As Secretary Kerry Heads To India, Deadly Floods Demonstrate The Urgency Of Climate Change

A monsoon triggers flooding in India. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

While the monsoon season brought relief to drought-stricken farmers across India this week, extreme flooding killed nearly 150 people and displaced thousands in Northern India. At the same time, a new World Bank report released yesterday finds that the drought and flooding whipsawing that India experiences will become more frequent and extreme with climate change - causing more displacement, loss of life, and potentially trapping millions into poverty in the coming decades.

Secretary of State John Kerry's upcoming trip to India next week provides an opportunity to strengthen cooperation between our two countries in response to these dramatic and devastating changes.

The monsoon season is a long-awaited and celebrated time in India, determining the crop output and economic stability of the 70 percent of Indians who either directly or indirectly depend on farming for their livelihoods. Farming makes up nearly 15 percent of the country's $1.83 trillion GDP, making drought a huge threat to the overall economy. The Indian Space Research Organization found that 68 percent of India is prone to droughts, with a third categorized as "chronically drought prone."

Last August, India was in the midst of its second drought in four years, with rainfall 20 percent below average nationwide and 70 percent below average in other states like Punjab. Many experts believe the drought was a factor in the July 2012 blackout that left over 600 million Indians without power. Low rainfall led farmers to irrigate crops with water pumps, drawing more electricity from the grid than usual.

Considering these factors, this year's monsoon coming one month ahead of schedule was welcome news in parched areas across India. But the extreme flooding in the Northern states demonstrated why India is considered one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. The flooding left over 71,000 pilgrims stranded in the state of Uttarakhand and thousands of others displaced and missing across the region. Dozens of buildings and bridges collapsed under water pressure and landslides stranded hundreds. An Indian Army team of over 5,500 is leading rescue operations and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a $170 million aid package for the state of Uttarakhand on Wednesday.

Droughts, floods, more intense heatwaves, sea-level rise, stronger cyclones and storm surges - this is the new climate reality for India's 1.2 billion people. Climate change will undoubtedly impact the economy with shifting drought and monsoon patterns and create complex environmental, humanitarian, and security challenges in India.

In a recent report, the Center for American Progress examines the nexus of climate change, migration, and security in South Asia. The video below from this report explains how climate change will impact existing tensions with migration in Northeast India.

While India is starting to prepare, the daunting breadth of climate impacts the country faces will require forward-thinking, innovative adaptation and resiliency measures.

Next week, Secretary of State John Kerry heads to India, already promising to put climate change at the top of his agenda. The U.S. should take this opportunity to strengthen our existing bilateral relationship through enhanced cooperation on climate change resilience.

A good model for Kerry would be to take the template of our existing bilateral agreement on clean energy with India, which has proved to be the strongest point of climate related cooperation between our two countries. The U.S.-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE) has put $125 million toward a U.S.-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center, $20 million toward collaboration on deployment, and mobilized more than $1.7 billion in public and private resources for clean energy projects in India. Cleaner energy sources will help prevent 100,000 deaths in India from coal-fired power plant pollution each year.

A similarly structured venue for cooperation on climate change resilience, focused on strengthening response and recovery to events such as this week's deadly floods, would be ideal. The U.S. and India are already working together through the Indian Ministry of Earth Sciences and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to enhance monsoon forecasting. As with the PACE programs, the focus could be on building joint capacity from Indian and U.S. public and private institutions for research that would benefit both countries. While the disruption of the Indian monsoon cycle amply demonstrates the need for better forecasting and response capacity in India, the same need exists in the United States.

There are strong indications that such a move would be welcome In India. A recent Yale-Shakti Foundation poll found that only 7 percent of Indian respondents knew "a lot" about global warming - but when it was explained to them, 72 percent believed global warming was happening and 56 percent believed it was caused by human activity. What the Indian public is apparently responding to is changes in weather events and the new unpredictability of monsoons.

Source: Yale-Shakti Foundation poll

Source: Yale-Shakti Foundation poll

Yesterday, President Obama described our future if the world failed to address climate change:

The grim alternative affects all nations - more severe storms, more famine and floods, new waves of refugees, coastlines that vanish, oceans that rise. This is the future we must avert. This is the global threat of our time.

India and other regions of the world are already acutely experiencing this climate reality. The time to act is now.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/20/2190071/as-secretary-kerry

Here's Why The U.S. Is Morally Obligated To Act On Climate Change

Credit: Citizens Campaign for the Environment

Internationally, the big hurdle to fighting climate change and global warming is figuring out a fair way to divvy up responsibility. Serious efforts to curb carbon emissions will require considerable upfront investment, so who should make those investments and how much? That impasse then influences domestic political reluctance in the United States. If the rest of the world isn't moving, why should we?

