Source: http://climatelawyers.com/category/Climate-Change-Effects.aspx?page=4
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 08:52:40+00:00

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We were on the front page of the New York Times earlier this week. We wish! Our marketing department has not cracked that nut yet. Not so the folks at Climate Central. Their press release about their report, Surging Seas, got them a front page spot in New York. It also was picked up by papers of record in Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, and Chicago, among others. Internet outlets like the Huffington Post and msnbc.com carried it. Even the UK's Daily Mail has picked it up. What was so momentous? The researchers in our view did three things. The first is typical. They identified the risk caused by an effect of climate change. It is a serious risk, potentially affecting millions. The second was astute. The two published studies on storm surge and rising sea levels (Modelling sea level rise impacts on storm surges along US coasts, and Tidally adjusted estimates of topographic vulnerability to sea level rise and flooding for the contiguous United States) are dense. Surging Seas converts them to understandable lay terms. The third was their genius. They brought the issue down to zip code specifics. Let us explain. The first step was accurately to determine the elevation of all the coastal property in the United States. This was done using the National Elevation Dataset established by the US Geological Survey. The next step was to compare the elevations to local high tide levels as ascertained using NOAA information and techniques. Overlaid on that was 2010 census data. Thus the Climate Central researchers had the best data on population and proximity to the sea. What's more, they could show that information visually and with granularity. What remained was to add storm surge data. This is the 900 pound gorilla. Rising sea levels will add only inches to the level of mean high tide in the next 20 years. The effect of storm surge is not so minor. To quote Surging Seas: In many places, only inches separate the once-a-decade flood from the once-a-century one; and separate the water level communities have prepared for, from the one no one has seen. Critically, a small change can make a big difference, like the last inch of water that overflows a tub. This effect is dramatic. According to the authors of the report, for 2/3 of the locations analyzed the risk of a once-in-a-century flood has doubled, for 1/2 the risk has tripled. What this means is that for many storm surge flooding is no longer something one could expect to see once in a lifetime, or not at all. To get specific, the study "found that at over half the sites examined, there is a one-in-two or better chance of water reaching 4 feet higher than the average local high tide by 2030, at least once." Such flooding puts almost 5 million people at risk. To complete this part of the analysis the researchers looked at local water level gauges, land subsidence rates and global sea level rise to calculate local sea level rise. They then analyzed historical local extreme water level patterns (i.e., storm surges) assumed they would continue to exist, and applied them. The conclusion is ominous: "Sea level rise is raising the launch pad for storms and high tides, and being experienced by the ever-more frequent occurrence of extreme high water levels during these events -- long before the ocean reaches damaging heights permanently." Which brings us to the meat of the matter. Our in-laws are in South Florida. We can type in their zip code, and query the Climate Central web page as to the likelihood a 4-foot storm surge will invade their home before 2030. And we can blow up the map and look right at their street. We are buying them a canoe.
There was dismal news out of the North yesterday. Researchers in Canada have concluded that climate change threatens the national pastime. In a March 5 article in Environmental Research Letters, researchers Nikolay Damyanov, Damon Matthews and Lawrence Mysak investigated changes in the outdoor skating season over the period 1951 to 2005. They found "that the outdoor skating season (OSS) in Canada has significantly shortened in many regions of the country as a result of changing climate conditions." The implications of that are dire: "This suggests that future global warming has the potential to significantly compromise the viability of outdoor skating in Canada." Fending off this looming cultural disaster is the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), which just this past Friday held a teleconference to discuss with stakeholders the recently released (February 21) WCI final recommendations for the Offset System Process. Offsets are an alternative way to meet emissions reduction limits imposed by, for example, a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program. A party wishing to emit a quantity of greenhouse gas in excess of its allowance, may create or purchase an "offset" where certain activities have been completed which prevent the emission of other greenhouse gases, or sequester them, or otherwise reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. To quote from the WCI's Offset Systems Essential Elements document: "An offset certificate represents a reduction or removal of one metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e)." Certain attributes of the offset are mandatory: it must be "real, additional, permanent, and verifiable." The only one of these attributes that bears additional