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Plan

Plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase diplomatic and economic engagement with the People’s Republic of China over joint development and implementation of green finance projects

Solvency

The recent Paris agreement is only the beginning- now is the time for the US to implement new energy initiatives to meet its obligations. Success now is vital to generate international will for future agreements that solve climate change Steer in 2016 (Andrew, President and CEO of the World Resources Institute; “After Paris: Time to Roll Up Our Sleeves on Climate Action;” World Resources Institute, global research organization that works in more than 50 countries; April 21, 2016; http://www.wri.org/blog/2016/04/after-paris-time-roll-our-sleeves-climate-action)

The Paris Agreement is cause for celebration. After years of struggle, it sets a new course on global climate action. Now, four months after 196 countries came together in Paris, it's time for leaders to roll up their sleeves and determine how to move from commitments to action. As these government representatives gather on April 22 at the United Nations to

formally sign the Agreement, the moment is ripe to ask what must happen next to turn the vision of a low-carbon future into reality. There isn't a moment to lose. Ever since Paris, a parade of new data points to the perils of delay: 2015 was once again the hottest year in the modern meteorological record. March 2016 was not just record hot, but jaw-droppingly so. It also marked the 11th consecutive month of record-breaking heat globally. The extent of Arctic sea ice (the measure of how much of the far north is melting) also broke the record in January and just skirted the record in February and March. A new climate model indicates that the West Antarctic ice sheet could melt faster than previously thought, fueling sea level rise. A nearly two-decade-long drought around the

Mediterranean is the worst in 900 years. Against this backdrop, many nations are stepping up with climate action. The UN summit gives world leaders the opportunity to show they are serious about shifting course. What should we look for? Many national governments are leading. From new solar projects in Morocco and India to plans to offer enhanced national climate commitments by Argentina and Indonesia, momentum toward low-carbon is building. China and the United States, the world's two biggest carbon polluters, have committed to formally join the Paris Agreement as soon as possible this year. Apart from the message this sends to the rest of the world, these two countries together account for 38 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Once at least 55 Parties join and 55 percent of emissions are covered, the Paris Agreement will go into force. UN Secretary-General

Ban Ki-moon has called for leaders to sign and join the Agreement as soon as possible. Entry into force will show not only political will, but also put in motion the key elements of the Paris Agreement, including the ambition mechanism to increase action over time. Moving from commitment to action will take hard work and political will. While every country's capabilities are different, all need to develop very clear roadmaps for how they will put their NDCs - their Nationally Determined Contributions, or commitments to deal with climate change - into action. To make sure their NDCs can be effective, countries should get specific about their plans for renewable energy, urban infrastructure, forest management, landscape restoration and other strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change. Most NDCs are statements of intent rather than detailed, least-cost plans. Designing the policies and programs that underlie the delivery of the NDCs is

not easy, and will require the best expertise. International efforts to support such processes will need to be coordinated to prevent a tangles of overlapping technical assistance offerings Countries will also need to determine how they can align their commitments to tackle climate change with the needs of the world's most vulnerable as spelled out in the Sustainable

Development Goals. That is going to require clear plans for national investment and associated financing.. To actually make it possible for action on the ground, countries with climate finance pledges must get down to the nitty-gritty of what those pledges mean: what they add up to and how they can help meet the goal of mobilizing $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020. Effective rules to track climate finance can help countries make longer-term plans for how to use the money. More broadly, investors must show they are in line with the Agreement's aim to ensure financial flows are consistent with low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development. Financial institutions need to shift funding away

from high-carbon sectors and towards climate solutions. We will need significant movement between now and the next global climate meeting in Marrakesh later this year, especially by putting in place the nuts-and-bolts

details that will bring the Paris Agreement to life. The Agreement has the potential to spur action at the national level, improve tracking and reporting of climate commitments, encourage greater ambition and make certain that countries have the resources and capacity necessary to effect the change we need. We need world leaders to drive action, with more finance ministers getting engaged as the world starts to implement the Paris Agreement. We are at a unique and urgent moment. Climate impacts are mounting and the door to make progress is closing. It's time to go all in. If we want change, we must transform our economies, our energy and our

ways of doing business. The framework is set. Time to get to work.

Green finance is key to meet Paris obligations- only clear guidelines and government promotion can move investment capital into renewable energyDeborah Lehr June 13, 2016, Chief Executive Officer of Basilinna, a strategic business consulting firm focused on China and the Middle East. In addition, Ms. Lehr is a Senior Fellow of the Paulson Institute, a think tank founded by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson located at the University of Chicago Green Finance: A Strategic Imperative for China, The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2016/06/green-finance-a-strategic-imperative-for-china/

With last month’s high-profile signing ceremony of the Paris Agreement by 174 countries at the United Nations, the complicated process to turn these historic commitments on climate change into reality has begun. Yet

away from the cameras, the more difficult process of financing implementation of these commitments is getting a boost from what may seem an unlikely source: the Chinese government. China will host the G20

Summit in September and its leadership has made “green finance” one of the pillar issues of its presidency.

Reflecting this priority, China is becoming the global testing ground for innovative concepts in green finance with an ambitious domestic program for financing green growth. If successful, this model could drive standards and practices for the rest of the world. The concept of green finance is a relatively new, but through necessity, China is staking out a leadership position. As China struggles with air pollution as well as soil and water contamination during a time of slowing economic growth, the transition to low carbon growth has become an opportunity to spur economic growth. As Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China’s central bank, said during the recent Spring IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington, DC, “green finance is a strategic priority.” Zhou estimates the costs of cleaning up China’s environment alone will run over $600 billion annually for at least five years. The Chinese government

can meet only 15 percent of that estimate. Alternate sources of funding must be found — a problem that will be replicated in many countries as pressure to implement the Paris Agreement increases. Globally, the challenge of increasing public and private sector investment into green projects is not one of a lack of financial resources. There are significant amounts of private capital seeking green investment opportunities. The challenge is efficiently matching this private capital to existing and new green opportunities. For that to occur, the global community must develop the necessary financial infrastructure to move green finance from what is now viewed as a cottage industry to become part of the financial mainstream. Governments should take the lead in creating the policy and regulatory environment for attracting private capital. This structure should include providing long-term incentives, such as subsidies or preferential terms for green projects, as well as introducing means to promote the adoption of green practices. To be successful, in short, green investments must appeal to private investors.

Implementation of the Paris agreement in the next few years is key- only massive financial investment in renewables globally can lead the transitionJames Osborne 7/4/2016, With Paris deal in place, governments seek to attract trillions in clean energy investment, Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/With-Paris-deal-in-place-governments-seek-to-8340448.php

But in the aftermath of last year's Paris agreement, the discussion is no longer theoretical as governments around the world begin to shift trillions of dollars to support wind turbines, solar farms, hydroelectric dams and

technologies that reduce energy consumption. The International Energy Agency estimates the global cost of meeting the climate change goals of the Paris accords at $16.5 trillion, about a quarter of global spending on energy infrastructure by 2040. All this is adding momentum to renewable technologies, which already are making gains on power grids worldwide that would have been unthinkable just five years ago. As the cost of their technologies has fallen rapidly, wind and solar projects are competing economically with fossil fuels in many parts of the world, said Justin DeAngelis, managing director of Denham Capital, a private equity firm with offices in Houston that invests in clean energy projects. So far this year, a wind project in Morocco and a solar farm in Dubai have set new lows for renewable energy projects, generating electricity at costs below $30 a megawatt hour - competitive with coal plants. "The math has made sense for a while," DeAngelis said. "In the developing world I can deliver you solar, wind and gas at lower cost than what you're spending now (generating power from) diesel or heavy fuel oil. It's a fundamentals play, instead of

following subsidies around." Only a first step European power companies like Enel and EDF Energy - familiar to Texans as major wind

developers in their state - are rushing to build renewable projects in Asia and Africa, even as their U.S. counterparts sit on the sidelines, DeAngelis said. Last year, despite historic lows in oil prices, which have traditionally set back efforts to develop alternatives, global investment in clean energy rose to $329 billion, a 20 percent increase since 2010, according to Bloomberg New Energy

Finance. The majority of the close to 200 countries that signed onto the Paris accord have already submitted initial plans on how to reduce carbon emissions through greater use of renewables and other

measures -though they represent only a first step, analysts said. Much more needs to be done to meet the pledge of keeping world temperatures from rising no more than 2 degrees Celsius, said John Roome, senior

director for climate change at the World Bank, an international development agency. "What is really critical now is implementation over the next three, four, five years," said Roome. "If countries can see they can implant lower carbon emission systems there will be more confidence this can work." The matter of figuring out how to actually meet those carbon goals will fall on the legions of government economists and technocrats, at agencies like the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the latter of which is now spending $350 million a year to support climate change efforts in developing countries like Haiti and Pakistan. Struggling nations Then there is the group of billionaires led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. The group, which met with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in early June, has pledged to put up portions of their own personal fortunes to invest

in clean energy technology. Getting most investors to put their money into a solar farm and not a coal plant, however, will require more than international agreements, analysts said. From Zambia to Mexico, regulations must be rewritten to limit carbon emissions ; governments must be ready to guarantee loans still considered risky in the investment world. And all this must be done in countries where power grids reliant on aging equipment and transmission struggle to stay in operation. It's a far cry from the modern infrastructure in places like Texas, where wind turbines have boomed over the past decade, said Alex Klein, who heads up the renewable power division at the research firm IHS. He described how new solar farms in some parts of India have not been able to generate at full capacity because there wasn't enough

space on transmission lines to get the electricity to customers. The power "just gets trapped in one place," he said. "Those types of issues become more profound as the volume of renewables increases, which makes financing more difficult."

The US should offer China collaboration on green financing investment guidelines for bilateral and international investment- this is key to meeting Paris agreement obligations globallyPete Ogden, Melanie Hart, Kelly Sims Gallagher in 2016, Melanie Hart is a Senior Fellow and Director of China Policy at American Progress, PhD in Poli Sci, Pete Ogden is a Senior Fellow at American Progress, Green Finance: The Next Frontier for U.S.-China Climate Cooperation, Center for American Progress, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2016/06/13/139276/green-finance-the-next-frontier-for-u-s-china-climate-cooperation/

The United States and China have a near-term opportunity to work together on their respective implementation plans for the Paris climate agreement. It is critical for both nations to get the implementation right—not only because they are the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters but also because U.S. and Chinese policy successes can provide a blueprint for the rest of the world to follow. To that end, U.S. and Chinese leaders should expand cooperation as follows: Enhance bilateral cooperation on domestic policy. This would include work in the areas of gases other than carbon dioxide, improved measurement capabilities for land-use change and the forestry sector,

technological innovation, and resilience. Devise common definitions for “climate finance” and “green finance” and set up a new collaborative initiative on domestic clean energy finance policy. The United States and China have

different economic and political systems, so the same financing solutions will not always apply in both nations. However, China and the United States have enough in common that both would benefit from the exchange of best practices and lessons learned as they relate to clean energy finance. Clarify guidelines for both bilateral development aid and overseas investments. Not only would clarified policy statements be useful to guide investments and potentially harmonize standards, but the two countries could also once again demonstrate leadership by collaborating on positive, climate-friendly investment strategies and projects . Establish

information-sharing protocols regarding these investments to promote transparency, learning, and improved practices over time. Launch a U.S.-China collaboration on mobilizing green finance abroad. These types of foreign investment should be aimed at helping the least-developed countries achieve the goals and targets that they set for themselves—such as their Nationally Determined Contributions—as part of the Paris Agreement. Conclusion Just as the United States and China played decisive roles in the world’s ability to reach a climate agreement in Paris, the

two countries will play decisive roles in the world’s ability to fulfill the terms of the accord. This will require that the United States and China not only mobilize green financing domestically—which is necessary to meet both

countries’ respective national clean energy and carbon pollution reduction commitments—but also that they use their individual public overseas investment tools and assistance to help achieve the targets committed to in Paris .

Through engagement and cooperation, green finance can be another constructive plank in the U.S.-China climate relationship.

Scenario 1: Warming

97% of relevant scientists agree that climate change is real and anthropogenic, other claims are propagandaJohn Cook 13 APRIL 2016 http://thebulletin.org/yes-there-really-scientific-consensus-climate-change9332 John Cook is the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland. “Yes, there really is scientific consensus on climate change”

US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have both observed that there is 97 percent agreement among climate scientists that humans are causing global warming. So too have US Secretary of State John Kerry and US presidential primary candidate Senator Bernie Sanders. Conversely, US Senator Ted Cruz and former US Senator Rick Santorum—current and former presidential primary candidates respectively—have both argued that the 97 percent consensus figure is “bogus.” Stuck in the middle of this public tug-of-war is a confused

populace. Studies in 2009 and 2010 both found 97 percent agreement among climate scientists that humans are causing global warming. Nonetheless, a US national survey in 2015 found that only 12 percent of Americans were aware that the scientific consensus was over 90 percent. How did consensus become such a contentious topic? And what, if anything, can be done about it? A new study showing that the “lack of consensus” claim is a myth may have some impact on the conversation. The answer to the first question dates back to market research conducted around 2002.

Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and pollster, found that when people realised there was scientific agreement on global warming, their views on climate change altered accordingly. In a 2002 memo to the George W. Bush White House, Luntz advised Republicans that in order to win the public debate on climate policy, they should cast doubt on the scientific consensus. He wrote that “you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.” Conservatives complied with this recommendation. An analysis of newspaper opinion pieces on climate change written by conservative columnists from 2007 to 2010 found that the most common argument was “there is no scientific consensus on climate change.” You can’t accuse conservatives of ignoring the evidence on climate change—at least, they didn’t ignore the market research on how to effectively confuse the public. About a decade after Luntz published his climate strategy, social scientists began to catch up, realising the psychological importance of public perception of consensus. They labelled perceived consensus a “gateway belief” influencing a range of other climate beliefs and attitudes, including support for climate change mitigation policies. Social scientists began exhorting climate scientists to educate the public about their high level of agreement on human-caused global warming. But the damage had already been done. Opponents of climate action had spent years casting doubt on the scientific consensus. Recent research has shed disturbing light on just how effective this type of misinformation can be. The positive effect of accurate scientific information can be cancelled out by misinformation. Further exacerbating the problem is the way the mainstream media often covers climate change, granting equal weight to both mainstream scientists and contrarian voices who are in a tiny minority. This form of false-balance media lowers public acceptance of climate change science. The implications for science communicators are profound. Even if we explain our science clearly and accurately, our efforts can be undone by misinformation. In this golden age of misinformation (by which I mean the age of the Internet), effective science communication requires more than merely communicating the science. Doing so is necessary but insufficient. The simple yet potent next step is to inform the public about the overwhelming scientific consensus. Numerous studies (including my own) have confirmed the positive effect of simply mentioning the 97 percent consensus. As far as climate communication messages go, this is low-hanging fruit. You don’t have to explain the mechanics of the greenhouse effect or the complexities of the carbon cycle in order to increase acceptance of climate change—although improved climate literacy is highly desirable, which is why I do also advocate explaining those things. The next step is to couple science with an explanation of how it might get distorted. Like any parent sending a child out into the big, bad world, we want our science messages to be safe as they venture into potentially hostile territory. If people encounter a fact plus a myth that contradicts that fact, they have no way of reconciling the two contrasting pieces of information. However, if they receive a fact, a myth, and—here’s the key—an explanation of why the latter doesn’t reflect reality, then they can reconcile the co-existence of fact and myth. This neutralises the influence of misinformation. Our science is safe. Now, we have a new resource to dispel the myth that there is a lack of scientific consensus on climate change. While a number of past studies have measured the level of scientific consensus on climate change, no one has

published a summary of the many consensus estimates—until now. In a paper published in Environmental Research Letters on April 13, I collaborated with the authors of seven of the leading consensus studies to perform a meta-study of meta-studies synthesising the research into scientific consensus on climate change . (A meta-study

combines the findings from multiple studies.) Among climate scientists, the estimates of consensus varied from 90 to 100 percent, with a number of studies converging on 97 percent , the very figure derided by Cruz, Santorum, and others opposed to action on global warming. A key finding from our meta-study was that scientific agreement was highest among scientists with the most expertise in climate science. This meant that groups with lower climate expertise showed lower agreement on climate change. The group

with the lowest level of agreement—at only 47 percent—were economic geologists, who study metals and minerals that can be used for industrial and economic purposes. Conversely, the group with the highest level of agreement—at 97 percent—were climate scientists who were actively publishing climate research. In short, the greater the expertise, the greater the consensus. The dark side of this relationship is that it allows misinformers to cast doubt on consensus by selecting sub-groups of scientists with lower expertise in climate science, in order to argue that scientific agreement on human-caused global warming is low. Our study finds that multiple studies have found an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists. The level of scientific agreement is overwhelmingly high because the evidence is overwhelmingly strong. The anti-science crowd has deployed the “fake experts” technique—using non-specialists to undermine what the most relevant experts say—to cast doubt on consensus. Our hope is that our new study will both improve public perception of consensus and inoculate people against misinformation. This won’t be the last word in the public controversy on consensus. Given its pivotal role as a gateway belief, consensus will continue to be the target of misinformation campaigns by opponents of climate action. This means the effort to increase climate literacy and counter misinformation will have to continue. More broadly, science communicators need to acknowledge the persistent reality of misinformation, and adjust their approach accordingly. It is just as perilous to ignore the empirical findings of social science on how to communicate on climate change as it is to deny the empirical findings of the science itself.