Earlier this week, Bloomberg flagged work by the Stockholm Environment Institute and others to nail down answers to those questions with hard numbers. Their conclusion?

As of now, the United States bears fully one third of the burden to reduce global carbon emissions, with much of Europe shouldering nearly another third. It's a bracing conclusion. The latest analysis suggests the per-unit social and economic damage from carbon emissions due to global warming is as much as twice what we thought. Several countries with much more modest obligations than America's have already moved to price carbon, leaving the U.S. sticking out like a sore thumb. Even China is tip-toeing up to it.

Much of the researchers' work comes from the Greenhouse Development Rights Framework. First, they set a global threshold for living standards, below which people are considered free from the responsibility to sacrifice in the fight against climate change. They came up with $7,500 a year in dollars (adjusted for purchasing power parity) - it's the living standard at which malnutrition, infant mortality, low education, and other problems of poverty begin to fade, plus a bit of breathing room. Even then, about 70 percent of the globe lives at or below this level, and taken all together is responsible for only 15 percent of the cumulative global emissions.

Capacity to invest in climate mitigation and adaptation was then defined as all income per person falling above that threshold. As you can see below, the United States' capacity swamps that of both India and China, despite the much larger populations of the latter two countries:

Source: The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework

The researchers then tried to quantify responsibility for climate change by accounting for cumulative emissions since 1990, and all projected emissions going forward, while excluding all emissions associated with income below the threshold. Putting it all together, they calculated the "responsibility and capacity indicator" (RCI) for each country. In other words: everyone's fair share of the responsibility to reduce carbon emissions enough to keep the planet's climate under two degrees Celsius of warming.

The result? The United States has 33.1 percent of the global RCI in 2010, dropping to 25.5 percent in 2030. The European Union has 25.7 percent in 2010 and 19.6 percent in 2030. Thanks to its economic growth, China does jump from 5.5 percent in 2010 to 15.2 percent in 2030. But no other country even cracks 8 percent, or changes much over that period.

Source: The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework

This shouldn't be surprising. Other data suggests the U.S. can claim a third of the world's carbon dioxide emissions since the mid-1800s, and our per capita emissions top nearly every other nation. We're also the most economically developed nation without a price on carbon, meaning we implicitly subsidize fossil fuel use far more than anyone else.

In fact, the paper notes that even if the advanced countries get their carbon emissions down to practically zero by 2050, the two degree target doesn't give the poor and developing countries much room to work with. That matters, because reducing poverty requires reducing energy poverty, and reducing energy poverty usually means increased carbon emissions. It's possibly the key paradox of human advancement - the world is creeping up on an astonishing reduction in global poverty, even as our greenhouse gas emissions keep driving us towards likely climate and ecological catastrophe. It's what led the International Energy Agency and the World Bank to note that tackling energy poverty and climate change at the same time is going to have a hefty global price tag.

Here in America and the developed west, meanwhile, we've basically got the problem of deep poverty licked. Given the position of extraordinary economic privilege we enjoy in the global order, it's right that the lion's share of the climate change burden falls to us. To that end, the paper suggests establishing an international fund to invest in global climate change mitigation and adaptation, with countries contributing in accordance with their RCI share. Or just use the RCI proportions to calculate direct emission reduction targets for each country.

But it's not grim self-sacrifice. The insurance bill the U.S. is paying for extreme weather disasters - increasing thanks to climate change - far outpaces that of any other country, meaning reducing global warming is in our quantifiable financial self-interest. We also need jobs, and specifically jobs that pay well but are accessible to less educated Americans, in order to avoid falling into an economy with just an upper and lower class, but no middle class. Research suggests renewable energy produces more jobs per unit of energy generated than the fossil fuel industries, green jobs are both more accessible to less educated Americans than all jobs as a whole, and their more likely to involve manufacturing. Finally, if we 're exporting renewable technology to China and the world, rather than importing it when they develop it first, we'll help close our trade deficit and improve the government's finances.

But self-interest aside, at the end of the day there's no escaping the simple morality of the matter. As President Obama pointed out at a prayer breakfast in 2012, quoting Luke 12:48, "for unto whom much is given, much shall be required." He was talking about justly distributing the burden of deficit reduction, but the point applies to carbon reduction just as much.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/06/2110951/us-obligated-clima

Snowquestration: How D.C. Fits In With The 'Less Snow, More Blizzards' Pattern

Washington, D.C. is abuzz with the news that a new storm is sweeping down towards the mid-Atlantic seaboard, already dubbed "snowquester" (or "snowquestration" if you're a grammar stickler) in honor of the nation's latest budget debacle.