comment is the concept of additionality, that is, "the portion of greenhouse gas emission reductions or removals that would not have happened under a baseline scenario." Additionality can be difficult to demonstrate. Establishing the process to achieve these real, additional, permanent and verifiable reductions in atmospheric greenhouse gases are the February 21 Offset System Process recommendations. They set forth the requirements for 1. Pre-Verification Activities a. registration - ”Project registration requires the submission of information for each project to the responsible WCI Partner jurisdiction." b. validation - "Validation is intended to provide the project developer and the WCI Partner jurisdiction with assurance that the project, when implemented, is likely to meet all of the WCI criteria [including reductions that are real, additional, permanent and verifiable]and is likely to result in emission reductions qualifying under the WCI offset system." c. monitoring - "Monitoring of an offset project is intended to allow for the complete and transparent quantification of GHG reductions or removals." d. quantification - "Quantification is the process of estimating emissions reductions achieved from project activity data collected through monitoring." e. reporting - "Reporting refers to the process of summarizing project monitoring data, quantifying the GHG reduction achieved in the applicable period according to the calculation methodology in the project plan, and documenting that information in a project report. ... The WCI Partner jurisdictions will establish overall reporting requirements to ensure adequate oversight of the offset system." These pre-verification activities can be completed in any order but must be completed before moving to verification, certification and offset issuance. 2. Verification- "Verification is the process of reviewing offset project information to ensure that claimed emissions reductions have been achieved in accordance with the appropriate protocol and project plan." 3. Certification - In the certification step the jurisdiction “accepts” "that the documentation provided and reviewed indicates that the reduction upon which the offset certificate may be based is real, additional, permanent and verifiable." 4. Issuance of offsets - When all of the above steps are completed, "the WCI Partner jurisdiction will issue offset certificates in a number equal to the reductions credited to the projects, with each issued offset certificate representing one metric tonne CO2e reduced or removed." This protocol is required so that there is "transparency" between the member WCI jurisdictions and an offset project valid in one state or province is accepted and valid in another. In the event that a project fails to permanently provide the reduction promised (either because of failure of the project, through fraud, or for some other reason) the recommendation provides for the reversal of the offset thus "maintaining the environmental integrity of the program by ensuring every certificate in the system is supported by an emission reduction that is real, additional, permanent and verifiable." Readers are familiar with the facts that Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol and is vigorously promoting development of its tar sands to the detriment of reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions. Readers also are aware that the WCI is, to be charitable not robust as only California and four Canadian provinces remain active. See Soldiering On: The Western Climate Initiative and RGGI in 2012 and Beyond. Will the slow demise of ice hockey change any of that? Some think so. In an excellent piece by Suzanne Goldenberg in the Guardian, Professor Matthews is quoted: ""I think this is going to strike a chord with Canadians," Matthews said. "When I think of things that are vulnerable to climate change that people care about in Canada I would place outdoor ice hockey very close to the top of that list." *We apologize for the title of this post. Competition for tired metaphors was heavy. The Montreal Gazette captured the title with a double: Thin ice: Outdoor rinks face meltdown.
2000 years ago all roads led to Rome. Nowadays, as Our Children’s Trust recently found out, the road of a climate change lawsuit leads to Washington. All are familiar with the path to Washington taken by Massachusetts v. EPA and American Electric Power v. Connecticut. Last week a different path surfaced: the trial court. The District of the District of Columbia became the Washington venue of Alec L. v. Jackson when the Northern District of California transferred the federal climate change suit instigated by Our Children’s Trust. Our Children’s Trust (OCT) is an Oregon public interest group that is quarterbacking a set of lawsuits and regulatory petitions seeking to reinvigorate federal and state regulation to combat climate change. OCT burst on the climate change litigation scene last May with suits or petitions in all 50 states, invoking the public trust doctrine as available to protect the atmosphere – a new twist on an old doctrine. Besides a dozen lawsuits in state court, one was also brought in federal court in the Northern District of California (where another climate change lawsuit – Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil - was also filed). Alec Loorz, a teen-aged environmental activist, and other youths, in company with Kids vs Global Warming and Wildearth Guardians, sued Lisa Jackson, Kenneth Salazar, Thomas Vilsack, Gary Locke, Steven Chu and Leon Panetta. You may recognize the