The world needs to act now to prevent the impacts of climate changeExeter March 21 2016

University of Exeter. “Risk of multiple tipping points should be triggering urgent global action on climate change” Exeter.ac.uk. 3-21-16. Website. 5-26-16. http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_502484_en.html

Pioneering new research, carried out by the Universities of Exeter, Zurich, Stanford and Chicago, shows that existing studies have massively under-valued the risk that ongoing carbon dioxide emissions pose of triggering damaging tipping

points. The collaborative study suggests that multiple interacting climate tipping points could be triggered this century if climate change isn’t tackled – leading to irreversible economic damages worldwide. Using a

state-of-the-art model, the researchers studied the effects of five interacting tipping points on the global economy – including a collapse of the Atlantic overturning circulation, a shift to a more persistent El Niño regime, and a dieback of the Amazon rainforest. The study showed that the possibility of triggering these future tipping points increased the present ‘social cost of carbon’ in the model by nearly eightfold – from US$15

per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted, to US$116/tCO2. Furthermore, the model suggests that passing some tipping points increases the likelihood of other tipping points occurring to such an extent that the social cost of carbon would further increase abruptly. The recommended policy therefore involves an immediate, massive effort to reduce CO2 emissions, stopping them completely by the middle of the century, in order to stabilize climate change at less than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.

The 2 degrees Celsius goal is still technically achievable – Head of the IPCC Goldenberg, 2016

Goldenberg, Suzanne. "UN Climate Science Chief: It's Not Too Late To Avoid Dangerous Temperature Rise". the Guardian. 5/11/16., Web. 7 July 2016.

The head of the United Nations climate science panel has declared it is still possible to avoid a dangerous 2C increase in global warming – despite more than a dozen record hot years since 2000. But the costs could be “phenomenal”, he said. In an interview with the Guardian, Hoesung Lee, the leader of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), defied the bleak outlook of climate scientists who warn the world is hurtling to a 2C rise far faster than anticipated. Governments set 2C as the danger limit for global

warming at the Paris climate conference last year – and agreed to work to limit warming to 1.5C. Global average temperatures have already risen about 1C since the pre-industrial era because of warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. February’s hot temperatures stunned scientists, even after a string of record-breaking years.

But Lee insisted the 2C goal remained technically feasible, although it could become prohibitively expensive. “2C is achievable, and if we fail to act according to what the IPCC has been advising, the cost will rise phenomenally,” Lee said. “The sooner we act, we will be able to achieve 2C stabilisation cost-effectively,” he went on. “The longer we wait to take action, the cost will be a lot higher.” See Earth’s temperature spiral toward 2C rise - graphic Read more An economist who began his career at ExxonMobil, Lee took over the UN climate panel last year after Rajendra Pachauri was forced to step down amid charges of sexual harassment. The UN panel, which produces exhaustive reports on climate science, agreed last month to study the feasibility of the aspirational 1.5C temperature goal. Small island states at risk of being swallowed by rising seas argue they need the stronger target to help assure their survival. The IPCC is due to produce its special report on the goal by 2018. But there have been multiple warnings from scientists, business

leaders and campaign groups since Paris that even 2C is moving beyond reach. Christiana Figueres, one of the architects of the Paris agreement in her role as former UN climate chief, has called for a peaking of emissions by 2020 to keep the 2C limit within reach. However, the IPCC chair insisted the temperature goal would remain technically possible if emissions continue to grow beyond 2020, or even 2030. “It is a daunting task, but the assessment clearly indicates that we have the technology and the means that will allow us to achieve that goal,” Lee said. The commitments made so far under the Paris agreement would allow warming of close to 3C. Some scientists have called for the rapid deployment of technologies to suck carbon emissions from the air. Lee, speaking on the sidelines of a gathering in Washington last week of business leaders and mayors, aimed at spurring investment in low-carbon technologies, said such investments needed to be ramped up fast to hold down the costs of the energy transition. “Now the cost of meeting 2C in the most cost-efficient manner in terms of reduction of growth rate over the next seven or eight decades will be much less than one percentage point a year,” he said. Delaying until the middle of the century would be ruinously expensive. “If we fail to act properly, then the emissions reduction will have to double to something like 6% a year, which is unprecedented in any experience.” Even then, however, Lee refused to rule out the feasibility of the 2C goal. “It is achievable if there is a drastic change in the way of doing business,” he said. Scientists have also said that the world’s carbon dioxide concentration is now on the brink of never again dipping below the 400 parts per million (ppm) milestone, as two important measuring stations, at Cape Grim in Australia and Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, sit on the point of no return. With the science on the causes of climate change now certain, and growing evidence in real time of its consequences, Lee said the time had come for the IPCC to focus more on solutions. He said the next blockbuster report from the UN climate science panel – due to come out in three stages between 2020 and 2022 – would look more closely at policies for dealing with climate change. That could include studies of the relative effectiveness of carbon taxes in different economies, the impacts of technology standards, government funding for research and development, and policies for protecting cities and rural areas from climate change. “We need to improve our understanding of the effectiveness of carbon pricing in the real world – not in the textbook,” he said. “We need to firm up our understanding of policy measures.” Lee said the IPCC should also be looking at geoengineering, or climate intervention on a planetary scale. He said he would like to see the climate panel explore the governance of geoengineering, and not just its technical aspects.\\

Warming ends the capacity for Earth to support life, ushering in the next great extinction eventSify 2010 – Sydney newspaper citing Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor at University of Queensland and Director of the Global Change Institute, and John Bruno, associate professor of Marine Science at UNC; Sify News, “Could unbridled climate changes lead to human extinction?”, http://www.sify.com/news/could-unbridled-climate-changes-lead-to-human-extinction-news-international-kgtrOhdaahc.html

The findings of the comprehensive report: 'The impact of climate change on the world's marine ecosystems' emerged from a synthesis of recent research on the world's oceans, carried out by two of the world's leading marine scientists. One of the authors of

the report is Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor at The University of Queensland and the director of its Global Change Institute (GCI). 'We may see sudden, unexpected changes that have serious ramifications for the overall well-being of humans , including the capacity of the planet to support people . This is further evidence that we are well on the way to the next great extinction event,' says Hoegh-Guldberg. 'The findings have enormous implications for mankind, particularly if the trend continues. The earth's ocean, which produces half of the oxygen we breathe and absorbs 30 per cent of

human-generated carbon dioxide, is equivalent to its heart and lungs. This study shows worrying signs of ill-health. It's as if the earth has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day!,' he added. 'We are entering a period in which the ocean services upon

which humanity depends are undergoing massive change and in some cases beginning to fail', he added. The 'fundamental and

comprehensive' changes to marine life identified in the report include rapidly warming and acidifying oceans, changes in water circulation and expansion of dead zones within the ocean depths. These are driving major changes in marine

ecosystems: less abundant coral reefs, sea grasses and mangroves (important fish nurseries); fewer, smaller fish; a breakdown in food

chains; changes in the distribution of marine life; and more frequent diseases and pests among marine

organisms. Study co-author John F Bruno, associate professor in marine science at The University of North Carolina, says greenhouse gas emissions are modifying many physical and geochemical aspects of the planet's oceans, in ways 'unprecedented in nearly a million years'. 'This is causing fundamental and comprehensive changes to the way marine ecosystems function,' Bruno warned, according to a GCI release. These findings were published in Science.

Global warming leads to heat waves, ocean acidity, sea-level rise, extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity, crop yield reduction and large scale displacement of populations, all of which will make the world uninhabitable Roberts 13

David Roberts, “If you aren’t alarmed about climate, you aren’t paying attention” grist.org, 1-10-13, website, 1-27-16, http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-alarmism-the-idea-is-surreal/

We know we’ve raised global average temperatures around 0.8 degrees C so far. We know that 2 degrees C is where most scientists predict catastrophic and irreversible impacts. And we know that we are currently on a trajectory that will push temperatures up 4 degrees or more by the end of the century. What would 4 degrees look like? A

recent World Bank review of the science reminds us. First, it’ll get hot: Projections for a 4°C world show a dramatic increase in the intensity and frequency of high-temperature extremes. Recent extreme heat waves such as in Russia in 2010 are likely to become the new normal summer in a 4°C world. Tropical South America, central Africa, and all tropical islands in the Pacific are likely to regularly experience heat waves of unprecedented magnitude and duration. In this new high-temperature climate regime, the coolest months are likely to be substantially warmer than the warmest months at the end of the 20th century. In regions such as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Tibetan plateau, almost all summer months are likely to be warmer than the most extreme heat waves

presently experienced. For example, the warmest July in the Mediterranean region could be 9°C warmer than today’s warmest July. Extreme heat waves in recent years have had severe impacts, causing heat-related deaths, forest fires, and harvest losses. The impacts of the extreme heat waves projected for a 4°C world have not been evaluated, but they could be expected to vastly exceed the consequences experienced to date and potentially exceed the adaptive capacities of many societies and natural

systems. [my emphasis] Warming to 4 degrees would also lead to “an increase of about 150 percent in acidity of the ocean,” leading to levels of acidity “unparalleled in Earth’s history.” That’s bad news for, say, coral reefs: The combination of thermally induced bleaching events, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise threatens large fractions of coral reefs even at 1.5°C global

warming. The regional extinction of entire coral reef ecosystems, which could occur well before 4°C is reached, would have profound consequences for their dependent species and for the people who depend on them for food, income,

tourism, and shoreline protection. It will also “likely lead to a sea-level rise of 0.5 to 1 meter, and possibly more, by 2100, with several meters more to be realized in the coming centuries.” That rise won’t be spread evenly, even within regions and countries

— regions close to the equator will see even higher seas. There are also indications that it would “significantly exacerbate existing water scarcity in many regions, particularly northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, while additional countries in Africa would be newly confronted with water scarcity on a national scale due to population

growth.” Also, more extreme weather events: Ecosystems will be affected by more frequent extreme weather events, such as forest loss due to droughts and wildfire exacerbated by land use and agricultural expansion. In Amazonia, forest fires could as much as double by 2050 with warming of approximately 1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels. Changes would be expected to be even more severe in a 4°C

world. Also loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services: In a 4°C world, climate change seems likely to become the dominant driver of ecosystem shifts, surpassing habitat destruction as the greatest threat to biodiversity. Recent research suggests that large-scale loss of biodiversity is likely to occur in a 4°C world, with climate change and high CO2 concentration driving a transition of the Earth’s ecosystems into a state unknown in human experience. Ecosystem damage would be expected to dramatically reduce the provision of ecosystem services on which society depends (for example, fisheries and protection of

coastline afforded by coral reefs and mangroves.) New research also indicates a “rapidly rising risk of crop yield reductions as the world warms.” So food will be tough. All this will add up to “large-scale displacement of populations and have adverse consequences for human security and economic and trade systems.” Given

the uncertainties and long-tail risks involved, “there is no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible.” There’s a small but non-trivial chance of advanced civilization breaking down entirely.

Scenario 2 Economic Competitiveness

The Paris agreement has opened a massive global market for renewables- US must act now or miss out on investment opportunities Barbara Grady Wednesday, April 20, 2016, Staff Writer, We Mean Business: The Paris Accord is a $13 trillion opportunity, GreenBiz, https://www.greenbiz.com/article/we-mean-business-paris-accord-13-trillion-opportunity

Implementing the Paris Agreement will unlock at least $13.5 trillion of economic activity globally , according

to an analysis by We Mean Business. As the commitments made by 196 countries at COP21 in Paris are carried out, the investments in renewable electricity, energy efficiency and other low carbon power that countries have promised add up to that amount. “And that is to fulfill energy commitments alone ,” said Edward Cameron, head of policy at We Mean Business on a telephone call about the What it Means for Business analysis of the Paris deal. “For instance China committed to grow renewables to 20 percent of their energy mix in 15 years. To put that in perspective, 20 percent of China’s energy is equivalent to all of the US energy sector.” India committed to generate 40 percent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by

2030. Signaling that business is eager to pursue the implied investments, 110 U.S. companies Wednesday called for “swift implementation of the Clean Power Plan,” the main piece of the U.S. commitment to the Paris Agreement. The Clean Power Plan, an Environmental Protection Agency ruling requiring states to reduce their utility sectors' emissions an average 32 percent, is currently on hold as the Supreme Court ruled to delay enforcement until challenges filed in District Court could be litigated. Companies from a range of industries signed on to the statement, including tech's HP, Salesforce and Autodesk, retailers Ikea and Gap, electric utility Pacific Gas & Electric, big manufacturers Dupont and Colgate-Palmolive, which was organized by Ceres and the World Wildlife

Fund. The 110 companies said that implementation is needed “so that we may meet or exceed our national commitment,” and support investments in low carbon initiatives, “giving financial decision makers clarity” on the policy road ahead. Why now? On Friday, which is Earth Day, representatives from 150 governments, including 40 heads of state, are set to sign the Paris Agreement at a United Nations ceremony in New York City. We Mean Business, a coalition of 374 companies with a combined $7.8 trillion in revenue and 183 investors who collectively manage $20.7 trillion in assets, said it chose today to release its report about the economic opportunity to to support the governments committing to action, particularly the US. The coalition said

that member companies that have invested in clean energy and low carbon initatives are seeing an average 27 percent return on those investments. They are also experiencing “first mover advantages in low-carbon markets, more resilient operations and supply chains and a stronger reputation among employees, consumers and other stakeholders.” Ikea Chief Sustainability Officer Steve Howard said that the global furniture retailer has seen a robust ROI on its low-carbon products, particularly LED lighting, which is now the only kind of lighting it sells. Cameron, Howard and Ceres president Mindy Lubber spoke to reporters on a press call this morning, along with Anirban Ghosh, chief sustainability officer of Mahindra & Mahindra, one of India’s largest companies, and Michael Terrell, senior policy counsel for energy and sustainability at Google. Even as We Mean Business talks about a $13.5 trillion gain in economic activity from the Paris Agreement, another group, the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, stated that the Paris agreement will cost $2.5 trillion in lost global GDP. That is based on an assumption that conventional fossil-fuel-based energy is cheaper than renewable energy. Yet Terrell said Google’s investments in 2 gigawatts of renewable energy were made for cost advantage reasons, as well as to transition the company to clean energy. Google figures it is the world's largest private sector investor in renewable energy. Terrell as well as Jim Miller, Google’s vice president of global operations, said that in every location where Google has invested in solar or wind purchase power agreements or direct installations, it has been a better financial deal than relying on electricity from the local utility with fossil-fuel generation. "As a company that uses large amounts of electricity to power our operations, we

just see tremendous benfits in purchasing renewables," Terrell said, naming a diverse power supply, costs and reputation. "We are finding renewables more cost competitive in certain regions and getting more cost competitive in every region." Executives on the call described an "unprecendented" shift in both attitude and action among the world's policy and business players because of Paris. Howard said that while action to address climate change used to be described as "a burden and cost to be shared," now it is being described as a huge opportunity for innovation, investment and job growth. Already , according to figures from the Department of Energy,

new investment in renewable energy generation in 2015 exceeded, for the first time, new investment in fossil-fuel generation. Yet Lubber of Ceres said business and nations should stay aware that the clock is ticking

"in [the] face of this clear and existential threat that faces every being on this planet," and that it is time for "boots on the ground" implementation.

Clean energy is key to US economic competitiveness – trade deficit and innovation. Swezey 2/17/10, Devon (Project Director at Breakthrough Institute and co-author of "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant," a major report on international clean tech competitiveness). “It’s not all good: why you should worry about the clean energy race.” The breakthrough institute. http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2010/02/its_not_all_good_why_you_shoul.shtml

Nations that gain "first-mover advantages" are sure to see high rates of return on their investment. If the U nited States remains sidelined while other nations quickly develop domestic clean tech industries, there will be real consequences for long-term economic competitiveness, as well as forgone jobs, tax revenues, and clean tech export opportunities. Clean Tech Innovation: The Rise of the Rest The second pillar of the "it's all good" argument is that the United States' capacity for innovation will keep it competitive. In Plumer's words, "China will likely continue to dominate in low-

cost manufacturing, while the United States focuses more on the innovation side." This passive resignation to China's clean tech dominance is one reason the United States is behind in clean energy today. According to a recent

study by the office of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, the U.S. renewable energy trade deficit has increased 1400% in just the last five years. While the U nited States invented the majority of the clean energy technologies in

wide use today, they have largely been commercialized and produced elsewhere. Now, we are buying them back in spades. The idea that there can be a clear innovation/manufacturing dichotomy between the United States and its economic rivals is complicated by another alarming trend: the United States is steadily losing its innovative edge relative to other nations. As Fareed Zakaria describes in a recent Newsweek cover story, America emerged as a world leader in innovation after decades of massive

government investment in basic science and research at our universities beginning in World War II. But since the early 1980s, federal investment in innovation, particularly in energy technology, has remained stagnant. Today, the innovation gap that for decades was a measure of U.S. economic strength is closing as other nations move quickly to develop their innovative capacity. Recently, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) ranked the United States 6th out of 40 countries in innovation capacity and internal competitiveness and dead last in the rate of improvement over the last decade.