There's a 50 percent chance the snowquester will dump over 5 inches of snow within the Beltway, and a 20 to 25 percent chance it will immobilize the city entirely. Given Washington, D.C.'s meager snowfall in recent winters, the snowquester's impending arrival is understandably grabbing everyone's attention.

It's a "teachable moment" for diving into how Washington, D.C.'s weather specifically fits what we know about climate change.

One paradox that's emerged from climate science in recent years is the "less snow, but worse blizzards" pattern. The Associated Press recently summed up the logic behind this: "A warmer world is likely to decrease the overall amount of snow falling each year and shrink the snow season. But when it is cold enough for a snowstorm to hit, the slightly warmer air is often carrying more moisture, producing potentially historic blizzards."

Global warming is bringing us closer to the sweet spot where moisture in the air is maximized while temperatures remain low enough to cause snow. And recent studies have confirmed that snowfalls over the last 100 years in the United States, as well as those projected for the next 100, fit this pattern.

Jason Samenow over at the Washington Post decided to dig into whether D.C.'s weather specifically has lined up with the "less snow, more blizzards" pattern. Sure enough, it does:

In the 30 winters since 1984 (including this year, assuming we don't miraculously get 14 inches of snow in the coming weeks), only 5 winters have had above average snowfall in D.C. - compared to 25 winters with average to below average amounts (15.4 inches or less). In 4 of the 5 winters with above average snowfall, the total was 2 to more than 3 times normal - or 30.1 to 56.1 inches (in 1987, 1996, 2003, and 2010). Or, put another away, the 25 snow-deprived winters averaged 9 inches of snow, the 5 snowy winters averaged 40 inches.

At the same time, D.C. has not seen accumulating snow in November for the last 16 years, the longest stretch on record. And the 30-year average for snowfall has dropped from 24 inches in 1918, to 18 inches in 1984, to 14 to 15 inches this year.

"Shorter snow season, less snow overall, but the occasional knockout punch," Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer told the AP. "That's the new world we live in."

It should be noted that it's the wrong question to ask whether climate change "caused" this or any particular snow storm. The effects of global warming feed into and intensify a range of factors that contribute to more extreme weather. As with a baseball player on steroids, no one hit is "caused" by the steroids - but the use of steroids (a.k.a. global warming) causes the player (a.k.a. the climate) to break records at an unnatural pace. And the rate and severity of snow storms, floods, downpours, droughts, and forest fires have all been on the uptick in recent decades.

Admittedly, even if snowquester does its worst, the 2012-2013 winter season will remain in the "less snow" half of the pattern, given how little snowfall D.C. has already seen. But the above remains an important lesson that the effects of climate change are comprehendible, measurable, at least somewhat predictable - and, most importantly, they're here.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/04/1670991/snowquestration-bl

2012 was warmest year in USA history: NOAA

Creative Commons: Anile Prakash, 2010

2012 was the warmest year on record for most of the US, according to a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The latest data shows that the lower 48, all the states apart from Alaska and Hawaii, experienced the second most extreme year of weather as well as record high average temperatures.

The average temperature for the year was 12.9°C, 1.7°C above the 20th century average and 0.5°C above the previous record set in 1998.

"In 117 years of data the record low temperatures to 1998's previous record high average, all sit within a four degree Fahrenheit band, 2012 is 1 degree Fahrenheit above that band," said Jake Crouch, climate scientist, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

Read more: Resp0nding to Climate Change >>

http://tcktcktck.org/2013/01/2012-was-warmest-year-in-usa-history-noaa

Australian Prime Minister warns of more extreme heatwaves due to climate change

Courtesy: Australia Bureau of Meteorology, 2013

Facing 'unprecedented' heat and threats of 'catastrophic' wildfires, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has publicly stated her concerns about climate change. Gillard is the latest head of state to acknowledge the growing risk we now face from more extreme weather events after Barack Obama spoke about the issue following Hurricane Sandy. She warned of the role played by global warming during a visit to a burnt out school in Tasmania, which succumbed to the wildfires currently ravaging the Australian continent amidst a record breaking heatwave.

