Record Level GHG Emissions

Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 were the highest in history, according to the latest estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The watchdog group says emissions rose again after a dip caused by the financial crisis in 2009, and ended 5% up from the previous record in 2008.

China and India account for most of the rise, though emissions have also grown elsewhere.

The increase raises doubts over whether planned curbs on greenhouse gas emissions will be achieved.

At a meeting last year in Cancun, Mexico, world leaders agreed that deep cuts were needed to limit the rise in global temperature to 2ºC above pre-industrial levels.

"This significant increase in CO2 emissions and the locking in of future emissions due to infrastructure investments represent a serious setback to our hopes of limiting the global rise in temperature to no more than 2ºC," said Dr Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the IEA who oversees the annual World Energy Outlook, the Agency’s flagship publication.

In terms of fuels, 44% of the estimated CO2 emissions in 2010 came from coal, 36% from oil, and 20% from natural gas.

The challenge of improving and maintaining quality of life for people in all countries while limiting CO2 emissions has never been greater.  "Our latest estimates are another wake-up call," said Dr Birol.

Read more on the BBC News or on the IEA website.

C40 - Large Cities Climate Leadership Group

C40 is a group of large cities committed to implementing plans and initiatives to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions through a range of energy efficiency and clean energy programs. The C40 network, working with the Clinton Climate Initiative, provides a forum in which cities work together, share information, and demonstrate leadership.

The current chair of the C40 is Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City.

For information on the C40 Mayors Summit taking place May 31 through June 2, 2011 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, visit http://live.c40cities.org.

Climate Change Beliefs Shift with the Weather

Via the Earth Institute, Columbia University

Evidence showing manmade global warming is rising, yet opinion polls suggest public belief in the findings wavers.  Researchers now have a potential explanation for that fluidity in beliefs.

In three separate studies, researchers affiliated with Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) surveyed about 1,200 people in the United States and Australia, and found that those who thought the current day was warmer than usual were more likely to believe in and feel concern about global warming than those who thought the day was unusually cold. A new paper describing the studies appears in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science.

Ongoing studies by other researchers have already provided strong evidence that opinions on climate and other issues can hinge on factors unrelated to scientific observations.  In the current paper, respondents were fairly good at knowing if it was unusually hot or cold--perceptions correlated with reality three quarters of the time—and that the perception exerted a powerful control on their attitude. As expected, politics, gender and age all had the predicted influences.

Read more here.

Recent EPA News

It is difficult to divert attention from the devastation in Japan.  However, here are a few other news items that may be of interest to our membership:

There are efforts underway in the US Congress to strip the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouses gases.  HR910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, aims to "amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change, and for other purposes."

Read more here, here, and here.

The EPA says that New York City’s 10-year plan to identify and replace light fixtures that are leaking PCBs in to city schools needs to be faster and more comprehensive.

Read more here, here, and here.

The EPA has added 10 Hazardous Waste Sites to Superfund’s National Priorities List.  Fifteen additional sites are proposed to be included on the NPL.

Read more here.

Methanotrophs at Work in the Gulf

From Robert Krulwich, National Public Radio

Last June, oceanography professor John Kessler of Texas A&M University visited BP's Gulf of Mexico accident site and found methane concentrations below the surface that were, "on average about 100,000 times greater than background." He told Living On Earth, "We even saw a few locations that were starting to push the limits of a million times above background."

Last August, Kessler sailed out on the NOAA ship Pisces to check on the gas plume. Three months had passed. 120 days. He looked. He looked again. The gas was gone.

Last month he published a paper in Science that points the finger at hard-working methanotrophs acting as "teeny janitors."

Kessler et al's abstract:

Methane was the most abundant hydrocarbon released during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Beyond relevancy to this anthropogenic event, this methane release simulates a rapid and relatively short-term natural release from hydrates into deepwater. Based on methane and oxygen distributions measured at 207 stations throughout the affected region, we find that within ~120 days from the onset of release ~3.0 × 10¹⁰ to 3.9 × 10¹⁰ moles of oxygen were respired, primarily by methanotrophs, and left behind a residual microbial community containing methanotrophic bacteria. We suggest that a vigorous deepwater bacterial bloom respired nearly all the released methane within this time and that by analogy, large-scale releases of methane from hydrate in the deep ocean are likely to be met by a similarly rapid methanotrophic response.

Read the complete story on NPR.