America's lead in energy innovation is slipping. The U.S. is only slightly ahead of Japan in clean energy patents and government investment in energy R& D . As a percentage of GDP, nations like Japan and South Korea actually outspend the United States on energy innovation two-to-one. If the greatest future demand for clean energy technologies and the locus of clean energy manufacturing both develop in Asia, it is not clear that the lion's share of energy innovation will remain in the United States. In fact, some companies are already moving their research operations to China. Applied Materials, a U.S. company and the world's largest solar equipment manufacturer, recently built the world's most advanced solar R&D facility in Xian, China. Among the reasons cited by Applied Materials for the relocation to China was that China, not the U.S., "will be the biggest solar market in the world." Applied is not alone. Danish wind giant Vestas just built the world's biggest wind turbine manufacturing facility in China, which will build

turbines with the company's state-of-the art technology. America's underinvestment in energy innovation, and the simultaneous gains made by other nations should be a major wake-up call to U.S. policymakers. At

the very least, it should dispel the notion that America's historic reign as a global innovation leader is a substitute for an effective economic competitiveness strategy. The Primacy of Policy The last leg of the "it's all good" stool is the idea that China's dominance in clean energy manufacturing is inevitable, thanks to lower labor costs. "China," writes Christina Larson, "is becoming the wind-turbine factory to the world for much the same reasons it has long been the TV and t-shirt factory to the world: lower wages, lower land prices, fewer regulatory and other requirements." But the production of clean technologies is a high-tech value-added industry; building solar panels, wind turbines or high-speed trains is more akin to producing semiconductors, automobiles, and airplanes than t-shirts and televisions. Manufacturing clean tech goods requires a skilled labor force with technical expertise--the kind of labor force that is supposedly America's comparative advantage. It seems foolish to compare China's dominance in low-cost, low-skill textile manufacturing to high-tech products or complex engineering projects like the construction and localization of new nuclear power plants, which China is pursuing aggressively with assistance from foreign partners. Historic leaders in clean tech manufacturing have all been technologically advanced, high-wage nations like Germany, Denmark, Japan, and the United States. And in spite of China's recent advances, these nations still have large and growing clean energy manufacturing industries. Cheap labor in China certainly contributes to China's cost advantages in clean energy, as do the lower costs of land, and access to low-cost financing. But

perhaps the most important element of China's comparative advantage in clean energy is smart policy. Until clean energy technologies are as cheap as fossil fuels the clean tech industry will continue to be driven by public policy, and the Chinese government has enacted consistent, generous long-term policies that have turned the nation into the world's clean tech leader. Both the central government and provincial governments have made a long-term commitment to invest in clean energy technologies at each stage of the technology value chain. R&D expenditures have grown 20% per year each year for the past two decades, and energy is a priority R&D sector. Generous manufacturing incentives are luring foreign companies to locate in China. Laws requiring the purchase of renewable energy and technology specific deployment policies such as variable feed-in-tariffs for wind power have succeeded in building world leading clean tech markets. And investments in new infrastructure and science, math and engineering education will help lay the long-term foundation for a clean energy economy. China's robust, targeted, and consistent public investment in technology, education and infrastructure, not cheap labor, is the primary reason for its successes in clean energy. Instead of bemoaning the higher labor costs here in the United States, clean energy advocates and policymakers should be searching for ways to strengthen our public policies and increase our investments in

clean energy technologies. There is no reason why the U nited States should not compete vigorously for the high-tech, high-wage clean energy jobs that will result from the tremendous growth of the global clean energy industry. There are few growth opportunities large enough to serve as a new foundation of economic prosperity in the U nited States--clean energy is one such opportunity. But in order to effectively

compete with other nations the U.S. must have a national strategy that invests in the critical areas for clean technology competitiveness--research and innovation, manufacturing, domestic markets, infrastructure, and education. Given

the United States' current comparative advantages in clean energy innovation, the U nited States could also gear its manufacturing sector toward demonstrating and commercializing the next generation of clean energy technologies. Leaping ahead of the competition could help American firms capitalize on new clean technologies that can

be manufactured here and exported abroad. The promise of clean energy economy is real. But without a real clean energy strategy to make the U nited States competitive, so is the possibility that the large majority of new jobs and industries will be created outside of the U nited States. No amount of conference

organizing jobs will replace the lost opportunity to build a vibrant U.S. clean tech manufacturing sector. The race is on--it's past time that the United States got in the game.

US-China cooperation on green finance ensures that only clean projects get funded and increases renewable investmentsPete Ogden, Melanie Hart, Kelly Sims Gallagher in 2016, Melanie Hart is a Senior Fellow and Director of China Policy at American Progress, PhD in Poli Sci, Pete Ogden is a Senior Fellow at American Progress, Green Finance: The Next Frontier for U.S.-China Climate Cooperation, Center for American Progress, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2016/06/13/139276/green-finance-the-next-frontier-for-u-s-china-climate-cooperation/

China already is one of the biggest providers of international energy assistance through the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. Now, it is establishing major new financial institutions, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB; the New Development Bank, which is often referred to as the bank of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, or the BRICS Development Bank; President Xi’s signature Belt and Road initiative; and China’s South-South Cooperation

Fund on Climate Change. In light of this, guideline clarifications for both bilateral development aid and overseas investments represent an important opportunity for U.S.-China collaboration going forward.

Not only would clarified policy statements be useful to guide investments and potentially harmonize standards, but the two nations could also once again demonstrate joint leadership . China and the United States could collaborate on positive, climate-friendly investment strategies—including on specific projects—and establish information-sharing protocols regarding these investments. Moreover, both countries

could experiment with a wider range of investment programs, learning from each other’s successes. The most recent U.S.-China joint statement—on the occasion of President Xi’s September 2015 visit to Washington, D.C.—provides a promising diplomatic opening for bilateral engagements. During the visit, China pledged to “strengthen green

and low-carbon policies and regulations with a view to strictly controlling public investment flowing into projects with high pollution and carbon emissions both domestically and internationally.” For its part, the United States reaffirmed its existing commitment to end “public financing for new conventional coal-fired power plants except in the poorest countries.” Both nations reiterated these commitments at the June 2016 U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, or S&ED,

meetings in Beijing. Given this alignment, the United States and China could work to maximize economic benefits for developing countries while minimizing environmental, social, and climate risks .

US economic competitiveness is foundational to US hegemony – security interests and foreign perception.DeLeon 2011, Rudy (Senior Vice President of National Security and International Policy at American Progress). “Are we ready? An independent look at the readiness posture of US forces.” Center for American Progress. http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2011/03/are_we_ready.html/print.html

Meeting the readiness challenges of the next 20 years and creating the financial wherewithal for these capabilities will not happen if the Department of Defense and Congress maintain the status quo on managing fiscal resources—both within the defense budget and across the entire federal budget. In order to reap savings that may be reinvested within defense, and to justify additional resources for force structure and equipment modernization, the Department of Defense and Congress must work together to reestablish the tools that restore fiscal responsibility to the budget process—tools that were lost when balanced-budget rules were abandoned about ten years ago. The Gramm-Rudman budget agreement in 1987, the 1990 budget agreement between President George H. W. Bush and Congress, and the 1996 budget agreement between President Clinton and Congress that produced a balanced federal budget by the end of the 1990’s protected the fiscal resources

needed for our national security. But these agreements also demanded sound budget management on the national security side. But it is not just sound budget management of our national defense that’s needed. The U nited States must get its entire economic house in order. The notion that the economic decline of the U nited States is inevitable and irreversible hurts American security—even as U.S. military capabilities remain dominant. U.S. national security has long rested on the strength of our economy, but creeping doubts about American economic resiliency feed the foreign perception that Washington is a declining power. This gives rising global powers little incentive to heed U.S. calls for greater responsibility, cooperation, and transparency. Instead, it may well give them more license to discuss “anti-access strategies” and “economic and security zones of influence”—developments that could conceivably lead to military miscalculations highly dangerous to our national security. That is

why moving forward on the American economic challenge of creating jobs by promoting economic competitiveness and innovation while reducing our long-term budget deficits is extremely important to U.S. security interests. The character of American enterprise and resourcefulness should not be underestimated, but it requires unified actions by the United States and effective leadership by U.S. policymakers. The President and Congress need to make clear that they are up to the task, and then prove it in the

coming months. There is no higher national security priority.

Hegemony prevents conflict escalation and deters warBrooks et al 13, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul and the Daniel Webster Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, (John Ikenberry, Stephen G. Brooks, William C. Wohlforth, January/February 2013, Foreign Affairs, “Lean Forward: In Defense of American Engagement”

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138468/stephen-g-brooks-g-john-ikenberry-and-william-c-wohlforth/lean-forward)

Of course, even if it is true that the costs of deep engagement fall far below what advocates of retrenchment claim, they would not be worth

bearing unless they yielded greater benefits. In fact, they do. The most obvious benefit of the current strategy is that it reduces the risk of a dangerous conflict. The United States' security commitments deter states with aspirations to regional hegemony from contemplating expansion and dissuade U.S. partners from trying to solve security problems on their own in ways that would end up threatening other states. Skeptics discount this benefit by arguing that U.S. security guarantees aren't necessary to prevent dangerous rivalries from erupting. They maintain that the high costs of territorial conquest and the many tools countries can use to signal their benign intentions are enough to prevent conflict. In other words, major powers could peacefully manage regional multipolarity without the American pacifier. But that outlook is too sanguine. If Washington got out of East Asia, Japan and South Korea would likely expand their military capabilities and go nuclear, which could provoke a destabilizing reaction from China. It's worth noting that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan tried to obtain nuclear weapons; the only thing that stopped them was the United States, which

used its security commitments to restrain their nuclear temptations. Similarly, were the United States to leave the Middle East,

the countries currently backed by Washington--notably, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia--might act in ways that would

intensify the region's security dilemmas. There would even be reason to worry about Europe. Although it's

hard to imagine the return of great-power military competition in a post-American Europe, it's not difficult to foresee governments there refusing to pay the budgetary costs of higher military outlays and the political costs of increasing EU defense cooperation. The result might be a continent incapable of securing itself from threats on its periphery, unable to join foreign interventions on which U.S. leaders might want European help, and vulnerable to the influence of outside rising powers . Given how easily a U.S. withdrawal from key regions could lead to dangerous competition, advocates of retrenchment tend to put forth another argument: that such rivalries wouldn't actually hurt the United States. To be sure, few doubt that the United States could survive the return of conflict among

powers in Asia or the Middle East--but at what cost? Were states in one or both of these regions to start competing against one another,

they would likely boost their military budgets, arm client states, and perhaps even start regional proxy wars , all of

which should concern the United States, in part because its lead in military capabilities would narrow. Greater regional insecurity could also produce cascades of nuclear proliferation as powers such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan built nuclear forces of their own. Those countries' regional competitors might then also seek nuclear arsenals. Although nuclear deterrence can promote stability between two states with the kinds of nuclear forces that the Soviet Union and the United States possessed, things get shakier when there are multiple nuclear rivals with less robust arsenals. As the number of nuclear

powers increases, the probability of illicit transfers, irrational decisions, accidents, and unforeseen crises goes up . The case for abandoning the United States' global role misses the underlying security logic of the current approach. By reassuring allies and actively

managing regional relations, Washington dampens competition in the world s key areas, thereby preventing the emergence of a hothouse in which countries would grow new military capabilities. For proof that this strategy is working, one need look no further than the defense budgets of the current great powers: on average, since 1991 they have kept their military expenditures as A percentage of GDP to historic lows, and they have not attempted to match the United States' top-end military capabilities. Moreover, all of the world's most modern militaries are U.S. allies, and the United States' military lead over its potential rivals .is by many measures growing. On top

of all this, the current grand strategy acts as a hedge against the emergence regional hegemons. Some supporters of retrenchment argue that the U.S. military should keep its forces over the horizon and pass the buck to local powers to do the dangerous work of counterbalancing rising regional powers. Washington, they contend, should deploy forces abroad only when a truly credible contender for

regional hegemony arises, as in the cases of Germany and Japan during World War II and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Yet there is already a potential contender for regional hegemony-- China --and to balance it, the U nited S tates will need to maintain its key alliances in Asia and the military capacity to intervene there. The implication is that the United States should get out of Afghanistan and Iraq, reduce its military presence in Europe, and pivot to Asia. Yet that is exactly what the Obama administration is doing. MILITARY DOMINANCE, ECONOMIC PREEMINENCE Preoccupied with security issues, critics of the current grand strategy miss one of its most important benefits: sustaining an open global economy and a favorable place for the United States within it. To be sure, the sheer size of its output would guarantee the United States a major role in the global economy whatever grand strategy it adopted. Yet the country's military dominance undergirds its economic leadership. In addition to protecting the world economy from instability, its military

commitments and naval superiority help secure the sea-lanes and other shipping corridors that allow trade to flow freely and cheaply. Were the U nited S tates to pull back from the world, the task of securing the global commons would get much harder. Washington would have less leverage with which it could convince countries to cooperate on economic matters and less access to the military bases throughout the world needed to keep the seas open . A global role also lets the United States structure the world economy in ways that serve its particular economic interests. During the Cold War, Washington used its overseas security commitments to get allies to embrace the economic policies it preferred--convincing West Germany in the 1960s, for example, to take costly steps to support the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. U.S. defense agreements work the same way today. For example, when negotiating the 2011 free-trade agreement with South Korea, U.S. officials took advantage of Seoul's desire to use the agreement as a means of tightening its security relations with Washington. As one diplomat explained to us privately, "We asked for changes in labor and environment clauses, in auto clauses, and the Koreans took it all." Why? Because they feared a failed agreement would be "a setback to the political and security relationship." More broadly,

the United States wields its security leverage to shape the overall structure of the global economy. Much of what the United States wants from the economic order is more of the same: for instance, it likes the current structure of the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund and prefers that free trade continue. Washington wins when U.S. allies favor this status quo , and one reason they are inclined to support the existing system is because they value their military alliances . Japan, to name one example, has shown interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Obama administration's most important free-trade initiative in the region, less because its economic interests compel it to do so than because Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda believes that his support will strengthen Japan's security ties with the United

States. The United States' geopolitical dominance also helps keep the U.S. dollar in place as the world's reserve currency, which confers enormous benefits on the country, such as a greater ability to borrow money. This is perhaps clearest with Europe: the EU'S dependence on the United States for its security precludes the EU from having the kind of political leverage to support the euro that the United States has with the dollar. As with other aspects of the global economy, the United States does not provide its leadership for free: it extracts disproportionate gains. Shirking that responsibility would place those benefits at risk. CREATING COOPERATION What goes for the global economy goes for other forms of international cooperation. Here, too, American leadership benefits many countries but disproportionately helps the United States. In order to counter transnational threats, such as terrorism, piracy, organized crime, climate change, and pandemics, states have to work together and take collective action. But cooperation does not come about

effortlessly, especially when national interests diverge. The United States' military efforts to promote stability and its broader leadership

make it easier for Washington to launch joint initiatives and shape them in ways that reflect U.S. interests. After all, cooperation

is hard to come by in regions where chaos reigns, and it flourishes where leaders can anticipate lasting stability. U.S. alliances are about

security first, but they also provide the political framework and channels of communication for cooperation on nonmilitary issues. NATO, for example, has spawned new institutions, such as the Atlantic Council, a think tank, that make it easier for Americans and Europeans to talk to one another and do business. Likewise, consultations with allies in East Asia spill over into other policy issues; for example, when American diplomats travel to Seoul to manage the military alliance, they also end up discussing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Thanks to

conduits such as this, the United States can use bargaining chips in one issue area to make progress in others. The benefits of these

communication channels are especially pronounced when it comes to fighting the kinds of threats that require new forms of cooperation, such as terrorism and pandemics. With its alliance system in place, the United States is in a stronger position than it would otherwise be to advance cooperation and share burdens. For example, the intelligence-sharing network within NATO, which was originally designed to gather information on the Soviet Union, has been adapted to deal with terrorism. Similarly, after a tsunami in the Indian Ocean devastated surrounding countries in 2004, Washington had a much easier time orchestrating a fast humanitarian response with Australia, India, and Japan, since their militaries were already comfortable working with one another. The operation did wonders for the United States' image in the region. The United States' global role also has the more direct effect of facilitating the bargains among governments that get cooperation going in the first place. As the scholar Joseph Nye has written, "The American military role in deterring threats to allies, or of assuring access to a crucial resource such as oil in the Persian Gulf, means that the provision of protective force can be used in bargaining situations. Sometimes the linkage may be direct; more often it is a factor not mentioned openly but present in the back of statesmen's minds." THE DEVIL WE KNOW Should America come home? For many prominent scholars of international relations, the answer is yes--a view that

seems even wiser in the wake of the disaster in Iraq and the Great Recession. Yet their arguments simply don't hold up. There is little evidence that the United States would save much money switching to a smaller global posture. Nor is the current strategy self-defeating: it has not provoked the formation of counterbalancing coalitions or caused the country to spend itself into economic decline. Nor will it condemn the United States to foolhardy wars in the future. What the strategy does do is help prevent the outbreak of conflict in the world's most important

regions, keep the global economy humming, and make international cooperation easier . Charting a different course would threaten all these benefits. This is not to say that the United States' current foreign policy can't be adapted to new circumstances and challenges. Washington does not need to retain every commitment at all costs, and there is nothing wrong with rejiggering its strategy in response to new opportunities or setbacks. That is what the Nixon administration did by winding down the Vietnam War and increasing the United States' reliance on regional partners to contain Soviet power, and it is what the Obama administration has been doing after the Iraq war by pivoting to Asia. These episodes of rebalancing belie the argument that a powerful and internationally engaged America cannot tailor its policies to a changing world. A grand strategy of actively managing global security and promoting the liberal economic order has served the United States exceptionally well for the past six decades, and there is no reason to give it up now. The country's

globe-spanning posture is the devil we know, and a world with a disengaged America is the devil we don't know. Were American leaders to choose retrenchment, they would in essence be running a massive experiment to test how the world

would work without an engaged and liberal leading power. The results could well be disastrous.

