Hill Heat

14/02/2008 at 02:00PM

The 2008 Investor Summit on Climate Risk will bring together more than 450 institutional investors, Wall Street leaders and CEOs from around the world to consider the scale and urgency of climate change risks, as well as the economic opportunities of a global transition to a clean energy future.

Purpose

The purpose of the Summit is to provide a high-level forum for state treasurers, leading institutional investors, and financial services firms from around the world to consider the scale and urgency of climate change risks, as well as the economic opportunities of a global transition to a clean energy future.

Objectives

Based on a vision of hope and opportunity, the Summit will focus on how investors can advance solutions to climate change, with a particular emphasis on the benefits of energy efficiency. The Summit aims to help investors:

• Examine recent scientific findings on climate risk and technological solutions
• Assess potential capital flows into energy efficiency and clean technologies
• Learn how treasurers, institutional investors and financial services firms worldwide are factoring climate risk into their policies and strategies
• Consider prudent steps investors can take to address climate risk and opportunities

Background

The 2008 Summit builds on the groundbreaking success of the first two UN Investor Summits on November 21, 2003, and May 10, 2005. Hundreds of institutional investors and asset managers from around the world, representing trillions of dollars in assets, attended the previous Summits. The information they shared raised profound concerns about investor exposure to climate risk, the future security of investment assets, and the fiduciary duty to take prudent steps to address climate risk on behalf of shareholders and beneficiaries. Information on previous Summits can be found at the Investor Network on Climate Risk website.

Climate Risk – and Opportunity

Climate change poses regulatory, legal, physical and competitive risks for companies. In the two years since the 2005 Summit there has been a growing recognition that climate change presents serious risks, not only for businesses and investments, but also for the global economy. Left unattended, risks from climate change will worsen over time, harming company assets and global investment portfolios. Leading economists, investors, and business leaders have stated recently that the costs of action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are both affordable and significantly lower than the costs of inaction. Where there are risks, there are also opportunities, and the business opportunities posed by addressing climate change are significant. With the proper government policies and market conditions, low-carbon technologies that are available today could be more broadly deployed, and significant reductions in emissions could be achieved over the next few decades—all while creating vast new economic opportunities and new jobs.

14/02/2008 at 10:53AM

Witnesses

• Jennifer Haverkamp, Senior Counsel, Environmental Defense, Washington, DC
• Abraham Breehey, Assistant Director of Government Affairs, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers & Helpers
• Kjell Olav Kristiansen, Director, Advisory Services, Point Carbon North America
• Ruksana Mirza, Vice President, Government and Environmental Affairs, Holcim, Inc.

14/02/2008 at 10:00AM

CSIS is pleased to host Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey, for a discussion on the future of U.S. foreign assistance, energy and environmental sustainability. Frank A. Verrastro, Director and Senior Fellow, Energy and National Security Program, will moderate.

The Smart Power Speaker Series features policymakers, practitioners and opinion leaders from around the world and across the political spectrum to engage in a discussion on U.S. Smart Power. The series is a spin-off of the CSIS Commission on Smart Power.

The Commission on Smart Power, chaired by Harvard’s Joseph Nye and former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, issued a report on November 6, 2007 on how to revitalize America’s image and influence in the world. To read the report or obtain further information, go to www.csissmartpower.org.

Coffee, tea, and soda will be served.

1800 K Street, NW
CSIS B1 – Conference Center
Washington DC, 20006

Please RSVP by emailing Sierra Stanczyk at [email protected] or calling 202-887-0200 ext. 3946

13/02/2008 at 02:00PM

In the middle of September 2007, Rick Boucher (D-W.Va.), chair of the the the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee of John Dingell’s Energy and Commerce Committee, announced he would be releasing a series of white papers “over the next six weeks” on issues related to the development of climate change legislation.

October saw the first such paper, Scope of a Cap-and-Trade Program.

16 weeks later, he has released the second, Competitiveness Concerns/Engaging Developing Countries.

Since the U.S. cannot unilaterally bind other countries, our goal will be to craft legislation limiting U.S. carbon emissions that also induces developing countries to limit their emissions growth (1) on a timetable that meets both environmental and trade competitiveness concerns; (2) in a manner that is reasonably certain to withstand challenge before the World Trade Organization (WTO); and (3) on terms that pose acceptable risks to U.S. interests in the event of a negative WTO determination.

