for hydropower, was featured at World Water Week 2011, a week-long conference held in Stockholm on Aug. 21 to 26.
Wild Pacific salmon populations in California, Oregon, and Washington have been declining for many years, stressed by overfishing, changes in ocean conditions, water quality and habitat degradation, genetic mixing with hatchery stocks, and the damming of rivers.
Spring-run Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), which used to be plentiful in California’s Central Valley, are now an endangered species, down from about a million fish to only about 16,000, and limited to a handful of watersheds. And because adults over-summer in freshwater streams before spawning in the fall, they are greatly threatened by climate change.
SEI has used WEAP, its Water Evaluation And Planning system, in combination with other tools to project the long-term impact of climate change on Chinook salmon in California's Butte Creek. At the conference, SEI-U.S. researcher Marisa Escobar presented the study findings, which suggest that the only way to protect Chinook salmon from extinction by the century's end is to suspend water diversions for hydropower generation during the summer months.
More than 150 dams in California are set to be relicensed in the next decade, Escobar noted, and the conditions placed on those dams could make a difference between survival and extinction.
Leon J. 'Lee' Schipper, 64, an internationally renowned scholar in the fields of transport and energy efficiency, passed away in Berkeley, Calif., on August 16.
Schipper was a project scientist for the Global Metropolitan Studies Initiative at the University of California-Berkeley; senior research engineer for the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford University; founder of the World Resources Institute's center for sustainable transport, EMBARQ; and a longtime contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He was also the father of Lisa Schipper, a senior scientist at SEI-U.S., as well as a friend and occasional partner in SEI research.
Follow the link below to read a tribute on the SEI-International website.
A new SEI analysis raises serious questions about the U.S. government's estimate of the "social cost of carbon" – a calculation of the damage caused by each additional ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere – and a key policy-making factor, used in cost-benefit analyses of everything from power plant regulations to car fuel-efficiency standards.
The figure the U.S. government has used since last year, developed by an interagency group, is $21 per ton of CO2. But that number, the report shows, is based on fundamentally flawed methodologies and grossly understates the potential impact and uncertainty of climate change. Making small adjustments to the models to address these issues leads to values as high as $893 per ton in 2010 and $1550 in 2050.
Comparing prior research on the cost of reducing emissions with the report's new findings on the cost of carbon, the authors conclude that it is highly likely it is costing the United States more to do nothing about climate change than it would to adopt mitigation measures.
Globalization has shifted a large share of U.S. carbon emissions abroad, but that doesn't make Americans' carbon footprints any smaller – we just have to measure them differently.
This webinar, held June 7, 2011, and attended by about 340 people, looked at how and why we measure the environmental impacts of our consumption, and how that measurement can inform us on our path to more sustainable patterns of consumption in our communities.
SEI researchers presented their work on the CBEI (Consumption-Based Emissions Inventory) model, which has now been applied to Oregon; King County, WA (Seattle), and San Francisco and California, and more broadly on greenhouse gas emissions inventories.
Version 3.1 of WEAP, SEI's Water Evaluation And Planning system, allows users to export results to Google Earth, providing a powerful and convenient way to package and share the materials. Click here for a demonstration. The new version also updates the linear program solver, allows users to constrain reservoir release due to a maximum hydraulic flow, and makes other small improvements.
This update follows a major new WEAP release in January that pulled together two years' worth of upgrades, adding improved analytical tools, more customization options, and full compatibility with Windows 7, including the 64-bit version. WEAP was created by SEI scientists more than 20 years ago and has been applied to water systems in countries around the world.
SEI, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) and CATIE are hosting a 'writeshop' July 25-29 in Costa Rica for early-career researchers and professionals working in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Sixteen participants will be selected. All costs, including travel, are covered by the organizers.
The writeshop will involve one-on-one work with facilitators to provide supplemental training on academic writing and argumentation, to help new authors reach a standard of writing suitable for publication in peer-reviewed journals. The writeshop will be held in Spanish; papers may be written in Spanish or English, and for anyone who wishes to have a paper translated into English, the cost will be covered.
The Latin America writeshop is the third in a series cosponsored by SEI and UN/ISDR that aims to bring more developing-country perspectives into the peer-reviewed journals that help shape climate policy worldwide. Read more about the initiative on the SEI International website.
Two years ago, the Initiative on Climate Adaptation Research and Understanding through the Social Sciences (ICARUS) was launched to bring together researchers, students, decision-makers and activists interested in social-science and humanistic approaches to climate change adaptation.
The ICARUS II Conference on Climate Vulnerability and Adaptation: Marginal Peoples and Environments was held May 5-8 at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and two SEI-US researchers, Lisa Schipper and Amanda Fencl, presented their work.