Independently, clean energy investments are key to the US economyRobert Pollin, James Heintz, and Heidi Garrett-Peltier 2009

“The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy” Robert Pollin is an American economist. He is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and founding co-director of its Political Economy Research Institute. James Heintz Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Heidi Garret-Peltier is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2009/06/18/6192/the-economic-benefits-of-investing-in-clean-energy/The United States in the 21st century faces an enormous challenge—successfully managing the transformation from a predominantly carbon-intensive economy to becoming a predominantly clean energy-based economy. The reality of global climate change due to rising carbon emissions makes it imperative that the U.S. economy dramatically cut its consumption of traditional fossil fuels, the primary source of carbon dioxide (CO2) delivered into our atmosphere by human activity. Rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is in turn the primary cause of global warming. This economic transformation will engage a huge range of people and activities. But there are only three interrelated objectives that will define the entire enterprise: Dramatically increasing energy efficiency. Dramatically lowering the cost of supplying energy from such renewable sources of energy as solar, wind and biomass.

Mandating limits and then establishing a price on pollution from the burning of oil, coal, and natural gas. It is crucial for economic policymakers and the American people to understand the likely effects of these three overarching objectives as much as possible. Specifically, we need to gauge our success in curbing CO2 emissions alongside the broader effects on the U.S. economy, particularly on employment opportunities, economic growth and people’s incomes. This paper examines these broader economic considerations—jobs, incomes, and economic growth—through the lens of two government initiatives this

year by the Obama administration and Congress. The first is the set of clean-energy provisions incorporated within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, initiated by the Obama administration and passed into law by Congress in February. The second is the proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act , co-sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), which is now before Congress. Our analysis in this paper

shows that these two measures operating together can generate roughly $150 billion per year in new clean-energy investments in the United States over the next decade. This estimated $150 billion in new spending annually includes government funding but is

notably dominated by private-sector investments. We estimate this sustained expansion in clean-energy investments triggered by the economic stimulus program and the forthcoming American Clean Energy and Security Act can generate a net increase of about 1.7 million jobs. This expansion in job opportunities can continue as long as the economy maintains a commitment to clean-energy investments in the $150 billion per year range. If clean-energy investments expand still faster, overall job creation will increase correspondingly. These job gains would be enough—on their own—to reduce the unemployment rate in today’s economy by about one full percentage point, to 8.4 percent from current 9.4-percent levels—even after taking into full account the inevitable job losses in conventional fossil fuel sectors of the U.S.

economy as they contract. Our detailed analysis, based on robust economic-modeling methodologies that are explained in detail in the paper and in Appendix 1, beginning on page 48, calculates that roughly 2.5 million new jobs will be created overall by spending $150 billion on clean-energy investments, while close to 800,000 jobs would be lost if conventional fossil fuel spending were to decline by an equivalent amount. It is not likely that all $150 billion in new clean-energy investment spending would come at the expense of reductions in the fossil fuel industry. However, we present this scenario to establish a high-end estimate for reductions in conventional fossil fuel spending, and the net gains in employment that will still result through spending $150 billion per year on clean-energy investments. In appendix 2, we also present these figures on net job creation broken down on a state-by-state basis for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The stimulus program enacted in February to help the economy recover from a deep recession already in its 18th month includes a range of measures to begin building a clean-energy economy. These measures include: $24.4 billion in federal government spending to promote energy efficiency. $23 billion for transportation investments. $25.3 billion for renewable energy. Some of this funding will be in 2010, but a significant amount will also spark new economic activity between 2011 and 2014. Congress still must pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act, or ACESA, and the president must still sign it. But the legislation contains three broad categories of initiatives that are unlikely to change in substance: Regulations aimed at promoting clean energy. A mandated cap on carbon emissions that will be phased in through 2050. Measures designed to assist businesses, communities and individuals successfully manage the transition to a clean-energy economy. The general thrust of this forthcoming legislation and the clean-energy provisions within the economic stimulus program is to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy. Yet as an economic stimulus program, ARRA operates through direct government spending and financial incentives to promote private investments in clean energy. In contrast,

ACESA will boost clean-energy investments mostly by private businesses, investors and households through new regulations that encourage the clean and efficient use of energy and discourage the use of high-carbon fuels. Many of the regulatory initiatives proposed within the ACESA are not fully fleshed out within the legislation itself. As such, it is more difficult to estimate their effects on overall clean-energy investments than is true with the spending initiatives advanced by the ARRA. In the following pages, this paper first examines the basic clean-energy features of the economic stimulus program and the proposed ACESA. Specifically, we will detail the distinct features of both measures and the ways in which they would operate in concert to encourage investments in clean energy and energy efficiency as well as discourage spending on conventional high-carbon fuels. We will then explain how ARRA and ACESA operating in tandem would create new employment opportunities across the United States by spurring $150 billion a year over the next decade in new clean-energy investments. Understanding how we calculated these investment levels over 10 years requires an understanding of the different economic models available to analysts and why we chose a simple but reliable method for estimating employment effects based on data generated by the U.S. Commerce Department’s industrial census. We explain the reasons for our analytical decisions on pages 15–20, beginning with how we estimated the effects on jobs of shifting spending in the U.S. economy away from high-

carbon fuels and toward clean-energy investments. We will show why our simple approach offers a robust framework for understanding how a shift in spending from conventional fossil fuels to clean energy generates a net expansion of employment that will be sustained as long as the U.S. economy maintains its commitment to clean-energy investments.

Economic decline causes war—strong statistical support. Royal 10 — Jedidiah Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, M.Phil. Candidate at the University of New South Wales, 2010 (“Economic Integration, Economic Signalling and the Problem of Economic Crises,” Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, Edited by Ben Goldsmith and Jurgen Brauer, Published by Emerald Group Publishing, ISBN 0857240048, p. 213-215)

Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle

theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous

shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from

trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult [end page 213] to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could

potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of

economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004),

which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions . Furthermore, crises

generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. “Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect . Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible

to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of

weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration

with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration,

crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This

observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. [end page 214]

Those studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.

Warming Advantage

Warming Now/Real

Warming Is Real Global warming is real and caused by human activitiesLieberthal and Sandalow 2009

Kenneth Lieberthal; Professor of Political Science and Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan, David Sandalow; Energy & Environment Scholar and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Overcoming Obstacles to U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change” brookings.edu. Number 1. Brookings Institute, 1-1-2009. 84 pgs. Pdf. 5-23-2016

The build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is fundamentally altering the Earth’s climate. According to the world’s leading scientific authority on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warming of the climate system in recent years is “unequivocal.”3 More specifically, the IPCC found that: 11 of the warmest 12 years on record have occurred since 1995; Glaciers are receding all over the world; and Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures from 1950-2000 were likely higher than at any time in last 1300 years. The IPCC also found that human activities are “very likely” the cause of this warming.4 Carbon dioxide emissions from combustion of coal, oil and natural gas are the most important cause. When these “fossil fuels” are burned, carbon that has been stored beneath the Earth’s surface for millions of years is converted into carbon dioxide, a

greenhouse gas. This carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere, trapping heat, for roughly 100 years. Clearing

forests has similar impacts. For more than 600,000 years before the modern era, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere remained below 300 parts per million. During the last century, concentrations climbed above that level

and have increased steadily ever since. Today, carbon dioxide concentrations are roughly 385 parts per million and

growing by at least 2 parts per million per year. The IPCC predicts with “high confidence” that, if concentrations continue to

increase at current rates: Droughts and heavy rainfall will increase; Hurricanes and typhoons will become more intense; Rainfall patterns will shift, in some cases dramatically; and the health of millions of people will suffer. All of these effects are already in evidence. According to the IPCC: “The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than the present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 meters of sea level rise.”5

Alarmingly, newer studies find that actual rates of accumulation have accelerated considerably faster than those anticipated by the IPCC, primarily due to the very rapid growth in China’s greenhouse gas emissions since 2002. The IPCC’s “worst case” trajectory has, therefore, already become the middle scenario in one recent comprehensive study.6 although the basic science of climate change is well-established, there are considerable uncertainties on some matters. No one knows with complete confidence, for example, the exact amount of temperature increase that will result from any specific concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Nor does anyone know with complete confidence how many more droughts or floods will occur. The

climate system is chaotic, so impacts at any one location or any one time are difficult and often impossible to predict. Climate scientists can make confident predictions about broad trends—storms will become more intense, droughts will increase—but not about the weather on any given day or season. Furthermore, some feedback loops that could accelerate or decelerate climate change are poorly understood. Yet in considering these uncertainties, three points are key. First, uncertainties regarding climate change science do not lie in one direction. Impacts could end up being more serious than predicted as well as less serious. Second, the climate system is discontinuous, filled with threshold effects that are poorly understood. Small changes can produce dramatic shifts, sometimes beyond the capacity of human systems to adapt. Finally, scientific consensus on the most fundamental points—including the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on the climate—is overwhelming and not in serious dispute. In the words of Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science magazine, “consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic is rare in science.

Carbon isotopes prove climate change comes from fossil fuels National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory No Date

“Stable and Radiocarbon Isotopes of Carbon Dioxide” ESRL was formed to pursue a broad and comprehensive understanding of the Earth system. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/outreach/isotopes/

How can we distinguish between the different sources and sinks of carbon dioxide? Carbon dioxide, or CO2, contains the key piece of information within the carbon atoms themselves. Although it may seem that a carbon atom is just the same as every other carbon atom out there (perhaps they appear to all be clones of each other–where each looks and

acts exactly the same), this is not the case. In fact there are three isotopes of carbon atoms - all three react the same way in chemical reactions–the only chemical difference between them is that they have slightly different masses. The heaviest is carbon-14 (which, in the scientific world, is written as 14C), followed by carbon-13 (13C), and the lightest, most

common carbon-12 (12C). Different carbon reservoirs “like” different isotopes, so the relative proportion of the three isotopes is different in each reservoir - each has its own, identifying, isotopic fingerprint. By examining the isotopic mixture in the atmosphere, and knowing the isotopic fingerprint of each reservoir, atmospheric scientists can determine how much carbon dioxide is coming and going from each reservoir, making isotopes an ideal tracer of sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. As an example of these isotopic fingerprints, and

how they can help scientists, consider this: fossil fuels do not contain 14C. By studying how the concentration of 14C has changed in the atmosphere, scientists have determined that the atmospheric increase in carbon dioxide is dominated by fossil fuel emissions. While terrestrial plants “dislike” 13C, ocean exchange does not prefer 12C or 13C. This creates a difference in the relative ratio of terrestrial versus oceanic uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide isotopes.

Climate change is real and anthropogenic—carbon isotopes proveThe OSS (Open Source Systems Science and Solutions) Foundation 2008 “Human Caused Global Warming” The OSS Foundation is focused on facilitating research and solution development pertaining to multidisciplinary work in key areas of human endeavor that pertain to our sustainable capacity, and the living systems of Earth.

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/human-caused

Many are still asking is current global warming natural or human caused? The idea that global warming is natural is not an absurd question. In the natural cycle, global warming is natural. The better question is, 'is current global warming natural'? There are multiple lines of evidence that point us to the origin of our current warming: Greenhouse gases trap infrared heat energy. The isotopic signature clearly shows that the extra CO2 in the atmosphere is from fossil fuels. We are no longer in the natural cycle. We have largely departed from the natural course of climate and there is no natural mechanism that explains it. The models and the observations match. There is simply no other mechanism that can explain the significantly altered climate path and the changes in the radiative forcing other than human causes. To

understand why 'this current' global warming is human caused and not natural cycle, one needs to get an idea of what the natural cycle is and what are the basic mechanisms that cause climate change in the natural cycle. The absolute essentials that you need to understand are the

drivers The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century. Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is virtually certain based on the basic physics, measurements and observations and is also indicated in model confirmations. Increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response. Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in solar output, in the Earth’s orbit, and in greenhouse gas levels. They also show that in the past, large changes in climate have happened very quickly, geologically-speaking: in tens of years, not in millions or even thousands. The evidence for rapid climate change is compelling: Sea level rise Global sea level

rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century. The effects of climate change will likely include more frequent droughts in some areas and heavier precipitation in others. Global temperature rise All

three major global surface temperature reconstructions show that Earth has warmed since 1880. Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years. Even though the 2000s witnessed a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep solar minimum in 2007-2009, surface temperatures continue to increase. Warming oceans The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. Shrinking ice sheets The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost 150 to 250 cubic kilometers (36 to 60 cubic miles) of ice per year between 2002 and 2006, while Antarctica lost about 152 cubic kilometers (36 cubic miles) of ice between 2002 and 2005. Declining Arctic sea ice Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. Glacial retreat Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa. Record high temperatures increasing. The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events. The carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s oceans has been increasing since 1750, and is currently increasing about 2 billion tons per year. This has increased ocean acidity by about 30

percent. Ocean acidification The carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s oceans has been increasing since 1750, and is currently increasing about 2 billion tons per year. This has increased ocean acidity by about 30 percent. How do we know the increase in CO2 is human caused? There is an isotopic signature, like a fingerprint. CO2 that comes from natural sources has a low carbon-14 ratio. The pre-industrial atmospheric levels of CO2 were around 280ppm (parts per million). As of 2010 the amount is 390ppm. The extra 100ppm does not have the carbon-14 signature. The only other possible source that can account for the extra 100ppm is human industrial emissions of fossil fuels. Stratosphere Cooling, Troposphere Warming Suke Manabe and other scientists, when modeling the climate in the 1960's at the Princeton Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, showed that increased CO2 would cause the lower

atmosphere to warm and the upper atmosphere to cool (or warm less). This hypothesis has been observed in the data, which further supports the general accuracy of the models. Virtually all climate models show that this is what should happen, and the observed data shows that this is

occuring. Isoptope Evidence When protons from GCRs (Galactic Cosmic Rays) collide with the nitrogen-14 (seven protons plus seven neutrons in the nucleus)

in the air, carbon-14 is created (in addition to other isotopes such as beryllium-10) through a nuclear reaction: 14N + p → 14C + n This means that carbon with a low isotope carbon-14 ratio must come from deep in the ground, out of reach of cosmic rays. Furthermore, the ratio of O2 to N2 has diminished. This is expected from the increased combustion of fossil fuels , in which O2

combines with C to form CO2. The oceans have also become more acidic, leading to an increase in CO2 levels in both the atmosphere and the oceans. Assessment of natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) influences indicate that the climate system would be relatively stable without

industrial atmospheric influences such as greenhouse gases and aerosols. It is reasonably clear that without anthropogenic forcings the climate would be closer to thermal equilibrium relative to the Holocene radiative forcing.

New studies show 97% of scientists agree on climate change being real and anthropogenic Chelsea Harvey April 15 2016 Chelsea Harvey is a freelance journalist covering science “Research shows — yet again — that there’s no scientific debate about climate change”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/15/research-shows-yet-again-that-theres-no-scientific-debate-about-climate-change/

It’s a well-known and widely cited statistic: 97 percent of scientific experts agree that human-caused climate change is real. The consensus has been supported by numerous studies — and yet the idea that the statistic is made up, or wrong, is still a common position among climate doubters and a major tool used to foster public uncertainty about climate change. Now, researchers have reinforced this finding of a scientific consensus once again in a new paper, published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The paper finds that an overwhelming majority of climate experts agree on the issue, and that — even though the contrarian movement begs to differ — there is no substantial scientific debate about it. While the consensus has been documented by many studies over the years, the most widely cited is a 2013 paper led by John Cook of the University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute. The study examined thousands of peer-reviewed

scientific papers and found that, among those papers that took a position on the causes of climate change, 97.1 percent of them supported the idea that global warming is caused by humans. Earlier this year, however, University of Sussex professor Richard Tol published a comment criticizing the 2013 study and suggesting that 97 percent may be too high a figure. In his comment, Tol returned to some of the published research on the consensus and re-examined the accompanying data, noting that Cook’s paper did not include studies that took no position on climate change, and that surveys including scientists who don’t study climate tend to have somewhat lower rates of consensus. After examining the comment, however, Cook and a team of other researchers concluded that these arguments were problematic at best. In their new paper, they re-examined the published literature on the climate consensus, finding that the 97 percent calculation remains a robust and well-supported statistic. “The biggest flaw [in Tol’s argument] is that he misrepresents many of the other studies on the consensus,” said Cook, lead author on the new paper. “He tries to argue that our paper is an outlier — is different to all the other studies in their estimates of the expert consensus,” Cook said. “But the way he arrives at the expert consensus is by using groups that include non-experts, which is a classic technique to try to obtain lower estimates of the scientific consensus.” It’s true that scientists who don’t study climate also don’t accept the scientific consensus as strongly. But this variability is to be expected when non-experts are included, the authors of the new paper explain. “A significant contributor to

variation in consensus estimates is the conflation of general scientific opinion with expert scientific opinion,” they point out. When defining experts as scientists who actually study and publish on climate change — the people who are best qualified to take a position on the subject, in other words — the surveys consistently find consensus rates well above 90 percent. The comment by Tol also took issue with another aspect

of Cook’s 2013 paper — the fact that his analysis only considers papers that took a concrete stand on whether human-caused climate change is occurring. Tol noted that when papers with no position are included in a sample, the consensus shrinks considerably. But Cook finds this a questionable method. “The question that our research addressed was: Is there an ongoing scientific debate in the peer-reviewed literature about global warming?” Cook said. “To answer that question, you need to look at papers that state a position one way or the other.” In fact, he added, the growing number of papers that express no explicit position on anthropogenic climate change is an indicator that the issue is past the point where its discussion is necessary. “As a consensus gets stronger, you expect to see less and less papers stating a position on it — because it’s a consensus, you don’t really need to reaffirm what everyone knows,” Cook said. “It would be like every astronomy paper affirming that the Earth revolves around the sun.” In fact, the new paper points out that a 2015 study actually demonstrated that if this method of including “no position” papers were applied to a survey of studies on plate tectonics, the results would require scientists “to reject the scientific consensus in that field because nearly all current papers would be classified as taking ‘no position.’” In a Wednesday blog post, Tol responded to the new paper’s claims that he misrepresented results in his comment. “Misrepresentation is a big word,” he wrote. “Earlier consensus studies claim to have found a very high degree of agreement with the notion that the global warming observed in the instrumental record is at least partly caused by humans. However, these high rates of consensus are only found if the sample is restricted in a way that is superficially plausible but ultimately arbitrary.” In a follow-up email to The Washington Post, Tol added that he felt the new paper also failed to address several other points he made in his comment. “The most important one is that the ratings in Cook 2013 were not blind,” he said. In the original 2013 paper, the researchers relied on independent “raters” to assess the degree to which each included paper endorsed the idea of human-caused climate change, using a set of criteria prepared by the /researchers themselves. In his comment, Tol argued that the 2013 paper did not describe any steps taken to limit communication among the raters or prevent them from viewing other raters’ responses or using additional information when making their assessments. “The people who rated abstracts had access to earlier ratings, and could thus steer, perhaps unconsciously, the final result in a particular direction,” he told The Post. In a supplement to the new paper, however, Cook and his colleagues addressed this issue,

noting that their methods made collusion among the raters “virtually impossible.” They also added that the 97.1 percent consensus established by the independent raters was further

supported by a second phase of the study, which asked the authors of the examined papers to rate their own studies in regard to their positions on anthropogenic climate change. This self-rating phase returned a consensus of 97.2 percent. Returning to the published literature on the climate consensus, Cook and his colleagues concluded that “the scientific consensus on [anthropogenic global warming] is robust, with a range of 90 percent to 100 percent depending on the exact question, timing and sampling methodology.” While the consensus on, well, the consensus is growing ever stronger, scientists say it’s still important to make sure the public is well-informed that the debate is over. While research has shown that it’s notoriously difficult to change an individual’s

mind about climate change once it’s made up, studies have also suggested that spreading doubt about the scientific consensus is a particularly effective way to reduce public acceptance of both the existence of global warming and policies intended to mitigate it. “It is an important component of thinking about climate change,” said Stuart Carlton, a coastal ecosystem and social science specialist at Texas Sea Grant, who has published on the consensus issue and was a co-author on the new paper. “Belief in the climate consensus is sort of an entry point into developing thoughts about climate change as a whole.”

