Daily on Energy: World on course to fall far short of emissions cuts envisioned in Paris agreement

That’s the main takeaway from the International Energy Agency’s new World Energy Outlook 2019. The annual report is not a forecast but lays out a set of scenarios of possible futures based on policy actions — or inactions.

In a scenario in which the world follows through with all announced and current policies and targets, the rise in emissions slows after reaching a record level in 2018. But emissions do not peak before 2040, rising roughly 100 million tonnes annually from 2018 and 2040, putting the world on pace for upwards of 2.7 degrees celsius of warming this century.

“CO2 emissions would lock in severe impacts from climate change,” the report says.

Energy-related carbon emissions would need to peak “immediately” in order to meet the sustainable development scenario, a pathway that IEA lays out in which the world achieves the Paris target of keeping emissions “well below” 2 degrees celsius.

The limits of clean electricity: Renewables are set to account for nearly half of total electricity generation in 2040 based on today’s stated policies, with the expansion of wind and solar helping renewables surpass coal in the power mix by the mid-2020s.

But energy demand would increase by 1% per year to 2040, meaning the momentum behind clean energy is insufficient to offset the effects of an expanding global economy and growing population that needs more energy.

Indeed, remember, electricity, the sector that’s seeing the most renewables growth, represents only about one-fifth of energy consumption. Fossil fuels would still have a 74% share of the global energy mix in 2040, helped by the fact that governments continue to provide more fossil fuel consumption subsidies compared to what they offer to renewable energy and electric vehicles.

This is a global problem: If all the countries considering net-zero emissions targets met those targets (mostly European countries that represent 13% of energy-related carbon emissions), it would be just a slight, but not “decisive” help, showing how “broad” the solutions to combat climate change have to be.

A big problem is the continued presence of young coal plants in Asia, responsible for 90% of all coal-fired capacity built worldwide in the last 20 years. Almost 60% of the world’s coal-fired power plants are 20 years old or less.

“Investment in carbon capture will be critical to ensure that the young global coal fleet is in line with climate targets,” the report says.

Another problem is happening at home, as well as abroad.

The global rise of people driving SUVs is making the emissions problem worse. Annual EV sales could increase to more than 30 million in 2040 from 2 million today, but if the appetite for bigger cars continues to grow at a similar pace, that would add nearly 2 million barrels a day in global oil demand by 2040.

The faltering momentum behind global energy efficiency improvements is also “cause for concern.”

Offering a U.S. roadmap: There is a pathway for the U.S. to do its part, but it ain’t easy, according to a new report out Wednesday from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

It encourages a broad federal climate strategy, in which Congress would set a national goal for a carbon-neutral economy by 2050, and a core piece of how to get there would be an economy-wide carbon price of some sort.

The report was developed in concert with several corporate partners, including utilities like DTE Energy, Exelon Corporation, and Pacific Gas & Electric; tech firms like Intel and Microsoft; and energy companies like BHP and BP.

C2ES’ national strategy also outlines a $20 billion per year climate-related research and development program through 2030 — with $2 billion of those annual funds going to the Energy Department’s innovation hub, the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy.

The group’s report grapples with some of the same challenges IEA outlines: C2ES, for example, says a strong focus on carbon capture will be critical to reaching carbon neutrality by mid-century. The national strategy calls for Congress to set a “date certain” by which all fossil fuel generation must either retire or install technologies to fully capture emissions.

It’s an acknowledgment that the U.S. likely won’t wean completely off fossil fuels and will have to deal with what remains.

Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.

EPA WANTS TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT: But the agency’s top career science official’s testimony might have just stoked further concern over the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to restrict the types of science it uses in policymaking.

None of the Democrats on the House Science Committee appeared satisfied with any of the answers Dr. Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, the EPA’s science advisor and principal deputy assistant administrator for science, gave on the agency’s science transparency proposal. That proposal would bar the EPA from relying on any scientific studies where the underlying data isn’t made public.

A draft supplemental proposal, leaked to the New York Times on Monday, suggested the EPA will expand the reach of that controversial Scott Pruitt-era plans to place limits on all science the agency considers and could reach back in time to science the EPA has already used in pollution limits. It sparked outrage from many in the scientific and environmental community.

Orme-Zavaleta pushed back on characterizations the EPA’s plans would apply “retroactively” to regulations the agency has already issued and confirmed that the Times had gotten hold of an “outdated” draft.

A distinction without a difference?: While already existing regulations would be spared from the EPA’s science proposal, Orme-Zavaleta did say that the EPA’s plans would apply to previously developed data and models.

She also admitted to lawmakers that she wasn’t involved in developing the proposed rule. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is the top official overseeing the rule’s development, she said.

GOP CARBON TAX GROUP GOES PUBLIC WITH AD CAMPAIGN: A Republican-backed group pushing for Congress to pass a federal carbon tax launched a six-figure advertising campaign on Wednesday.

The campaign from the Americans for Carbon Dividends represents a new and more public phase in its advocacy campaign to promote its plan, which features a carbon tax that would return the revenue to taxpayers.