defendants as the EPA Administrator and the Secretaries of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and Defense, respectively. In the amended complaint, after explaining the plaintiffs’ circumstances (youths1 and an environmental group that will be harmed by the effects of climate change), the defendants’ alleged misfeasance (failure to act to restrain and reduce carbon dioxide emissions), the effects of climate change and the need to take action (among other reasons: “A failure to act soon will ensure the collapse of Earth’s natural systems resulting in a planet that is largely unfit for human life.” Complaint ¶ 9.), a single cause of action is set forth. Plaintiffs allege, among other things: 143. The United States government is a co-tenant sovereign trustee of the atmosphere and shares a duty with other co-tenant sovereigns, including Tribal Nations, to protect the atmosphere as the trust asset and prevent its waste or harm for the benefit of the people, including Plaintiffs and future generations of citizens 146. Defendants, and each of them, have wasted and failed to preserve and protect the atmosphere Public Trust asset, and have caused and will continue to cause imminent injuries as described above, from increased greenhouse gas emissions, global heating, and adverse impacts to natural and other resources. 147. Defendants, and each of them, have injured Plaintiffs by failing to protect the atmosphere as a Public Trust asset. Needless to say, the government defendants don’t agree. But instead of contesting the merits or challenging standing or asserting the political question defense in California, defendants sought something simple: just a change of venue to Washington, D.C. Plaintiffs opposed. The district court sided with the defendants in a nine-page opinion that addressed the relevant considerations point by point. As set out by the Supreme Court, transfer is appropriate based upon an ‘individualized, case-by-case consideration of convenience and fairness.’ Opinion at 2 (citing Stewart Org., Inc. v. Ricoh Corp., 487 U.S. 22, 29 (1988)). The relevant factors to be considered included: (1) plaintiffs’ choice of forum, (2) convenience of the parties and witnesses, (3) ease of access to sources of proof; (4) local interest in the controversy; (5) familiarity of each forum with the applicable law; and (6) relative congestion in each forum. Opinion at 3 (citing Ctr. for Food Safety v. Vilsack, No. 11-00831 JSW, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31688, at *18 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 17, 2011)). Without delving into each of the factors, a fair summary of the court’s view might be: because the effects of global warming are felt equally by every citizen and the decisions directing the government’s response were made in Washington, there was no compelling reason to keep this case in California and there were good reasons to transfer the case to the District of Columbia. It is not a very satisfactory analysis. While it is likely that climate change on the whole is bad, some will be advantaged by it (for example, farmers in Canada with longer growing seasons, or shippers that can use the Northwest Passage to the detriment of the Panama Canal); others will be disadvantaged (such as homeowners facing increased insurance premiums in hurricane-prone states, or asthmatics troubled by the particulate arising from more frequent wildfires caused by lack of rain). To say that all will be affected equally seems plainly wrong. Nevertheless, the court made that point on several occasions to support its conclusion that the plaintiffs did not have an interest localized to the Northern District of California. See Opinion at 4, 7, 8-9. Conversely, to find out why the District of the District of Columbia was the proper forum, one needed to look at who the defendants were: heads of regulatory bodies who resided in or near Washington and whose allegedly improper decisions were likely made there as well. Opinion at 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. This reasoning suggests that a plaintiff seeking to avoid transfer should assert his or her claim against the local representative of the federal agency or department. Of course that would likely be met with a motion to dismiss for failure to join an indispensable party because an agency's local representative would not be the one making the decisions about responding to climate change. Which further suggests that under this factor, a suit about federal government policies against the federal government is always most appropriate in Washington. Such a rule sounds like a bad idea. But bad idea or not, the OCT plaintiffs are now in Washington. Transfer has eliminated the possibility of an appeal to the relatively more liberal Ninth Circuit. Presumably, this was what inspired the motion to transfer. But it has also put the case into a more favorable news market offering better hours for prime time access to a decision. A hearing date is not set but the case will be taken seriously. Already the National Association of Manufacturers has weighed in on the side of the government. On the plaintiffs' side, they have drummed up support from nearly two dozen law professors and scholars to explain the application of the public trust doctrine. 1It may only be us but the youth plaintiffs do not appear terribly sympathetic. By the tender age of 16 they have the suffered the misfortunes of going hiking on Icelandic glaciers, visiting Patagonia in the company of Robert Kennedy, Jr. and traveling to Africa. Complaint ¶¶ 30, 37, 45.