Warming is real and anthropogenic – most unbiased, holistic, and objective studies prove. Muller 7/28/12, Richard (a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former MacArthur Foundation fellow, is the author, most recently, of “Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines.). “The conversion of a climate-change skeptic.” NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all

CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. My total

turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it

appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases. These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific

and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before 1956 could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even a substantial part of the more

recent warming could be natural. Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert Rohde, which allowed us to determine earth land temperature much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations and poor ones) and from human intervention and data adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions. The historic temperature pattern we observed

has abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions; the particulates from such events reflect sunlight, make for beautiful sunsets and cool the earth’s surface for a few years. There are small, rapid variations attributable to El Niño and other ocean

currents such as the Gulf Stream; because of such oscillations, the “flattening” of the recent temperature rise that some people claim is not, in our view, statistically significant. What has caused the gradual but

systematic rise of two and a half degrees? We tried fitting the shape to simple math functions (exponentials, polynomials), to solar activity and even to rising functions like world population. By far the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice. Just as important, our record is long enough that we could search for the fingerprint of solar variability, based on the historical record of sunspots. That fingerprint is absent.

Although the I.P.C.C. allowed for the possibility that variations in sunlight could have ended the “Little Ice Age,” a period of cooling from the 14th century to about 1850, our data argues strongly that the temperature rise of the past 250 years cannot be attributed to solar changes. This conclusion is, in retrospect, not too surprising; we’ve

learned from satellite measurements that solar activity changes the brightness of the sun very little. How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn’t change the results.

Moreover, our analysis does not depend on large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs that are notorious for their hidden assumptions and adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase. It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed. Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous. The careful analysis by our team is laid out in five scientific papers now online atBerkeleyEarth.org. That site also shows our chart of temperature from 1753 to the present, with its clear fingerprint of volcanoes and

carbon dioxide, but containing no component that matches solar activity. Four of our papers have undergone extensive scrutiny by the scientific community, and the newest, a paper with the analysis of the human component, is now posted, along with the data and computer programs used. Such transparency is the heart of the scientific method; if you find our conclusions

implausible, tell us of any errors of data or analysis. What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace,

about one and a half degrees over land in the next 50 years, less if the oceans are included. But if China continues its rapid economic growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year over the last 20 years) and its vast use of coal (it typically adds one new gigawatt per month), then that same warming could take place in less than 20 years. Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done.

Anthropogenic factors overwhelm causal explanations for climate change – linear models and historical temperature rates prove.Muller et al 2012, Richard ((a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former MacArthur Foundation fellow, is the author, most recently, of “Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines.) Robert Rohde, Robert Jacobsen, Elizabeth Muller, Saul Perlmutter, Arthur Rosenfeld, Jonathan Wurtele, Donald Groom, Charlotte Wickham. “A new estimate of the average earth surface land temperature spanning 1753-2011.” JGR – 3rd Sante Fe Conference on Global and Regional Climate Change. July 8, 2012.

We have obtained an estimate of the Earth land surface temperature from 1753 unto the 424 present. The limited land coverage prior to

1850 results in larger uncertainties in the behavior of the record; despite these, we see behavior that 425 is significant. Most dramatic 426 are the large swings in the earliest period. These dips can be explained as the effect of 427 large volcanic eruptions that took place during that period. The rapid changes in the 428 Earth’s temperature at that time are remarkably swift, and at times even greater

than the 429 changes taking place in the last 50 years. Our records also show an average temperature 430 during the early 1800s that is on the lower end of what had previously been estimated 431 from proxy measurements, although there are large discrepancies between the values 432 obtained by using different proxy sets. 433 434 The behavior changes in the early 1900s, and follows closely the results that had been 435 previously reported by the three other major groups that analyze historic thermometer 436 records, but with

a smaller uncertainty than has been previously achieved. Since the 437 1950s, we observe a rise in the average land surface temperature of 0.87 ± 0.05 º C (95% 438 confidence). This value is in the middle of the comparable values reported by other 439 groups, but with an estimated uncertainty approximately twice as tight as prior reports. 440

441 We observe that the record of diurnal temperature range, Tmax - Tmin, follows an 442 unexpected path,

with a slow drop from the period 1900 to the late 1980s, followed by a 443 rise up to the most recent period (2011). This change in direction is unexpected and not 444 anticipated by existing climate models. 445 446 Many of the changes in land-surface temperature follow a simple linear combination of 447 volcanic forcing (based on estimates of stratospheric

sulfate injection) and an 448 anthropogenic term represented here by the logarithm of the CO2 concentration. The best fit an volcanic forcing term is -1.5 ± 0.5 º449 C per 100 Tg of atmospheric sulfate. The 450 anthropogenic forcing parameter is 3.1 ± 0.3 ºC for CO 2 doubling (compared to pre451 industrial levels), broadly consistent with the IPCC estimate of ~3 ºC for the equilibrium 452 warming at doubled CO 2 . When we included solar

forcing we found that the solar 453 variability record assumed by the IPCC did not contribute significantly to the fit of 454 historic temperature. This could imply that any effect associated with solar variability is 455 too small to be detected by our simple approach. It might also imply that the shape of 456 solar forcing assumed by the IPCC during the last 250 years is

too inaccurate for an 457 effective comparison. However, if the shape of the solar forcing history is accurate, then 458 the impact of solar variability on climate would have to be on the low side of present 459

estimates, no more than 0.08 ºC since 1750. 460 461 After accounting for volcanic and anthropogenic effects, the residual variability in land462 surface temperature is observed to closely mirror and for slower changes slightly lead 463 variations in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation Index. This is consistent with both the 464 land and North Atlantic responding the same unknown process. That process may be 465 partially anthropogenic and include effects whose time evolution is not proportional CO2. 466 It might

also include natural processes. If all of the residual evolution during the last 150 467 years is assumed to be natural, then it places an upper 95% confidence bound on the scale 468 of decadal natural variability at ±0.17 ºC. Though non-trivial, this number is small 469 compared to the anthropogenic changes that appear to have occurred during the last 470 century.

Now is Key2015 was the hottest year on record since 1850- solution needed nowGILLISJAN 16, 1/20, 2016

GILLISJAN, JUSTIN ; “At the end of March, Columbia University awarded the 2011 Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism to New York Times reporter Justin Gillis for his ongoing multimedia series, Temperature Rising, examining the fundamental tenets of manmade climate change. Articles in the series, most of which appear on the front page, provide in-depth, back-to-basics assessments of global warming’s effects on glaciers, forests, food supply, weather, and more, and Gillis often follows up with more details on the Times’s Green Blog. Following his latest A1 story, about the strange run from hot to cold temperatures in recent weeks, CJR’s Curtis Brainard talked to Gillis about staying focused on a story that’s lost traction elsewhere in the media.” 2015 Was Hottest Year in Historical Record, Scientists Say, NyTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/earth/2015-hottest-year-global-warming.html

Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in the historical record by far, breaking a mark set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world. In the contiguous United States, the year was the second-warmest on record, punctuated by a December that was both the hottest and the wettest since record-keeping began. One result has been a wave of unusual winter floods coursing down the Mississippi River watershed. Scientists started predicting a global temperature record months ago, in part because an El Niño weather pattern, one of the largest in a

century, is releasing an immense amount of heat from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere. But the bulk of the record-setting heat, they say, is a consequence of the long-term planetary warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases. “The whole system is warming up, relentlessly,” said Gerald A. Meehl, a scientist at the National Center for

Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It will take a few more years to know for certain, but the back-to-back records of 2014 and 2015 may have put the world back onto a trajectory of rapid global warming, after a period of relatively slow warming dating to the last powerful El Niño, in 1998. Politicians attempting to claim that greenhouse gases are not a problem seized on that slow period to argue that “global warming stopped in 1998,” with these claims and similar statements reappearing recently on the Republican presidential campaign trail. Statistical analysis suggested all along that the claims were false, and that the slowdown was, at most, a minor blip in an inexorable trend, perhaps caused by a temporary increase in the absorption of heat by the Pacific Ocean. “Is there any evidence for a pause in the long-term global warming rate?” said Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s climate-science unit, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in Manhattan. “The answer is no. That was true before last year, but it’s much more obvious now.” Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, calculated that if the global climate were not warming, the odds of setting two back-to-back record years would be remote, about one chance in every 1,500 pairs of years. Given the reality that the planet is warming, the odds become far higher, about one chance in 10, according to Dr. Mann’s calculations. Two American government agencies — NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — compile separate analyses of the global temperature, based upon thousands of measurements from weather stations, ships and ocean buoys scattered around the world. Meteorological agencies in Britain and Japan do so, as well. The agencies follow slightly different methods to cope with problems in the data,

but obtain similar results. The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. We get it. This is your cheat sheet. The American agencies released figures on Wednesday showing that 2015 was the warmest year in a global record that began, in their data, in 1880. British scientists released figures showing 2015 as the warmest in a record dating to 1850. The Japan Meteorological Agency had already released preliminary results showing 2015 as the warmest year in a record beginning in 1891. On Jan. 7, NOAA reported that 2015 was the second-warmest year on record, after 2012, for the lower 48 United States. That land mass covers less than 2 percent of the surface of the Earth, so it is not unusual to have a slight divergence between United States temperatures and those of the planet as a whole. The end of the year was especially remarkable in the United States, with virtually every state east of the Mississippi River having a record warm December, often accompanied by heavy rains. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, and an intensification of rainstorms was one of the fundamental predictions made by climate scientists decades ago as a consequence of human emissions. That prediction has come to pass, with the rains growing more intense across every region of the United States, but especially so in the East. The term global warming is generally taken to refer to the temperature trend at the surface of the planet, and those are the figures reported by the agencies on Wednesday. Some additional measurements, of shorter duration, are available for the

ocean depths and the atmosphere above the surface, both generally showing an inexorable long-term warming trend. Most satellite measurements of the lower and middle layers of the atmosphere show 2015 to have been the third- or fourth-warmest year in a 37-year record, and scientists said it was slightly surprising that the huge El Niño had not produced a greater warming there. They added that this could

yet happen in 2016. When temperatures are averaged at a global scale, the differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree. In the NOAA data set, 2015 was 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than 2014, the largest jump ever over a previous record. NASA calculated a slightly smaller figure, but still described it as an unusual one-year increase. The intense warmth of 2015 contributed to a heat wave in India last spring that turns out to have been the second-worst in that country’s history, killing an estimated 2,500 people. The long-term global warming trend has exacted a severe toll from extreme heat, with eight of the world’s 10 deadliest heat waves occurring since 1997. Only rough estimates of heat deaths are available, but according to figures from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, in Brussels, the toll over the past two decades is approaching 140,000 people, with most of those deaths occurring during a European heat wave in 2003 and a Russian heat wave in 2010. The strong El Niño has continued into 2016, raising the possibility that this year will, yet again, set a global temperature record. The El Niño pattern is also disturbing the circulation of the atmosphere, contributing to worldwide weather extremes that include a drought in southern Africa, threatening the food supply of millions.

Squo Fails/Coop KeyDespite widespread cooperation on climate change issues, the US and China are not tackling fundamental problems that remain- only addressing climate responsibility and policy toward developing nations can jumpstart global actionMelanie Hart et al in 2014, Center for American Progress WANG Ke, Renmin University of China Joanna Lewis, Georgetown University YU Hongyuan, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, Exploring the Frontiers of U.S.-China Strategic Cooperation: Energy and Climate Change, Center for American Progress, https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ChinaReport-Energy-FINAL.pdf

If U.S. and Chinese leaders want their meetings to produce something new and concrete, there is a growing consensus in both capitols that energy and climate cooperation is the only track that can reliably deliver. The range of energy and climate deliverables rolled out thus far is truly breathtaking. Current bilateral projects include cooperation on advanced vehicle technology, clean coal, building efficiency, greenhouse gas-emission monitoring,

smart grid technology, shale gas development, and many others. There is virtually no area of this domain where the two nations are not cooperating in some way. Most importantly, this cooperation is in the form of real projects that involve people from both sides getting together to actually do something. By any measure, this area of the relationship has become a true action track,

not an empty-talk track. At the same time, however, it is important to make sure that this growing array of action-oriented projects eventually adds up to something more than a steady stream of deliverables for high-level meetings. On climate change, in particular, bilateral cooperation will not be considered a true win unless those activities have an impact that goes far beyond the bilateral relationship. Most

importantly, other nations around the world are looking to the United States and China to break down the current impasse between developed and developing countries and serve as the poles around which the rest of the world could rally to

form a new global climate agreement in 2015. Unfortunately, it is specifically on those big-picture issues where the United States and China are still coming up short. Looking beneath the surface of this new action track, the two nations still do not see eye to eye on issues of principle such as how to divide climate responsibility among nations or how to best structure global energy institutions. In October 2014, the Center for American Progress convened a group of rising U.S. and Chinese scholars to discuss these and other difficult issues in the bilateral relationship. This essay collection presents the views of the energy and climate experts who led the discussion on these issues. For more detail on critical themes that emerged from the closed-door track II discussions, see “Expanding the Frontier of U.S.-China Strategic Cooperation Will Require New Thinking

on Both Sides of the Pacific.” The scholars in this essay collection all agree that, although recent progress in the energy and climate space has been admirable, that progress has focused primarily on low-hanging fruit, and it is now time to kick cooperation up a notch and start chipping away at the truly difficult issues that still divide us.

Current action on global warming is not enough – the world needs to cooperate in order to stopWalsh et al 2015

Bryan Walsh, Naina Bajekal, Julia Zorthian and Justin Worland. “Obama takes the lead on climate change but needs the world to follow” Ebscohost. Time. 8/17/2015, Vol. 186 Issue 6, p7-9. Accessed 6-29-16

A "superwicked problem." That's the way many scientists have come to characterize climate change—and it's not

because they have a fondness for New England slang. A wicked problem is one that is so complex, with so many different causes

and stakeholders, that it is all but impossible to solve completely. Poverty is a wicked problem; so is terrorism. But those pale in

comparison with what's happening to our planet. Climate change is caused by virtually every energy-consuming act in

the modern world, touches every person on the planet, has the potential to irrevocably alter the environment on

which every living thing on earth depends and extends from the present into the distant future. And nearly half the country denies it's a problem at all. Hence the super. But for such a superwicked problem, the years-in-the-making Clean Power Plan that

President Obama unveiled on Aug. 3 can seem a deceptively simple solution. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will give each state a goal for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants. States have to come up with their own methods to hit those targets over the next several years—cutting the use of coal, expanding renewable or nuclear power, improving energy efficiency. Another rule will require that future power plants produce about half the rate of pollution that current plants do—all but ensuring that no new coal plants will get built. The White House predicts nothing less than an environmental sea change. The EPA projects that by 2030, power-plant emissions will be 32% lower than they were in 2005, as a result of what Obama not inaccurately called "the single most important step America has ever taken in the

fight against global climate change." Of course, that's only if it happens. The reality of Obama's plan is significantly more wicked—there's a reason the full text runs 1,560 pages. Obama is trying to achieve by regulation what he was unable to do by legislation, after a comprehensive climate bill failed in Congress during his first term. The final result is inevitably messy, a complex compromise that tries to give the power industry time to clean up while still being tough enough to help the U.S. cut its total carbon dioxide emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020—a promise it made as part of global climate talks and one it needs to keep ahead of a major U.N. summit at the end of the year.