Australians are trapped under a 'dome of heat' which according to the Bureau of Meteorology has smashed a 40 year old record for national average temperature (weighing in at a sizzling 40.33°C) and toppled the record for number of consecutive days over 39°C which now stands at 6 days and counting. Experts believe the heatwave is set to continue, as over 100 wildfires continue to rage across the countryside in New South Wales alone, threatening lives and property in a natural disaster that some experts believe could rival the notorious firestorms of 2009 that claimed hundreds of lives.

Learn more: The Atlantic Wire >>

http://tcktcktck.org/2013/01/australian-prime-minister-warns-of-more-e

Devastating wildfires in Australia linked to climate change

Wildfires in Tasmania, Creative Commons: Toni Fish, 2013

Facing a record breaking heat wave and catastrophic wildfires raging across Tasmania and New South Wales, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard spoke publicly of the connection between these weather conditions and climate change.

"We do know that over time as a result of climate change we are going to see more extreme weather events," said Prime Minister Gillard.

Fires are currently burning in five out of the six Australian states. Though no fatalities have been reported, emergency workers continue to search for missing people.

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the last four months of 2012 set new maximum temperature records across the nation. In fact, the Bureau added new colors to their forecasting charts to indicate never before seen temperatures of up to 54 degrees Celsius. These temperatures, in combination with a delayed and weak monsoon season, helped to spark the dangerous wildfires in the eastern part of the nation.

Like U.S. President Obama's remarks in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Prime Minister Gillard's comments reflect the growing awareness amongst world leaders of the connection between climate change and a 'new normal' of increased dangerous weather events. Average temperatures in Australia have climbed by almost 1 degree Celsius since 1910 due to climate change, and may continue to rise by up to 5 degrees Celsius by 2070. This news comes as the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirms that 2012 was the hottest year on record for the United States.

http://tcktcktck.org/2013/01/devastating-wildfires-in-australia-linked

NOAA: 2012 Was Officially The Warmest Year On Record, Second Most Extreme

Last year was officially the hottest ever recorded for the lower-48 states. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric tallied weather and temperature data for 2012, and found that the year was both the warmest and the second-most extreme for weather ever recorded for the contiguous U.S.

According to NOAA's latest "State of the Climate" report, the average temperature for the lower-48 states was 55.3°, which is 3.2°F above the 20^th century average, and 1.0°F above the previous record-year of 1998.

Last year was marked by an historic drought, above-average wildfires, multiple freak storms that wiped out power to millions, and multiple severe heat waves. According to the U.S. Climate Extremes Index, 2012 was the second most extreme year on record - coming in below 1998, the previous hottest year on record.

Precipitation was also down significantly in 2012. Average rainfall for the lower-48 states was 2.57 inches below average, contributing to the severe drought that gripped the nation and helping make the wildfire season the third most destructive on record.

To see how these and other billion-dollar extreme weather events impacted Americans, check out the Center for American Progress report, "Heavy Weather: How Climate Destruction Harms Middle- and Lower-Income Americans."

Here's how NOAA breaks down last year's temperature records:

U.S. temperature

• Every state in the contiguous U.S. had an above-average annual temperature for 2012. Nineteen states had a record warm year and an additional 26 states had one of their 10 warmest.
• On the national scale, 2012 started off much warmer than average with the fourth warmest winter (December 2011-February 2012) on record. Winter warmth limited snow with many locations experiencing near-record low snowfall totals. The winter snow cover for the contiguous U.S. was the third smallest on record and snowpack totals across the Central and Southern Rockies were less than half of normal.
• Spring started off exceptionally warm with the warmest March on record, followed by the fourth warmest April and second warmest May. The season's temperature was 5.2¬∞F above average, making it easily the warmest spring on record, surpassing the previous record by 2.0¬∞F. The warm spring resulted in an early start to the 2012 growing season in many places, which increased the loss of water from the soil earlier than what is typical. In combination with the lack of winter snow and residual dryness from 2011, the record warm spring laid the foundation for the widespread drought conditions in large areas of the U.S. during 2012.
• The above-average temperatures of spring continued into summer. The national-scale heat peaked in July with an average temperature of 76.9¬∞F, 3.6¬∞F above average, making it the hottest month ever observed for the contiguous United States. The eighth warmest June, record hottest July, and a warmer-than-average August resulted in a summer average temperature of 73.8¬∞F, the second hottest summer on record by only hundredths of a degree. An estimated 99.1 million people experienced 10 or more days of summer temperatures greater than 100¬∞F, nearly one-third of the nation's population.
• Autumn and December temperatures were warmer than average, but not of the same magnitude as the three previous seasons. Autumn warmth in the western U.S. offset cooler temperatures in the eastern half of the country. Although the last four months of 2012 did not bring the same unusual warmth as the first 8 months of the year, the September through December temperatures were warm enough for 2012 to remain the record warmest year by a wide margin.