It's not Gone with the Wind or Harry Potter, but an article just published in the public health journal, Health Affairs, is worth picking up, if only to start you thinking. In Six Climate Change–Related Events In The United States Accounted For About $14 Billion In Lost Lives And Health Costs, the authors (two senior scientists at the NRDC, two professors and a law student) grapple with the health costs of climate-change related events. In the authors' words: "The objective of this study was to provide a cost calculation of health effects associated with events related to climate change over the past decade. Similar events can reasonably be expected to occur more frequently in the future." The report looked at six events (ozone pollution, heat waves, hurricanes, infectious disease outbreaks, river flooding, and wildfires) between 2000 and 2009 and estimated that the total health costs exceed $14 billion. It acknowledges that the individual events cannot be linked definitively to climate change and that the relationship between climate change and health is complex and variable. The report's value, it is asserted, is that it provides information on "the types of health impacts that are projected to worsen under climate change." Interestingly, it reports health linkages that are generally overlooked. Increases in carbon monoxide poisoning are associated with hurricanes as a result of power outages and the use of generators. Wildfires result in increases in asthma. While the report is a good start, in our view it attempts too much. We have no doubt that everyone will agree that hurricanes and wildfires cost money and threaten health. But just providing a sample of one hurricane season in one locale and one state's experience with heat waves hardly advances the ball (particularly when it is acknowledged that the studied event was a "high-end, but not extreme, event"). Much more useful would be to explain the variables that affect those health expenditures in each of the subject areas. Still, one has to start somewhere and other researchers can pick up where this leaves off. The report acknowledges that it did not consider the health benefits of climate change. We would like to point out one that may soon be more well-known: the health benefits of the electric car. And we are not talking about the benefits to your inner ear and auditory canal from the quiet. Rather, the electric car may be the vehicle for making the nation smarter. Many years ago engineers figured out that bonding a few organic molecules to a lead atom and adding it to gasoline could eliminate "knocking" in a car's engine. A billion dollar industry was born. Unfortunately, after the anti-knocking job was done, the lead continued on out the exhaust pipe and ended up on the side of the road. That was the end of it until public health specialists drew the connection between retarded cognitive development and other maladies and the use of leaded gas. It took the USEPA only 15 years (including an appeal to the D.C. Circuit) to achieve a total ban on lead in motor vehicle fuel in 1986. Now we are twenty-five years later. Lead is long gone from automobile fuel but health researchers are again focusing on the connections between retarded cognitive development and a host of other maladies and automobile exhaust. This story is set forth this past Monday in a Wall Street Journal article, The Hidden Toll of Traffic Jams, by Robert Lee Hotz. Mr. Hotz surveys the scientific literature from across the country and around the globe and points out the correlations scientists are finding between high levels of exhaust and lower IQs, anxiety, memory loss, attention deficits, and premature births. This time the culprit cannot be lead. In fact, no one knows the identity of the specific etiologic agents. But even without that information, one solution would be to knock down exhaust levels across the board. Enter climate change. Or more specifically, enter a response to climate change: the electric car. It is touted (somewhat misleadingly) as a zero emission vehicle. It has no tail pipe. Even when its emissions are acknowledged (those that go up the power plant stack), however, power plants are far more efficient and much cleaner than internal combustion engines. Hence there are far fewer emissions per mile traveled and the maladies correlated to exhaust invariably will decrease. Will this health benefit drive the adoption of electric cars? Certainly not by itself. Will it be a factor? Only time will tell, but if leaded gas is any indicator, we will soon see health advocates pushing for charging stations and plug-n vehicles, and some of us will be smarter for it.
Ceres released last week the first analysis of the insurer climate change disclosures submitted to state regulators pursuant to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners rule. The report is eye-opening. The authors have combed through the disclosures of 88 insurance companies and offer thoughtful insights on, for example, investment practices, management structure and modeling. Those seeking to advance their bottom line will find nuggets of information directly related to competitive advantage. In this post, we outline the report and discuss its first recommendation regarding mandatory and public disclosures. In subsequent posts we will address Ceres’ second and third recommendations. The report’s title is dry and daunting: Climate Risk Disclosures by Insurers: Evaluating Insurer Responses to the NAIC Climate Disclosure Survey. Fortunately, it does not live up to the ominous desiccation foretold by the title. We know from the get-go where this is going: "This report documents this powerful industry's sluggish and uneven response to the ever-increasing ripples from global climate change, which could undermine both its own financial viability and the stability of the larger global economy." Id. at 3. For those to whom Ceres and NAIC are unfamiliar, the former is a non-governmental organization composed of a coalition of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups, whose mission is to “integrat[e] sustainability into day-to-day business practices for the health of the planet and its people.” The latter is the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which in 2009 approved mandatory requirements for climate change disclosures for insurance companies, because "[a]s