Schipper spoke about the wide range of definitions for "adaptation," and how to ensure that activities done under that name don't actually do more harm than good. The answer, she said, is not necessarily to create a single, specific definition of the term, but to agree that the overarching goal of adaptation is to stimulate change toward sustainable development.
Fencl's presentation focused on a case study completed by SEI researchers last year in Northeast Thailand, "Using social network analysis to understand innovation and diffusion of sustainable agricultural water resource management in a changing climate."
The Kingdom of Jordan is using SEI's WEAP system to monitor and manage all its aquifers and to develop a National Water Plan. The government unveiled the project at a WEAP regional conference May 3-5 in Amman that was co-sponsored by SEI, the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD), the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, and the Ministry of Water and Irrigation of Jordan.
SEI has released a major new version of LEAP, the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning system, its powerful, versatile software system for integrated energy planning and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation assessment.
LEAP is already used by thousands of organizations in over 190 countries, including government agencies, academics, non-governmental organizations, consultants, and utilities, and is becoming the de facto standard for countries undertaking GHG mitigation assessments and creating Low Emission Development Strategies (LEDs).
The new release, LEAP2011, is more streamlined and easier to use than previous versions, but also adds significant new capabilities. For example, it includes optimization modeling – a technique that automatically calculates least-cost configurations of future energy systems under different conditions, such as specific GHG emission reduction targets.
LEAP2011 also includes more powerful tools for modeling seasonal and time-of-day variations in energy demand and supply, a crucial feature as energy planners seek to dramatically increase the share of power generated from renewable sources such as solar and wind power, which are intermittent by nature.
In addition, LEAP's code has been substantially reengineered, making it faster and more robust, allowing it to fully support any language. LEAP2011 also has a simplified, easier-to-use interface, with wizards that provide step-by-step assistance to users.
To learn more or to download LEAP2011, visit www.energycommunity.org.
China faces many modernization challenges, and responding to climate change may be the most pressing. China must find a new economic growth model that is environmentally sustainable, doesn't depend on fossil fuels, and can improve living standards for the population.
But what does such a model look like? And how can China best make the transition from its present macro-economic structure to a low-carbon future?
A new book based on a groundbreaking study led by SEI and the Chinese Economists 50 Forum tries to answer those questions. Leading international thinkers map out a deep carbon reduction scenario, analyze economic policies that shift carbon use, and show how China can dramatically reduce its carbon emissions over the next 40 years while maintaining high economic growth and minimizing adverse economic effects.
The book, rated among the top 40 sustainability books of 2010 by the University of Cambridge, argues that transitioning to a low-carbon economy is an essential part of China's development and modernization, and it would present opportunities for China to improve its energy security and move its economy higher up the international value chain.
Click here to learn more about the book and the project on which it is based.
A new SEI paper and policy brief show that potential double-counting of international greenhouse gas emission offsets, if not addressed, could reduce the ambition of 2020 pledges under the Cancun Agreements by up to 1.6 billion tons CO2e, and outline possible policy solutions.
The paper, The Implications of International Greenhouse Gas Offsets on Global Climate Mitigation, was presented by Michael Lazarus on March 29 in Paris, at a seminar on carbon markets and accountability hosted by the OECD and the International Energy Agency. It notes that to date, 42 developed countries have submitted emission reduction pledges, projected to reduce emissions by up to 4 billion tons (Gt) CO2e in 2020 from "business as usual," and over 40 developing countries have submitted nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs).
It's unclear, however, whether both developed (buyer) and developing (seller) countries will be able to count emission reductions from offset projects towards their respective pledges. Double-counting offsets, the paper shows, could effectively reduce the ambition of current pledges by up to 1.6 billion tons CO2e in 2020 – equivalent to 10% of the total abatement required in 2020 to stay on a 2°C pathway.
The paper outlines policy approaches that could reduce the risk of double-counting, which the authors said would enhance the credibility and environmental integrity of international offsets under the Cancun Agreements.
The important fields of water and energy policy are becoming increasingly connected. One emerging challenge is the provision of adequate water supplies to match the world's growing demands for energy. This will likely be difficult both with traditional approaches to energy production such as thermal power plants, which require huge amounts of cooling water, but also for some renewable energy systems such as solar power, which need to be sited in areas where sunshine is plentiful but water generally is not. In addition, our water supply systems' energy needs are growing rapidly and will continue to grow as we become more dependent on groundwater from steadily falling aquifers. A third emerging challenge is how best to manage the competing demands on our water systems, particularly with respect to how dams are managed for hydropower, agricultural irrigation and the protection of ecological systems.
Our day-long symposium, held on November 4, 2010 at Tufts University and attended by 80 participants, explored how these and other perspectives on water and energy can be assembled into a useful framework that can support the development of sustainable water and energy management policies in a changing world.
To read more and download the presentations, click here.