Meeting that goal would be tough enough without political opposition, but the Clean Power Plan will face major legal challenges from industry and from states with coal-dependent economies like Kentucky and West Virginia. While the EPA has the power to impose carbon-cutting plans on states that refuse to enact their own, that too could lead to a long and tangled legal fight. And if a Republican President is elected in 2016, he or she would be in a position to simply stop enforcing Obama's climate regulations—and judging from the

outraged reactions of the current slate of GOP candidates to the EPA rules, that's not a far-fetched possibility. Not wicked enough? Even if the Clean Power Plan works and the U.S. meets its carbon-cutting goals, that still won't solve the much larger problem.

America accounts for only about 17% of global emissions, so any effective solution to global warming will require concerted action from other big countries—most important, China, now the world's biggest polluter. And while Washington and Beijing last year reached a historic agreement to tackle climate change, China won't actually be reducing carbon emissions anytime soon. Other big countries like India are even less eager to commit to cuts, citing an understandable need to keep growing their economies. For all the effort and the anguish, the world could be doing much more. The International Energy Agency has estimated that even if every nation fulfills its current pledges on climate change—including Obama's plan—the

world will still fail to prevent what scientists believe will be dangerous warming. The Clean Power Plan is a start, even a historic one. But when it comes to a superwicked problem like climate change, as Obama himself said, "there is such a thing as being too late."

Permafrost BrinkDrastic action is key to preventing massive amounts of greenhouse gasses from escaping the permafrostWernick 2015

Adam Wernick. “Thawing permafrost could have catastrophic consequences, scientists warn” pri.org. 6-24-15. Website. 5-26-16. http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-06-24/thawing-permafrost-could-have-catastrophic-consequences-scientists-warn

Scientists at the UN climate negotiations in Bonn warn that new data about the melting of the Earth’s permafrost, and projections of a “permafrost carbon feedback loop,” suggest that the Earth is reaching thresholds where only a new ice age could reverse the impacts of global warming. Sue Natali, of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts and co-author of a paper recently published in Nature, told negotiators about the new data and says the numbers indicate we are at risk of slipping

into runaway global warming. “What’s important about these numbers is that, in theory, we can control deforestation and land use change [and] we can control our fossil fuel emissions — but once permafrost starts to thaw, we cannot control how much carbon dioxide and methane is released by microbes into the atmosphere from thawing permafrost,” Natali says. Permafrost is ground that remains frozen for two or more consecutive years. In some areas, permafrost

has been frozen for as long as 40,000 years. Permafrost regions cover about 25 percent of the northern hemisphere's land area. Carbon in permafrost is frozen in the form of various types of organic matter. But when permafrost thaws, microbes decompose that organic matter. And just as humans breathe out carbon dioxide, so do microbes. And they also release methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Current projections indicate a 30 to 70 percent decline in near-surface permafrost by the end of this century, Natali says. That wide range is a result

of different emission scenarios. “Under low emission models, we can expect about a 30 percent decline in permafrost. But under our current emissions scenario, up to 70 percent,” she explains. If 70 percent of the permafrost thaws, scientists expect to lose 130 to 160 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere by the end of this century . To put that in perspective, in 2013 the United States emitted 1.4 billion tons of carbon from fossil fuel combustion and cement production.

The feedback loop scientists describe works like this: Thawing permafrost will release large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, which will lead to rising global temperatures, which will lead to further permafrost thawing, which will lead to rising global temperatures. And that trend is projected to continue through the rest of the century. Scientists believe this feedback is already happening in the Arctic, where air temperatures are warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Natali point out that the most recent IPCC report, which was already looking grim, did not include data on permafrost carbon emissions. Once this data is factored in, she says, scenarios for the future may look quite a bit

more dire. “International negotiators had set 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) as an upper acceptable level of climate change,” she explains. “To remain below this target, our total emissions are limited to 790 billion tons of carbon. We've already released about 500 billion tons, so that leaves us a little under 300 billion tons. We can expect 150 of that to be taken up as a result of permafrost thaw.” “This makes it very challenging for us to stay below the two degrees Celsius,” she continues. “Even under our lowest

emissions scenario, we're pretty close to 2.2 degrees Celsius.” This puts even greater urgency on reducing our fossil fuel emissions now in order to avoid a future driven by an irreversible carbon feedback loop, Natali warns. “Not all of the carbon in permafrost will be released,” she says. “Our current expectation is about 10 to 15 percent of that carbon will be released into the atmosphere. That said, if all of the carbon of permafrost was released, this is not going to be a habitable planet for humans.”

Warming Impacts

Structural/OngoingGlobal warming isn’t coming- it’s already here, up to 400k deaths per year due to global climate changeLEBER February 11, 2015 ; REBECCA, “The New Republic Staff Writer June 2014 – February 2016 (1 year 9 months)Washington D.C. Metro Area Report on politics, policy for the magazine and website. Focused mostly on climate change and the environment. Contributed the lead feature for a special climate-themed issue outlining success at the 2015 Paris climate conference. I was the core writer for a special project on international climate politics, in which I worked with team members to produce a daily newsletter of climate analysis. Developed sources in agencies, campaigns, NGOs, science, and academia, resulting in interviews with presidential candidates and their campaign staff, White House officials, and more. ThinkProgress General assignment reporter with 1 to 3 articles per day on politics, climate change, environment, health, and economy. Broke news from congressional events, campaign stops, protests, and strikes around the U.S. Covered energy issues in the 2012 presidential election for ThinkProgress. Supported energy and climate research for reports published by Center for American Progress. Focused on special interests and money in politics.” Obama Is Right: Climate Change Kills More People Than Terrorism, NewRepublic, https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism

In an interview with Vox this week, President Barack Obama said the media “absolutely” overstates the risk of terrorism, when climate change and epidemics affect far more people. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest elaborated on Obama’s remarks on Tuesday, saying that “[t]here are many more people on an annual basis who have to confront the impact of climate change or the spread of a disease” than have to face terrorism. Conservatives like Mike Huckabee ridicule Obama for linking climate change to national security. “I assure you that a beheading is much worse than a sunburn,” Huckabee told Fox News on Monday. They will be disappointed to learn that climate change is, in fact, more

dangerous. Twenty governments commissioned an independent report in 2012 from the group DARA International to study the human and economic costs of climate change. It linked 400,000 deaths worldwide to climate change each year, projecting deaths to increase to over 600,000 per year by 2030. When scientists attribute deaths to climate change, they don't just mean succumbing to a heat wave or, as Huckabee put it, to sunburn.

Heat waves kill many, to be sure, but global warming also devastates food security, nutrition, and water safety. Since mosquitoes and other pests thrive in hot, humid weather, scientists expect diseases like malaria and dengue fever to rise. Floods threaten

to contaminate drinking water with bacteria and pollution. When the report looked at the added health consequences from burning fossil fuels—aside from climate change—the number of deaths jumps from 400,000 to almost 5 million per year. Carbon-intensive economies see deaths linked to outdoor air pollution, indoor smoke from poor ventilation, occupational hazards, and skin cancer. Now, compare that to terrorist incidents between 2000-2013, compiled in the 2014 Global Terrorism Index by the Institute for Economics and Peace. There were 18,000 deaths from terrorist attacks in 2013, a peak year. Over the 13-year period studied, 100,000 people died. Unlike the widespread impacts of climate change, terrorist threats are targeted. Most of the attacks in 2013 affected just five countries—Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria. The ultimate irony of Republicans brushing off the impact of climate change: Drought and extreme weather can destabilize developing regions, making climate change one of the factors that drives terrorism.

Bio-dClimate change destroys biodiversityThe Convention on Biodiversity No Date

https://www.cbd.int/climate/intro.shtml The Convention was opened for signature on 5 June 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio "Earth Summit"). It remained open for signature until 4 June 1993, by which time it had received 168 signatures. “Introduction”

In the atmosphere, gases such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, ozone, and methane act like the glass roof of a greenhouse by trapping heat and warming the planet. These gases are called greenhouse gases. The natural levels of these gases are being supplemented by emissions resulting from human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, farming activities and land-use changes. As a result, the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere are warming, and this rise in temperature is accompanied by many other changes. Rising levels of greenhouse gases are already changing the climate. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I (WGI) Fourth Assessment Report, from 1850 to 2005, the average global temperature increased by about 0.76ºC and global mean sea level rose by 12 to 22 cm during the last century. These changes are affecting the entire world, from low-lying islands in the tropics to the vast polar regions. Climate change predictions are not encouraging; according to the IPCC WGI Fourth Assessment Report, a further increase in temperatures of 1.4°C to 5.8°C by 2100 is projected. Predicted impacts associated with such temperature increase include: a further rise in global mean sea level, changes in

precipitation patterns, and more people at risk from dangerous “vector-borne diseases” such as malaria. The present global biota has been affected by fluctuating Pleistocene (last 1.8 million years) concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, temperature, precipitation, and has coped through evolutionary changes, and the adoption of natural adaptive strategies. Such climate changes, however, occurred over an extended period of time in a landscape that was not as fragmented as it is today and with little or no additional pressure from human activities. Habitat fragmentation has confined many species to relatively small areas within their previous ranges, resulting in reduced genetic variability. Warming beyond the ceiling of temperatures reached during the Pleistocene will stress ecosystems and their biodiversity far beyond the levels imposed by the global climatic change that occurred in the recent evolutionary past. Current rates and magnitude of species extinction far exceed normal background rates. Human activities have already resulted in the loss of biodiversity and thus may have affected goods and services crucial for human well-being. The rate and magnitude of climate change induced by increased greenhouse gases emissions has and will continue to affect biodiversity either directly or in combination with other drivers of change. There is ample evidence that climate change affects biodiversity. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, climate change is likely to become one of the most significant drivers of biodiversity loss by the end of the century. Climate change is already forcing biodiversity to adapt either through shifting habitat, changing life cycles, or the development of new physical traits. Conserving natural terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems and restoring degraded ecosystems (including their genetic and species diversity) is essential for the overall goals of both the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change because ecosystems play a key role in the global carbon cycle and in adapting to climate change, while also providing a wide range of ecosystem services that are essential for human well-being and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Biodiversity can support efforts to reduce the negative effects of climate change. Conserved or restored habitats can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thus helping to address climate change by storing carbon (for example, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation). Moreover, conserving in-tact ecosystems, such as mangroves, for example, can help reduce the disastrous impacts of climate change such as flooding and storm surges.

Bio-D ImpactBiodiversity loss threatens the Earth’s life support systemsFreidburg ’11 (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, The biological diversity of organisms on Earth is not just something we enjoy when taking a walk through a blossoming meadow in spring; it is also the basis for countless products and services provided by nature, including food, building materials, and medicines as well as the self-purifying qualities of water and protection against erosion. New findings indicate that much more biodiversity is necessary to keep ecosystems functioning in a world that is changing ever faster. The protection of diversity is thus a crucial factor in maintaining Earth's life-support functions. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110811084513.htm)

The biological diversity of organisms on Earth is not just something we enjoy when taking a walk through a

blossoming meadow in spring; it is also the basis for countless products and services provided by nature, including food, building materials, and medicines as well as the self-purifying qualities of water and protection against erosion. These so-called ecosystem services are what makes Earth inhabitable for humans. They are based on ecological processes, such as photosynthesis, the production of biomass, or nutrient cycles. Since biodiversity is on the decline, both on a global and a local scale, researchers are asking the question as to what role the diversity of organisms plays in maintaining these ecological processes and thus in providing the ecosystem's vital products and services. In an international research group led by Prof. Dr. Michel Loreau from Canada, ecologists from ten different universities and research institutes, including Prof. Dr. Michael Scherer-Lorenzen from the University of Freiburg, compiled findings from numerous biodiversity experiments and reanalyzed them. These experiments simulated the loss of plant species and attempted to determine the consequences for the functioning of ecosystems, most of them coming to the conclusion that a higher level of biodiversity is accompanied by an increase in ecosystem processes. However, the findings were always only valid for a certain combination of environmental conditions present at the locations at which the experiments were conducted and for a limited range of ecosystem processes. In a study published in the current issue of the journal Nature, the research group investigated the extent to which the positive effects of diversity still apply under changing environmental conditions and when a multitude of processes are taken into account. They found that 84 percent of the 147 plant species included in the experiments promoted ecological processes in at least one case. The more years, locations, ecosystem processes, and scenarios of global change -- such as global warming or land use intensity -- the experiments took into account, the more plant species were necessary to guarantee the functioning of the ecosystems. Moreover, other species were always necessary to keep the ecosystem processes running under the different combinations of influencing factors. These findings indicate that much

more biodiversity is necessary to keep ecosystems functioning in a world that is changing ever faster. The protection of diversity is thus a crucial factor in maintaining Earth's life-support functions.

Biodiversity loss risks extinctionWalsh 10 [Bryan, covers environment, energy and — when the need arises — particularly alarming diseases for TIME magazine, Wildlife: A Global Convention on Biodiversity Opens in Japan, But Can It Make a Difference? October 18, 2010 http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/10/18/wildlife-a-global-convention-on-biodiversity-opens-in-japan-but-can-it-make-a-difference/#ixzz131wU6CSp]

The story of non-human life on the planet Earth over the past few decades is a simple one: loss . While there are always a few bright spots—including the recovery of threatened animals like the brown pelican, thanks to the

quietly revolutionary Endangered Species Act—on a planetary scale biodiversity is steadily marching backwards, with extinctions rising and habitat destroyed. Species as diverse as the tiger—less than 3,500 live in the wild today—

to tiny frogs could be gone forever if the trends keep heading downwards . In a bitterly ironic twist, back in 2002 the United Nations declared that 2010 would be the international year of biodiversity, and countries agreed to" achieve a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level," as part of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). At this paper in Science shows (download a PDF here), however, the world has utterly failed to reduce the rate

of biodiversity loss, and by just about every measurement, things are getting worse all the time . (Read the Global Biodiversity Outlook if you really want to be depressed.) With that cheery backdrop, representatives from nearly 200 nations are meeting in the Japanese city of Nagoya—home to Toyota and not a whole lot else—for the 10th summit of the CBD, where they will set new goals for reducing species loss and slowing habitat destruction. At the very least, they should know how critical the biodiversity challenge is—as Japanese Environment Minister Ryo Matsumoto said in an opening speech: All life on Earth exists thanks

to the benefits from biodiversity in the forms of fertile soil, clear water and clean air. We are now close to a 'tipping point' - that is, we are about to reach a threshold beyond which biodiversity loss will become irreversible, and may cross that threshold in the next 10 years if we do not make proactive efforts for conserving biodiversity. Ahmed Djoghlaf, the executive secretary of the CBD, struck an even darker note, reminding diplomats that they were on a clock—and time was running out: Let's have the courage to look in the eyes of our children and admit that we have failed, individually and collectively, to fulfil the Johannesburg promise made by 110 heads of state to substantially reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. Let us look in the eyes of our children and admit that we continue to lose biodiversity at an unprecedented rate, thus mortgaging their future. But what will actually come out of the Nagoya summit, which will continue until Oct. 29? Most likely there will be another agreement—a new protocol—outlining various global strategies on sustaining biodiversity and goals on slowing the rate of species loss. (You can download a PDF of the discussion draft document that will be picked over at Nagoya.) It won't be hard for governments to agree on general ambitions for reducing biodiversity loss—who's against saving pandas?—but the negotiations will be much trickier on the question of who will actually pay for a more biodiverse planet? And much as we've seen in international climate change negotiations, the essential divide is between the developed and developing nations—and neither side seems ready to bend. The reality is that much of the world's biodiversity—the most fantastic species and the most complete forests—is found in the poorer, less developed parts of the world. That's in part because the world's poor have been, well, too poor to develop the land around them in the way rich nations have. (There was once a beautiful, undeveloped island off the East Coast of the U.S., with wetlands and abundant forests. It was called Mannahatta. It's a little different now.) As a result, the rural poor—especially in tropical nations—are directly dependent on healthy wildlife and plants in a way that inhabitants of developed nations aren't. So on one hand that makes the poor directly vulnerable when species are lost and forests are chopped down—which often results in migration to thronging urban areas. But on the other, poverty often drives the rural poor to slash-and-burn forests for agriculture, or hunt endangered species to sell for bush meat. Conservation and development have to go hand in hand. That hasn't always been the mantra of the conservation movement—as Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow writes in Slate, conservation projects in the past sometimes displaced the human inhabitants over a reserve or park, privileging nature over people. But that's changed in recent decades—environmental groups like Conservation International or the Nature Conservancy now spend as much of their time working on development as they do in protecting nature. "Save the people, save the wildlife"—that's the new mantra. The missing ingredient is money—and that's what will be up for debate at Nagoya. As climate change has risen on the international agenda, funding for biodiversity has lagged—the 33 member nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) donated $8.5 billion for climate change mitigation projects in 2008, but just $3 billion annually for biodiversity. One way to change that could be through "payment for ecosystem services." A biodiverse landscape, intact forests, clean water and air—all of these ebbing qualities of a healthy world are vital for our economies as well. (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, a UN-funded study, estimates that nature degradation costs the world $2 trillion to $5 trillion a year, with the poorest nations bearing the brunt of the loss.) Rich countries could pay more biodiverse developing nations to keep nature running—allowing poorer countries to capitalize on their natural resources without slashing and burning. Will that work? I'm skeptical—the experience of climate change negotiations have shown that the nations of the world are great at high ideals and fuzzy goals, but not so hot at actually dividing up the pie in a more sustainable fashion. That doesn't mean there aren't smaller solutions—like Costa Rica's just-announced debt-for-nature deal—but a big bang from Japan this month doesn't seem too likely. The problem is as simple as it is unsolvable, at least so far—there's no clear path to national development so far that doesn't take from the natural world. That worked for rich nations, but we're rapidly running out of planet, as a report last week from

the World Wildlife Fund showed. And there's something greater at stake as well, as the naturalist E.O. Wilson once put it: The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats-this is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us. We're losing nature. And that loss really is forever.