U.S. precipitation

• The nationally-averaged precipitation total of 26.57 inches was 2.57 inches below average and the 15^th driest year on record for the lower 48. This was also the driest year for the nation since 1988 when 25.25 inches of precipitation was observed.
• The driest conditions during 2012 occurred across the central United States. Two states, Nebraska and Wyoming, had their driest years on record. Eight additional states had annual precipitation totals ranking among the bottom ten. Drier-than-average conditions stretched from the Intermountain West, through the Great Plains and Midwest, and into the Southeast. Wetter-than-average conditions occurred in the Pacific Northwest, where Washington had its fifth wettest year on record, as well as parts of the Gulf Coast and Northeast.
• Each season of 2012 had precipitation totals below the 20^th century average:

You can read the full report here. Climate Central has a killer interactive detailing the temperature data for each state here. And Peter Sinclair's latest video, "2012: The Year Climate Change Got Real," is basically the video version of this report.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/08/1415131/noaa-2012-was-offi

Cost Of Superstorm Sandy, And Other 2012 Extreme Weather Events, On The Rise

by Jackie Weidman

Yesterday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared that his state needs $42 billion to recover from Hurricane Sandy and to protect against future extreme weather events. Three quarters of this sum is just for damage repair and restoration of homes, businesses, and mass transit.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also announced that Sandy caused $29.5 billion in economic costs there, cautioning that the estimate will likely rise after next summer's tourism season and real estate values take a hit.

Cuomo urged that mitigating damage from future storms is essential, as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather. "There has been a series of extreme weather incidents," Cuomo said just days after Sandy's landfall. "We have a new reality when it comes to these weather patterns."

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) warned that obtaining federal funding for recovery efforts could be difficult, especially during the fiscal showdown. Schumer said that an emergency supplemental appropriations bill will be introduced in December and that it "will be an effort that lasts not weeks, but many months, and we will not rest until the federal response meets New York's deep and extensive needs."

Additionally, the House of Representatives hasn't been friendly to disaster relief. In both 2011 and 2012, the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee proposed cutting the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) budget by $87 million and an additional $182 million, respectively.

This isn't the first time that states have asked Congress for disaster funding, and it certainly won't be the last. FEMA only has $12 billion in disaster aid to provide annually. Yet in 2011 and 2012, the U.S. experienced at least $126 billion in direct costs just from extreme weather events that caused $1 billion in damages or more.

A recent Center for American Progress report called "Heavy Weather: How Climate Destruction Harms Middle- and Lower-Income Americans," finds that the vast majority of U.S. counties - 67 percent - were affected by at least one of the 21 billion-dollar extreme weather events in the past two years. The report found that lower- and middle- income households are disproportionately affected by the most expensive extreme weather events.

Although New Jersey and New York account for the lion's share of damages from Hurricane Sandy, they aren't the only states slammed by extreme weather. Sixteen states were afflicted by five or more extreme weather events in 2011-12. Households in disaster-declared counties in these states earn $48,137, or seven percent below the U.S. median income. These states were ravaged by hurricanes and tropical storms, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, floods and crippling drought.

After Superstorm Sandy, droughts are the second and third most costly extreme weather events in 2011-12, respectively. Extremely dry conditions over the past two years resulted in long drought seasons that caused at least $40 billion in economic damages combined.

This year, the worst drought in decades continues to ravage the south-central United States. Drought conditions expanded and intensified this month after retreating in September and October, according to the November 20 drought monitor. Eric Luebehusen, a meteorologist with the Agriculture Department told E&E News that this could be the worst winter wheat season since 1995, as dry conditions deplete irrigation storage and stifle secondary root growth. A Purdue University economist estimates that the 2012 drought will cause up to $77 billion in economic costs, and experts at the University of Illinois predict that taxpayers will ultimately be responsible for at least $10 billion of them.

These are just some of the costs that extreme weather has inflicted on the U.S. economy in recent years. Lasting effects are felt on national, state, and local levels as families must rebuild destroyed homes, small business owners suffer from loss of business, and states scramble to come up with the funds for recovery.

Hurricane Sandy is the exclamation point on the warnings about climate change, after the deadly and expensive extreme weather events repeatedly struck the United States in 2011 and 2012. We are not helpless victims on the receiving end of a suddenly angrier climate; these recent weather events are a call to action and preparation.

Jackie Weidman is a Special Assistant for Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress.

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