The white paper, which draws from a March 27 subcommittee hearing on international issues, discusses the IBEW/American Electric Power proposal of applying a “greenhouse gas intensity tariff” (which was included in Bingaman-Specter and Lieberman-Warner); the “carbon intensive” performance standard proposal; and the Environmental Defense “carrots and sticks” proposal for carbon market design.

The “questions for further discussion” are listed after the jump.

This Wednesday, Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will host Dr. Rajenda Pachauri, Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in his first appearance before Congress. Last year, under Dr. Pachauri’s leadership, the IPCC produced the seminal review of the science of global warming, its current and potential future impacts and the positive strategies available to help address this looming threat.

Dr. Pachauri will share his views on the urgency of addressing global warming and the issues Congress and other political leaders must consider when crafting climate legislation this year.

Witness

• Dr. Rajenda Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

30/01/2008 at 09:00AM

Some pre-release excerpts from President Bush’s State of the Union speech, as prepared for delivery:

To build a future of energy security, we must trust in the creative genius of American researchers and entrepreneurs and empower them to pioneer a new generation of clean energy technology. Our security, our prosperity, and our environment all require reducing our dependence on oil.

Let us create a new international clean technology fund, which will help developing nations like India and China make greater use of clean energy sources. And let us complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases. This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride.

Translate as you will.

The Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill (S. 2191), which Sen. Boxer said may come to the floor before June, sets a cap of 15% below 2005 emissions levels by 2020 for covered sectors, reducing allowed emissions to the amount last seen in 1990.

Is that near-term target sufficient, in terms of the science?

As Holmes Hummel points out, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) paints a much different picture.

At Bali, all of the Annex I signatories to the Kyoto Protocol (every industrialized country other than the US and Turkey) agreed to this roadmap, which states in convoluted language that the Annex I countries “noted” that the AR4 indicates that global emissions “need to peak in the next 10-15 years” and be reduced “well below half of levels in 2000” by 2050 “in order to stabilize their concentrations in the atmosphere at the lowest levels assessed by the IPCC to date in its scenarios.” The countries also “recognized” that the AR4 indicates that to achieve those levels “would require Annex I Parties as a group to reduce emissions in a range of 25–40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.”

25-40% below 1990 levels is dramatically below the Lieberman-Warner target. From AR4, these “lowest levels” of concentrations are 350-400ppm CO2.

What’s the value of achieving concentrations “at the lowest levels”? The report says that using the “best estimate” for climate sensitivity (the temperature response to greenhouse gas concentrations), reaching a stable concentration of 350-400ppm CO2 leads to 2.0-2.4 degrees C warming above pre-industrial levels. But Hummel notes that the “best estimate” is just one for which half the estimates are higher and half are lower.

Thus:

To have a 50% chance of making the 2°C stabilization target, global emissions need to peak by 2015 and Annex I countries need to be 25-40% below 1990 by 2020.

As AAAS president John Holdren argued in his speech Meeting the Climate Challenge (at 38:29; see also the slide presentation):

The chance of a tipping point into truly catastrophic change grows rapidly for increases in the global average surface temperature more than about 2°C above the pre-industrial level, and again we’re already committed basically to one and a half. For a better than even chance of not exceeding 2°C above the pre-industrial level, CO2 emissions must peak globally no later than 2025 and they need to be falling steadily after that. That is a great task.

From the UN Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, an international panel of 18 top scientists (including John Holdren):

In our judgment and that of a growing number of other analysts and groups, however, increases beyond 2°C to 2.5°C above the 1750 level will entail sharply rising risks of crossing a climate “tipping point” that could lead to intolerable impacts on human well-being, in spite of all feasible attempts at adaptation.

Sen. Menendez presiding.

Witnesses:

Panel 1

• James L. Connaughton, Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality, Executive Office of the President

Panel 2

• Jim Lyons, Vice President for Policy and Communication, Oxfam America
• Elliot Diringer, Director of International Strategies, Pew Center on Global Climate Change
• Glen Prickett, Senior Vice President, Business and U.S. Government Relations, Conservation International
• John J. Castellani, President, Business Roundtable

24/01/2008 at 02:30PM

The House begins a new round of global warming hearings this year.

Witness

• James Connaughton, chairman, White House Council on Environmental Quality

17/01/2008 at 10:00AM