“The objective is to target D.C. thought leaders and influencers on why a carbon tax and dividend is the right climate solution that all sides can support,” said former Rep. Ryan Costello, a Pennsylvania Republican and managing director of Americans for Carbon Dividends, the advocacy arm of the Climate Leadership Council, a group led by former Republican Secretaries of State James Baker III and George Shultz.

“The public advocacy piece of this is a way to test the political theory that this is an implementable and workable plan that is attractive to a bipartisan coalition,” Costello told Josh.

Americans for Carbon Dividends will indefinitely run the 30-second ad, titled “The Bipartisan Climate Solution,” in the D.C. market on platforms including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post and on social media sites YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, in addition to Hulu.

MARCO RUBIO JOINS BIPARTISAN CLIMATE CAUCUS: Marco Rubio is the latest Republican to join the Senate’s bipartisan climate change caucus, Josh exclusively reported Tuesday.

The Florida senator follows the additions of other Republican senators Mike Braun of Indiana (the caucus co-founder), Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Rubio, a conservative, is an interesting addition to the group since he represents a state vulnerable to sea level rise, but he has traditionally not distinguished himself as a supporter of federal government action to combat climate change.

Wesley Brooks, a Rubio legislative assistant who works on environmental issues, indicated the senator is going to focus on adaptation and “restoring natural infrastructure to improve resilience of vulnerable communities.”

CONSERVATIVE PLUG FOR STORAGE: The conservative group Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions will lobby Republicans members of Congress beginning Wednesday to pass a bill that would extend tax credits to energy storage technologies.

Business leaders on behalf of CRES, along with officials from the group, will meet with the offices of 15 Republican members of Congress over two days to urge passage of the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act, a bipartisan, bicameral bill to extend the investment tax credit to also include storage, in addition to wind and solar.

Targeted lawmakers include Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Reps. Jim Jordan and Bob Latta of Ohio, and more.

PRETTY PLEASE EXTEND OUR TAX CREDITS: Groups across several industry sectors are urging Congress to pass tax legislation in 2019 extending incentives for energy technologies like energy efficiency and biofuels. Some of those tax credits lapsed in 2017 and haven’t been restored yet, while others will expire at the end of this year.

“Uncertainty regarding the status of these worthwhile incentives has created confusion for numerous industry sectors that utilize these tax incentives and has threatened thousands of jobs in the US. economy,” reads the letter sent to House and Senate leaders this week by a range of more than 60 groups, including organizations representing everything from vehicles, to appliance makers, to ethanol producers. The groups recommend Congress extend the credits to at least the end of 2020.

SENATORS SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS AT EPA’S MERCURY PLANS: And they’re committing to bipartisan opposition to the EPA proposal, which the agency’s top air official has signaled could be finished by year’s end.

Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander and Delaware Democrat Tom Carper, ranking member on the Senate environment committee, say the EPA’s plans don’t make any sense because the Obama-era mercury and air toxics standards have been hugely successful in cutting pollution.

The EPA has proposed scrapping the underpinning of the rule — known as the “appropriate and necessary finding” — because officials say it underestimated the costs and overstated the benefits of controlling mercury emissions. But the senators wrote in a Monday op-ed for USA Today that all utilities have already met the Obama-era requirements.

“Changing the rule after billions of dollars have already been spent means that utilities will have less certainty about federal regulations, and it will be more difficult to maintain steady electric prices for American families in the future,” they said.

TRUMP’S MUDDLED CLIMATE MESSAGE: President Trump on Tuesday seemed to sort of follow his re-election campaign’s push for moderating his rhetoric on climate change, in typical Trumpian fashion.

“I’m very much into climate,” Trump said when asked about climate change at the Economic Club of New York.

We would tell you what he means, but we’re not sure. Trump also declared himself “in many ways an environmentalist,” saying that he wants the “cleanest air” and “cleanest water.”

Trump indicated no change in his policies, reiterating criticism of the Paris climate agreement, and shifting blame for emissions onto China, India, and Russia, countries that he said “are doing absolutely nothing to clean up their smokestacks.”

The Rundown

Reuters World’s energy watchdog is undermining climate change battle, critics say

Washington Post The climate chain reaction that threatens the heart of the Pacific

Bloomberg Venice declares state of emergency after near-record tide and floods

E&E News Buttigieg seeks edge with ‘more responsible’ climate plan

Calendar

WEDNESDAY | NOVEMBER 13

2 p.m. 1324 Longworth. The House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands holds an oversight hearing entitled “Roads to Ruin: Examining the Impacts of Removing National Forest Roadless Protections.”

THURSDAY | NOVEMBER 14

9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. 1601 K Street, NW. K&L Gates, the Energy Storage Association, and the Edison Electric Institute host this year’s third annual Energy Storage Conference.

10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to consider the nomination of Dan Brouillette to be Secretary of Energy.

12:30 p.m. 1333 H Street, NW. The Center for American Progress, Environmental Defense Fund, League of Conservation Voters, and Sierra Club host a discussion on “How to Build a 100 Percent Clean Future,” featuring Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, Colorado Congressman Joe Neguse, and New York Congressman Paul Tonko.