BioD loss leads to extinctionCoyne and Hoekstra ‘7 - jerry coyne is a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the university of chicago. Hopi e. Hoekstra is john l. Loeb associate professor in the department of organismic and evolutionary biology at harvard university and curator of mammals at harvard's museum of comparative zoology. ,“diversity lost as we head towards a lonely planet“, weekend australian, november 10, lexis

Extinction exacerbates global warming: by burning rainforests, we're not only polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide (a

greenhouse gas) but destroying the plants that can remove this gas from the air. Conversely, global warming increases extinction, directly (killing corals) and indirectly (destroying the habitats of Arctic and Antarctic animals). As extinction increases, then, so does global warming, which in turn causes more extinction and so on, into a downward spiral of destruction. Why, exactly, should we care? Let's start with the most celebrated case: rainforests. Their loss will worsen global warming, raising temperatures, melting icecaps and flooding coastal cities. And, as the

forest habitat shrinks, so begins the inevitable contact between organisms that have not evolved together, a scenario played out many times

and one that is never good. Dreadful diseases have successfully jumped species boundaries, with humans as prime recipients. We have got AIDS from apes, severe acute respiratory syndrome from civets and Ebola from fruit bats. Additional worldwide plagues from unknown microbes are a real possibility. But it isn't just the destruction of the rainforests that should trouble us. Healthy ecosystems the world over provide hidden services such as waste disposal, nutrient cycling, soil formation,

water purification and oxygen production. Such services are best rendered by ecosystems that are diverse. Yet, through intention and accident, humans have introduced exotic species that turn biodiversity into monoculture. Fast-growing zebra mussels, for example, have outcompeted more than 15 species of native mussels in North America's Great Lakes and have damaged harbours and water-treatment plants. Native prairies are becoming dominated by single species (often genetically homogenous) of corn or

wheat. Thanks to these developments, soils will erode and become unproductive which, along with temperature change, will diminish agricultural yields. Meanwhile, with increased pollution and run-off, as well as reduced forest cover, ecosystems will no longer be able to purify water, and a shortage of clean water spells disaster. In many ways, oceans are the most vulnerable areas of all. As overfishing eliminates important predators, while polluted and warming waters kill off phytoplankton, the intricate aquatic food web could collapse from both sides. Fish, on which so many humans depend, will be a fond memory. As phytoplankton vanish, so does the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. (Half of the oxygen we breathe is made by phytoplankton, with the rest coming from land plants.) Species extinction is also imperilling coral reefs, a big problem since these reefs have more than recreational value: they provide tremendous amounts of food for human populations and buffer coastlines against erosion. Indeed, the global value of hidden services provided by ecosystems -- those services, such as waste disposal, that aren't bought and sold in the marketplace -- has been estimated to be as much as $US50thousand billion ($53.8 thousand billion) a year, roughly equal to the gross domestic product of all countries combined. And that doesn't include tangible goods such as fish and

timber. Life as we know it would be impossible if ecosystems collapsed. Yet that is where we're heading if species extinction continues at its present pace. Extinction also has a huge impact on medicine. Who really cares if, say, a worm in the remote swamps of French Guiana becomes extinct? Well, those who suffer from cardiovascular disease. The

recent discovery of a rare South American leech has led to the isolation of a powerful enzyme that, unlike other

anticoagulants, not only prevents blood from clotting but also dissolves existing clots. And it's not just this species of worm: its wriggly relatives have evolved other biomedically valuable proteins, including antistatin (a potential anti-cancer agent), decorsin and ornatin (platelet aggregation inhibitors) and hirudin (another anticoagulant). Plants, too, are pharmaceutical goldmines. The bark of trees, for example, has given us quinine (the first cure for malaria), taxol (a drug that is highly effective against ovarian and breast cancer) and aspirin.

More than one-quarter of the medicines on our pharmacy shelves were originally derived from plants. The sap of the Madagascar periwinkle contains more than 70 useful alkaloids, including vincristine, a powerful anti-cancer drug that saved the

life of one of our friends. Of the roughly 250,000 plant species on Earth, fewer than 5 per cent have been screened for pharmaceutical properties. Who knows what life-saving drugs remain to be discovered? Given present extinction rates, it's estimated that we're losing one valuable drug every two years. Our arguments so far have tacitly assumed that species are worth saving only in proportion to their economic value and their effects on our quality of life, an attitude that is strongly ingrained, especially in Americans. That is why conservationists always base their case on an economic calculus. But we biologists know in our hearts that there are deeper and equally compelling reasons to worry about the loss of biodiversity: namely, morality and intellectual values that transcend pecuniary interests. What, for example, gives us the right to destroy other creatures? And what could be more thrilling than looking around us, seeing that we are surrounded by our evolutionary cousins and realising that we all got here by the same simple process of natural selection? To biologists, and potentially everyone else, apprehending the genetic kinship and common origin of all species is a spiritual experience, not necessarily religious but spiritual nonetheless, for it stirs the soul. But whether or not one is moved by such concerns, it is

certain that our future is bleak if we do nothing to stem this sixth extinction. We are creating a world in which exotic diseases flourish but natural medicinal cures are lost; a world in which carbon waste accumulates while food sources dwindle; a world of sweltering heat, failing crops and impure water. In the end, we must accept the possibility that we are not immune to extinction. Or, if we survive, perhaps only a few of us will remain, scratching out a grubby existence on a devastated planet. Global warming will seem like a secondary problem when humanity finally faces the consequences of what we have done to nature; not just another Great Dying, but perhaps the greatest dying of them all.

EconClimate change is costing 1 trillion a year, economic effects are expected to drastically worsenHERTSGAARD 09.27.12 MARK ; “Mark Hertsgaard, the environment correspondent for The Nation and the author of Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, has been covering global climate summits since 1992. As an independent journalist, Hertsgaard has traveled around the world twice, reporting from twenty-five countries and much of the United States about climate change, politics, culture and the environment for leading outlets worldwide including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Daily Beast, Scientific American, Time, Mother Jones, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Le Monde Diplomatique, L’espresso, Newsweek Japan, the BBC and The Nation, where he is the environment correspondent. He was the first independent journalist to detail, in The Atlantic in 1997, China’s emergence as a climate change superpower. He also broke the story, in The New Yorker in 1995, of the Beatles’ posthumous reunion. Hertsgaard has been a regular commentator for the public radio programs Morning Edition, Marketplace and Living on Earth and hosted an investigative news show for the national satellite channel, Link TV. He has lectured at Johns Hopkins, the University of California Berkeley School of Journalism, Yale, Harvard, Stanford and dozens of other colleges and universities and appeared on hundreds of local, national and international TV and radio programs.” Climate Change Kills 400,000 a Year, New Report Reveals, The Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/27/climate-change-kills-400-000-a-year-new-report-reveals.html

The Earth’s changing climate is costing the global economy $1.2 trillion a year and killing 1,000 children a day, according to a new study—and the U.N. warns the summer’s record heat and drought could trigger a catastrophe. Nearly 1,000 children a day are now dying because of climate change, according to a path-breaking study published Wednesday (PDF),

and the annual death toll stands at 400,000 people worldwide. Climate change also is costing the world economy $1.2 trillion a year, the equivalent of 1.6 percent of economic output, reports the Climate Vulnerability Monitor, a study commissioned by 20 of the world’s governments whose nations are most threatened by climate change and released on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. Most of the 400,000 annual deaths are “due to hunger and communicable diseases that affect above all children in developing countries,” concludes the study, written by 50 scientists and policy experts from around the world. Separately, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that the record heat and drought that struck the United States and other key global food producers during the summer of 2012 will slash crop yields, raise food prices, and, unless urgent action is taken, “turn into a catastrophe hurting tens of millions over the coming months.” “The new report is another reminder that climate change’s most savage impact is hunger and poverty,” said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International, in a statement. “Behind the statistics are the stories of real families and communities, for whom climate change means putting children to bed with empty stomachs.” A Reuters report on the new study, however, dramatically overstated the projected death toll, stating, “more than 100 million will die…by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change.” But the 100 million figure includes deaths not only from climate change but also from air pollution and indoor cooking smoke, long major killers in developing countries, where women often cook with wood in poorly ventilated structures. What is new about the Climate Vulnerability Monitor report is its calculation of 400,000 annual deaths from climate change. That is

a significant increase over previous estimates. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the gold standard for climate science, said in its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 that climate change caused 150,000 extra deaths a year. But the 150,000 figure took into account only deaths from malnutrition, malaria, and diarrhea caused by contaminated water, a common result of floods. Excluded were the effects of heat waves, crop losses due to an increase in pests, and a range of other deadly diseases, which can be substantial. For example, the record-breaking heat wave that blanketed Europe for six weeks in

summer 2003 caused at least 71,449 excess deaths, according to a 2008 study sponsored by the European Union. As global warming intensifies in the coming years, the death toll could rise to 700,000 a year by 2030, the new report calculates, while the economic costs, if the effects of air pollution are included, could increase to 3.2 percent of global output. These economic costs arise not only from stunting of crops, flooding, and wildfires, as Americans experienced this summer, but also from the lower productivity of workers when they labor under hotter conditions. Although most of the human suffering and economic damage will occur in the world’s poorest nations, which have contributed little to the greenhouse gas emissions

that are overheating the planet, the United States is by no means immune. Climate impacts could cut the U.S. GNP by 2 percent by 2030, according to the report. Yet climate change continues to be the great unmentionable on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail. Mitt Romney has mocked President Obama for even caring about the issue. For his part, Obama rarely mentions the C-word—aka, climate change—even as he frequently touts his “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that includes massive increases in oil and natural gas production. The Economist, in a 2011 article cited in the new report, opined that 100 years from now, looking back, the only

important question about our historical moment will be “whether or not we did anything to arrest climate change.” Governor Romney? President Obama? Are you listening?

Climate change makes any conflict or instabilities worse- economic, social, environmentalDOD 7/23/15, “The Department of Defense (DoD,[5] USDOD, or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government of the United States charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States Armed Forces.” NATIONAL SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE-RELATED RISKS AND A CHANGING CLIMATE, http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/150724-congressional-report-on-national-implications-of-climate-change.pdf?source=govdelivery

GCCs assess that, in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conclusions, climate change will have the greatest impact on areas and environments already prone to instability, which aligns with DoD’s wider assessment of climate change as a threat multiplier. USPACOM already reflects this likely implication in its planning processes by addressing not only the direct effects of climate change but also the imperative this implication creates for environmental and resource management. U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) similarly monitors resource scarcity (e.g., water, food, energy) in its arid AOR, and accounts for this factor in its planning. Although the context differs, USAFRICOM assesses that climate change will exacerbate existing economic, social, and environmental vulnerabilities, while conditions of drought, disease, and economic stagnation may tip states toward systemic breakdowns. GCCs recognize the risk climate change poses to existing resource allocation. USAFRICOM highlights how climate change will alter the distribution and quality of natural resources, such as fresh water, arable land, coastal territory, and marine resources. USPACOM assesses that climate change will affect populations already living in unstable environments and already experiencing urban or rural conflict driven, in particular, by seasonal water shortage. USCENTCOM identifies that climate changes heighten competition at the national or subnational level in an already arid region, and this competition could be more dangerous as actors seek to protect limited resources. However, inter-state conflict risk is attenuated by the context of international treaties and agreements. USNORTHCOM identifies increased resource exploration in the Arctic as driving an increase in the future demand for SAR and environmental disaster response missions in support of other agencies and civil authorities.

DOD 7/23/15, “The Department of Defense (DoD,[5] USDOD, or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government of the United States charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States Armed Forces.” NATIONAL SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE-RELATED RISKS AND A CHANGING CLIMATE, http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/150724-congressional-report-on-national-implications-of-climate-change.pdf?source=govdelivery

The Department of Defense sees climate change as a present security threat, not strictly a long-term risk. We are already observing the impacts of climate change in

shocks and stressors to vulnerable nations and communities, including in the United States, and in the Arctic, Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South America. Case studies have demonstrated measurable impacts on areas vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and in specific cases significant interaction between conflict dynamics and sensitivity to climate changes. Although climate-related stress will disproportionately affect fragile and conflict-affected states, even resilient, well-developed countries are subject to the effects of climate change in significant and consequential ways. For these reasons, Combatant Commands are integrating climate-related impacts into their planning cycles. Depending on the region, risks to Combatant Commands vary, but all GCCs share a common assessment of its significance. The ability of the United States and other countries to cope with the risks and implications of climate change requires monitoring, analysis, and integration of those risks into existing overall risk management measures, as appropriate for each Combatant Command. Although DoD and the Combatant Commands cannot prepare for every risk and situation, the Department is beginning to include the implications of a changing climate in its frameworks for managing operational and strategic risks prudently. Moreover, the Department is working with other U.S. Government departments and agencies, partner nations, and many other entities on addressing climate security risks and implications.

Extinction

If no steps are taken to stop or revert Global Warming, extinction is a real possibilitySnow and Hannam March 31, 2014 ; “Deborah and Peter “Deborah Snow is a senior writer with The Sydney Morning Herald and a former federal political reporter for the Australian Financial Review. She has also served as foreign correspondent for ABC-TV in Moscow and London, and as a reporter on Four Corners. Peter Hannam covers broad environmental issues ranging from climate change to renewable energy for Fairfax Media. He attended Harvard University.” Herald Climate change could make humans extinct, warns health expert, Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-could-make-humans-extinct-warns-health-expert-20140330-35rus.html

The Earth is warming so rapidly that unless humans can arrest the trend, we risk becoming ''extinct'' as a species, a leading Australian health academic has warned. Helen Berry, associate dean in the faculty of health at the University of Canberra, said while the Earth has been warmer and colder at different points in the planet's history, the rate of change has never been as fast as it is today. ''What is remarkable, and alarming, is the speed of the change since the 1970s, when we started burning a lot of

fossil fuels in a massive way,'' she said. ''We can't possibly evolve to match this rate [of warming] and, unless we get control of it, it will mean our extinction eventually.'' Professor Berry is one of three leading academics who have contributed to the health chapter of a Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due on Monday. She and co-authors Tony McMichael, of the Australian National University, and Colin Butler, of the University of Canberra, have outlined the health risks of rapid global

warming in a companion piece for The Conversation, also published on Monday. The three warn that the adverse effects on population health and social stability have been ''missing from the discussion'' on climate change. Advertisement ''Human-driven climate change poses a great threat, unprecedented in type and scale, to wellbeing, health and perhaps even to human survival,'' they write. They predict that the greatest challenges will come from undernutrition and impaired child development from reduced food yields; hospitalisations and deaths due to intense heatwaves, fires and other weather-related disasters; and the spread of infectious diseases. They warn the ''largest impacts'' will be on poorer and vulnerable populations, winding back recent hard-won gains of social development programs. Projecting to an average global warming of 4

degrees by 2100, they say ''people won't be able to cope, let alone work productively, in the hottest parts of the year''. They say that action on climate change would produce ''extremely large health benefits'', which would greatly outweigh the costs of curbing emission growth. A leaked draft of the IPCC report notes that a warming climate would lead to fewer cold weather-related deaths but the benefits would be ''greatly'' outweighed by the impacts of more frequent heat extremes. Under a high emissions scenario, some land regions will experience temperatures four to seven degrees higher than pre-industrial times, the report

said. While some adaptive measures are possible, limits to humans' ability to regulate heat will affect health and potentially cut global productivity in the warmest months by 40 per cent by 2100. Body temperatures rising above 38 degrees impair physical and cognitive functions, while risks of organ damage, loss of consciousness and death increase sharply above 40.6 degrees, the draft report said. Farm crops and livestock will also struggle with thermal and water stress. Staple crops such as corn, rice, wheat and soybeans are assumed to face a temperature limit of 40-45 degrees, with temperature thresholds for key sowing stages near or below 35 degrees, the report said.

Humans will go extinct due to climate change if we don’t act now-developing new technology is keyBy David Auerbach June 18, 2015

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/06/18/a-child-born-today-may-live-to-see-humanitys-end-unless/ “A child born today may live to see humanity’s end, unless…” David Auerbach writes the Bitwise tech column for Slate Magazine. He previously worked as a software engineer at Google and Microsoft.