regulators, we are concerned about how climate change will impact the financial health of the insurance sector and the availability and affordability of insurance for consumers. This disclosure standard will give regulators the information we need to better understand these risks." NAIC later revised its requirements to make disclosure voluntary. Ceres's work is based on the 2010 disclosures of 88 US insurers filed in six states (mandatory: New York, California, Pennsylvania; voluntary: New Jersey, Oregon, Washington). The report is set up in three parts. Part 1 describes climate change risk and the need for disclosure. "The changing climate will profoundly alter insurers' business landscape, affecting the industry's ability to price physical perils, creating potentially vast new liabilities and threatening the performance of insurers' vast investment portfolios." Climate Risk Disclosures at 9. Part 2 is the meaty analysis of the report and addresses the following topics: Risk Perception and Management StructureRisk Exposure and ManagementFinancial EffectsLoss ModelingInvestmentsEmissions ManagementExternal Engagement Its goal is to set out “risk perceptions and management practices for handling climate change across the American insurance industry.” Id. at 17. While often couched in possibilities, the analysis raises numerous interesting issues. Part 3 is the Recommendations to Regulators. There are three and we focus there. First, Ceres recommends “implement[ing] mandatory disclosure annually, and mak[ing] survey responses publicly available." Id. at 50. We take no position on whether NAIC should require climate change disclosures and would be interested to read NAIC’s own evaluation of the disclosures and how they advance the goals of insurance regulators. As for public disclosure, while we are perhaps more interested than most in these types of things, we are acutely sensitive to the issue of competitive advantage. There will be winners and losers in the insurance industry as a result of climate change. The winners will be those who, among other things, recognize correlated risks first, have more accurate models, and innovate better. Requiring companies to give away their proprietary information may lead them not to generate it in the first place. And items leading to competitive advantage are all over the NAIC submissions. Harleysville Insurance Company reports that “over time the Company has witnessed the traditional tornado alley expand causing increased losses further east and toward the southeastern states." Id. at 24. "[A] handful of insurers discuss the ways their approach to establishing reserves, reinsurance coverage or capital market transfers have been adapted to reflect changing risk statistics or future scenarios where historic statistics do not illuminate future risk." Id. at 32. Allianz is “developing products and services geared to address climate change, ... leveraging climate change research, and contributing to related public policy development." Id. at 19. There are a lot of things that make a business succeed. Intellectual capital is one of them. Just as we would not expect businesses to give out greenbacks to passersby, why should their green ideas be treated differently? Tomorrow we will look at Ceres’ second recommendation concerning shared resources.
National Weather Service 30-Year Averages Confirm the Climate is Getting Hotter in the U.S.
Half a degree doesn't sound like much. And it isn't, if you are talking about a baccalaureate. But in a world of climate change, a half a degree increase in Baltimore's average temperature combined with average temperature increases in all the lower 48 states is confirmation of what the scientists are telling us: the planet is warming. Thus, the National Weather Service's release on Monday of revised 30-year average temperatures gives some satisfaction, or at least Schadenfreude, to those trying to lead (or push) their organizations into proactively managing climate change. Or does it? Here is how this news was reported in Tampa, Florida "Some of the changes emerge from tossing out statistical peaks and valleys from the 1970s, the weather service says. A shift in instrument locations could explain more change. And the continued development around Tampa International Airport and Tampa in general could account for some of the warmer nights that helped push average temperatures higher for April through August. A slight shift in equipment location at Tampa International Airport could also influence the low morning readings, the weather service says. Or, the overall reason also could be changes in global climate, but that’s impossible to determine from readings at one location, the weather service says." So if this is all statistics, what is one to do? You could instead get your weather news from Montgomery, Alabama, which reported on the same news: Updated theories of global warming and climate change predict a pattern of increasing temperatures. The theories are based on an increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmos­phere leading to high tempera­tures. The shift in temperatures is more likely associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, said Dr. Roy Spencer, a princi­pal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Spencer also has served as a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Mar­shall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. So which is it? Statistics, decadal oscillation or climate change? The statistics answer is easy to discern. For Tampa, scientists cannot say that its temperature specifically is driven by climate change. But when the whole country is changing, that is a different story. Montgomery is a little more difficult. I tracked down Dr. Spencer's webpage and learned that he believes, "Climate change — it happens, with or without our help." His research is into whether the climate change we are observing is natural or man-made. He agrees that the climate is changing. This seemingly disparate information contains a valuable lesson. Where there is no controversy or skepticism, it is easy to make choices of what to do. Where controversy surfaces, however, to move forward, one needs to understand precisely what is controverted. And often, of course, that will have to be done by degrees as understanding matures.

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