Humans will be extinct in 100 years because the planet will be uninhabitable, said the late Australian

microbiologist Frank Fenner, one of the leaders in the effort to eradicate smallpox during the 1970s. He blamed overcrowding, denuded resources and climate change. Fenner’s prediction, made in 2010, is not a sure bet, but he is correct that there is no way emissions reductions will be enough to save us from our trend toward doom. And there doesn’t seem to be any big global rush to reduce emissions, anyway. When the G7 called on Monday for all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 85 years, the scientific reaction was unanimous: That’s far too late. And no possible treaty that emerges from the current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany, in preparation for November’s United Nations climate conference in Paris, will be sufficient. At this point, lowering emissions is just half the story — the easy half. The harder half will be an aggressive effort to find the technologies needed to reverse the climate apocalypse that has already begun. For years now, we have heard that we are at a tipping point. Al Gore warned us in An Inconvenient Truth that immediate action was required if we were to prevent global warming. In 2007, Sir David King, former chief scientific advisor to the British government, declared, “Avoiding dangerous climate change is impossible – dangerous climate change is already here. The question is, can we avoid catastrophic climate change?” In the years since,

emissions have risen, as have global temperatures. Only two conclusions can be drawn: Either these old warnings were alarmist, or we are already in far bigger trouble than the U.N. claims. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the case. Lowering emissions and moving to cleaner energy sources is a necessary step to prevent catastrophic temperature rises. The general target is to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. Higher increases — like the 5C increase currently projected by 2100 — run the risk of widespread flooding, famine, drought, sea-level rise, mass extinction and, worse, the potential of passing a tipping point (frequently set at 6C) that could render much of the planet uninhabitable and wipe out most species. Even the 2C figure predicts more than a meter’s rise in sea levels by 2100, enough to displace millions. It is no wonder that the Pentagon calls climate change a serious “threat multiplier” and is considering its potential disruptive impact across all its planning. This is where the U.N. talks fall short — by a mile. The targets proffered by the United States (a 26 percent to 28 percent decrease from 2005 levels by 2025), the European Union (a 40 percent decrease from 1990 levels by 2030) and China (an unspecified emissions peak by 2030) are nowhere near enough to keep us under the 2C target. In 2012, journalist Bill McKibben, in a feature for Rolling Stone, explained much of the math behind the current thinking on global warming. He concluded that the United Nations’ figures were definitely on the rosy side. In particular, McKibben noted that

the temperature has already increased 0.8C, and even if we were to stop all carbon-dioxide emissions today, it would increase another 0.8C simply due to the existing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That leaves only a 0.4C buffer before hitting 2C. Even assuming the Paris conference implements everything that’s promised, we will be on track to use up the remaining “carbon budget” — the amount of carbon we can emit without blowing past the 2C threshold — within two to three decades, not even at mid-century. These emissions-reduction frameworks, it is safe to say, are simply insufficient. By themselves, they only offer a small chance of preventing the earth from becoming mostly uninhabitable – for humans at least — over the next few centuries. For the talks to be more than just a placebo, they need to encompass aggressive plans for climate mitigation, with the assumption that current wishful targets won’t be met. Apart from coordination to cope with climate-driven crises and associated instability, climate-change leadership needs to encourage and fund the development of technologies to reverse what we are unable to stop doing to our planet. Many of these technologies fall under the rubric of “carbon sequestration” — safely storing carbon rather than emitting it. Riskier strategies, like injecting sulfates into the air to reflect more of the sun’s heat into space and ocean iron fertilization to grow algae to suck in carbon, run a high risk of unintended consequences. Better and safer solutions to reduce CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere don’t yet exist; we need to discover them and regulate them, to avoid the chaos of what economists Gernot

Wagner and Martin L. Weitzman term “rogue geoengineering” in their book Climate Shock. None of these approaches are substitutes for emissions reductions. Achieving a carbon-neutral society is a necessary long-term goal

regardless of other technological fixes. Technology could buy us the time to get there without our planet burning up. Ultimately, we need a Cold War-level of investment in research into new technologies to mitigate the coming effects of global warming. Without it, the United Nations’ work is a nice gesture, but hardly a meaningful one.

Laundry ListImplications from climate change will threaten Earth in almost every way possibleDOD 7/23/15, “The Department of Defense (DoD,[5] USDOD, or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government of the United States charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States Armed Forces.” NATIONAL SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE-RELATED RISKS AND A CHANGING CLIMATE, http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/150724-congressional-report-on-national-implications-of-climate-change.pdf?source=govdelivery

Global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for U.S. national security interests over the foreseeable future because it will aggravate existing problems—such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions—that threaten domestic stability in a number of countries. Each GCC’s assessment of risk reflects how this range of factors will affect security in its Area of Responsibility (AOR). GCCs generally view climate change as a security risk because it impacts human security and, more indirectly,

the ability of governments to meet the basic needs of their populations. Communities and states that are already fragile and have limited resources are significantly more vulnerable to disruption and far less likely to respond effectively and be resilient to new challenges. Case studies indicate that in addition to exacerbating existing risks from other factors (e.g., social, economic, and political fault lines), climate-induced stress can generate new vulnerabilities (e.g., water scarcity) and thus contribute to instability and conflict even in situations not previously considered at risk. GCCs have identified four general areas of climate-related security risks:

Persistently recurring conditions such as flooding, drought, and higher temperatures increase the strain on fragile states and vulnerable populations by dampening economic activity and burdening public health through loss of agriculture and electricity production, the change in known infectious disease patterns and the rise of new ones, and increases in respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. This could result in increased intra- and inter-state migration, and generate other negative effects on human security. For example, from 2006-2011, a severe multi-year drought affected Syria and contributed to massive agriculture failures and population displacements. Large movements of rural dwellers to city centers coincided with the presence of large numbers of Iraqi refugees in Syrian cities, effectively overwhelming institutional capacity to respond constructively to the changing service demands. These kinds of impacts in regions around the world could necessitate greater DoD involvement in the provision of humanitarian assistance and other aid. More frequent and/or more severe extreme weather events that may require substantial involvement of DoD units, personnel, and assets in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) abroad and in Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) at home. Massive flooding in Pakistan in 2010 was the country’s worst in recorded history, killing more than 2,000 people and affecting 18 million; DoD delivered humanitarian relief to otherwise inaccessible areas. Super Storm Sandy in New York and New Jersey in 2012 resulted in over 14,000 DoD personnel mobilized to provide direct support, and at least an additional 10,000 who supported the operation in various capacities in the areas of power restoration, fuel resupply, transportation infrastructure repair, water and meal distribution, temporary housing and sheltering, and debris removal. The need for HADR and DSCA will likely rise as cities expand to encompass the majority of the global population and because flood risk threatens more people than any other natural hazard, especially in urban areas. Many growing cities are located in low- and middle-income countries with limited resources. Building partner nation capacity for HA/DR capabilities and civilian-military partnerships for DSCA are important parts of GCC security cooperation efforts. The Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) is responsible for leading and

coordinating the U.S. Government’s response to disasters overseas. Sea level rise and temperature changes lead to greater chance of flooding in coastal communities and increase adverse impacts to navigation safety, damages to port facilities and cooperative security locations, and displaced populations. Sea level rise may require more frequent or larger-scale DoD involvement in HADR and DSCA. Measures will also likely be required to protect military installations,

both in the United States and abroad, and to work with partner nations that support DoD operations and activities. Sea level rise, increased ocean acidification, and increased ocean warming pose threats to fish stocks, coral, mangroves, recreation and tourism, and the control of disease affecting the economies, and ultimately stability, of DoD’s partner nations. Some Pacific island nations face the risk of being entirely submerged by rising seas, and most island nations’ freshwater supplies will be threatened by saltwater intrusion

well before then. Loss of land, especially highly populated and agriculturally rich coastal land, also poses second order effects on human displacement and economic and food stability, and may further exacerbate challenges associated with disease vectors.4 Decreases in Arctic ice cover, type, and thickness will lead to greater access for tourism, shipping, resource exploration and extraction, and military activities. Land access—which depends on frozen ground in the Arctic—will diminish as permafrost thaws. These factors may increase the need for search and rescue (SAR) capabilities, monitoring of increased shipping and other human activity, and the capability to respond to crises or contingencies in the region. Difficult and unpredictable weather conditions, large distances, and scarce resources make emergency response in the Arctic difficult. Arctic operations are expensive and dangerous for military forces that are unprepared for the austere operating environment. DoD continues to evaluate the need for specific Arctic capabilities.

We have to act now to slow climate change, within 35 years earth’s climate will have completely changed, destroying ecosystems, putting close to 5 billion at risk of food shortage, water shortage, infectious diseases, heat stress, conflicts, and economic downturnPhys.org October 9, 2013 phys.org is a leading web-based science, research and technology news service which covers a full range of topics. These include physics, earth science, medicine, nanotechnology, electronics, space, biology, chemistry, computer sciences, engineering, mathematics and other sciences and technologies. “Study reveals urgent new time frame for climate change”

http://phys.org/news/2013-10-reveals-urgent-climate.html

Ecological and societal disruptions by modern climate change are critically determined by the time frame over which climates shift. Camilo Mora and colleagues in the College of Social Sciences' Department of Geography at the University of Hawaii, Manoa have developed one such time frame. The study, entitled "The projected timing of climate departure from recent variability," will be published in the October 10 issue of Nature and provides an index of the year when the mean climate of any given location on Earth will shift continuously outside the most extreme records experienced in the past 150 years. The new index shows a surprising result. Areas in the tropics are projected to experience unprecedented climates first – within the next decade. Under a business-as-usual scenario, the index shows the average location on Earth will experience a radically different climate by 2047. Under an alternate scenario with greenhouse gas emissions stabilization, the global mean climate departure will be 2069. "The results shocked us. Regardless of the scenario, changes will be coming soon," said lead author Camilo Mora. "Within my generation, whatever climate we were used to will be a

thing of the past." The scientists calculated the index for additional variables including evaporation, precipitation, and ocean surface temperature and pH. When looking at sea surface pH, the index indicates that we surpassed the limits of historical extremes in 2008. This is consistent with

other recent studies, and is explained by the fact that ocean pH has a narrow range of historical variability and because the ocean has absorbed a considerable fraction of human-caused CO2 emissions. The study found that the overarching global effect of climate change on biodiversity will occur not only as a result of the largest absolute changes at the poles, but also, perhaps more urgently, from small but rapid changes in the tropics. Tropical species are unaccustomed to climate variability and are therefore more vulnerable to relatively small changes. The tropics hold the world's greatest diversity of marine and terrestrial species and will experience unprecedented climates some 10 years earlier than anywhere else on Earth. Previous studies have already shown that corals and other tropical species are currently living in areas near their physiological limits. The study suggests that conservation planning could be undermined as protected areas will face unprecedented climates just as early and because most centers of high species diversity are located in developing countries Rapid change will tamper with the functioning of Earth's biological systems, forcing species to either move in an attempt to track suitable climates, stay and try to adapt to the new climate, or go extinct. "This work demonstrates that we are pushing the ecosystems of the world out of the environment in which they evolved into wholly new conditions that they may not be able to

cope with. Extinctions are likely to result," said Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology, and who was not involved in this study. "Some ecosystems may be able to adapt, but for others, such as coral reefs, complete loss of not only individual species but their entire integrity

is likely." These changes will affect our social systems as well. The impacts on the tropics have implications globally as they are home to most of the world's population, contribute significantly to total food supplies, and house much of the world's biodiversity. In predominately developing countries, over one billion

people under an optimistic scenario, and five billion under a business-as-usual-scenario, live in areas that will experience extreme climates before 2050. This raises concerns for changes in the supply of food and water, human health, wider spread of infectious diseases, heat stress, conflicts, and challenges to economies . "Our results suggest that countries first impacted by unprecedented climates are the ones

with the least capacity to respond," said coauthor Ryan Longman. "Ironically, these are the countries that are least responsible for climate change in the first place." "This paper is unusually important. It builds on earlier work but brings the biological and human consequences into sharper focus," said Jane Lubchenco, former Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and now of Oregon State University, who was not involved in this study. "It connects the dots between climate models and impacts to biodiversity in a stunningly fresh way, and it has sobering ramifications for species and people." While the study describes global averages, the authors have visualized their data on an interactive map displaying when climate will exceed historical precedents for locations around the world. "We hope that with this map people can see and understand the progression of climate change in time where they live, hopefully connecting people more closely to the issue and increasing awareness about the urgency to act," said coauthor Abby Frazier. The index used the minimum and maximum temperatures from 1860-2005 to define the bounds of historical climate variability at any given location. The scientists then took projections for the next 100 years to identify the year in which the future temperature at any given location on Earth will shift completely outside the limits of historical precedents, defining that year as the year of climate departure. The data came from 39 Earth System Models developed independently by 21 climate centers in 12 different countries. The models have been effective at reproducing current climate conditions and varied in their projected departure

times by no more than five years. The study suggests that any progress to slow ongoing climate change will require a larger commitment from developed countries to reduce emissions, but also more extensive funding of social and conservation programs in developing countries to minimize climate change impacts. The longer we wait, the more difficult

remediation will be. "Scientists have repeatedly warned about climate change and its likely effects on biodiversity and people," said Mora. "Our study shows that such changes are already upon us. These results should not be reason to give up. Rather, they should encourage us to reduce emissions and slow the rate of climate change. This can buy time for species, ecosystems, and ourselves to adapt to the coming changes."

OceansClimate change causes sea level rise, temperature increase, warming oceans, glacial retreat, and ocean acidificationThe OSS (Open Source Systems Science and Solutions) Foundation 2008 “Human Caused Global Warming” The OSS Foundation is focused on facilitating research and solution development pertaining to multidisciplinary work in key areas of human endeavor that pertain to our sustainable capacity, and the living systems of Earth.

Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century. The effects of climate change will likely include more frequent droughts in some areas and heavier precipitation in others. Global temperature rise All three major global surface temperature reconstructions show that Earth has warmed since 1880. Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years . Even though the 2000s

witnessed a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep solar minimum in 2007-2009, surface temperatures continue to increase. Warming oceans The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. Shrinking ice sheets The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost 150 to 250 cubic kilometers (36 to 60 cubic miles) of ice per year between 2002 and 2006, while Antarctica lost about 152 cubic kilometers (36 cubic miles) of ice between 2002 and 2005. Declining Arctic sea ice Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. Glacial retreat Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa. Record high temperatures increasing. The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events. The carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s oceans has

been increasing since 1750, and is currently increasing about 2 billion tons per year. This has increased ocean acidity by about 30 percent. Ocean acidification The carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s oceans has been increasing since 1750, and is currently increasing about 2 billion tons per year. This has increased ocean acidity by about 30 percent.

A two degrees Celsius increase in temp. causes irreversible effects- sea level rise, ice disintegrationSchleussner et al 15 ; Carl, “C.-F. Schleussner1,2 , T. K. Lissner1,2 , E. M. Fischer3 , J. Wohland2 , M. Perrette2 , A. Golly4,6 , J. Rogelj3,5 , K. Childers2 , J. Schewe2 , K. Frieler2 , M. Mengel1,2 , W. Hare1,2 , and M. Schaeffer1,7 1Climate Analytics, Friedrichstr 231 – Haus B, 10969 Berlin, Germany 2Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany 3 Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland 4GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany 5Energy Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria 6University of Potsdam, Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, Potsdam, Germany 7Wageningen University and Research Centre, Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen, the Netherlands, Earth System Dynamics Discussions.” “Since 2009 he is a guest scientist at the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research working on various climate related research topics such as the stability of the North Atlantic Ocean Circulation, continental moisture recycling in South America and the relation between climate extremes and civil conflicts. He has expertise in climate modelling, analysing climate data and non-linear time series analysis techniques. Carl holds a PhD in Climate Physics at the University of Potsdam under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Anders Levermann.” 2015, Vol. 6 Issue 2, p2447-2505. 59p.

Humanity faces near certainty of eventual sea level rise of at least Eemian proportions, 15 5–9 m, if fossil fuel emissions continue on a business-as-usual course, e.g., IPCC scenario A1B that has CO2 ∼ 700 ppm in 2100 (Fig.

S21). It is unlikely that coastal cities or low-lying areas such as Bangladesh, European lowlands, and large portions of the United States eastern coast and northeast China plains (Fig. S22) could be protected against such large sea level rise. 20 Rapid large sea level rise may begin sooner than generally assumed. Amplifying feedbacks, including slowdown of SMOC and cooling of the near-Antarctic ocean surface with increasing sea ice, may spur nonlinear growth of

Antarctic ice sheet mass loss. Deep submarine valleys in West Antarctica and the Wilkes Basin of East Antarctica, each with access to ice

amounting to several meters of sea level, provide gateways 25 to the ocean. If the Southern Ocean forcing (subsurface warming) of the Antarctic ice sheets continues to grow, it likely will become impossible to avoid sea level rise of several meters, with the largest uncertainty being how rapidly it will occur . The Greenland ice sheet does not have as much ice subject to rapid nonlinear disintegration, so the speed at which it adds to 21st century sea level rise may be limited. However, even a slower Greenland ice sheet response is expected to be faster than carbon cycle or ocean thermal recovery times. Therefore, if climate forcing continues to grow rapidly, amplifying feedbacks will assure large eventual mass loss. Also with present growth of freshwater injection from Greenland, in combination with increasing North Atlantic precipitation, we already may be on the verge of substantial North Atlantic climate disruption. Storms conjoin with sea level rise to cause the most devastating coastal damage. 10 End-Eemian and projected 21st century conditions are similar in having warm tropics and increased freshwater injection. Our simulations imply increasing storm strengths for such situations, as a stronger temperature gradient caused by ice melt increases baroclinicity and provides energy for more severe weather events. A strengthened Bermuda High in the warm season increases prevailing northeasterlies that can help 15 account for stronger end-Eemian storms. Weakened cold season sea level pressure south of Greenland favors occurrence of atmospheric blocking that can increase wintertime Arctic cold air intrusions into northern midlatitudes. Effects of freshwater injection and resulting ocean stratification are occurring sooner in the real world than in our model. We suggest that this is an effect of excessive small 20 scale mixing in our model that limits stratification, a problem that may exist in other models (Hansen et al., 2011). We encourage similar simulations with other models, with special attention to the model’s ability to maintain realistic stratification and perturbations. This issue may be addressed in our model with increased vertical resolution, more accurate finite differencing method in ocean dynamics that reduces noise, and 25 use of a smaller background diffusivity. There are many other practical impacts of continued high fossil fuel emissions via climate change and ocean acidification, including irreplaceable loss of many species, as reviewed elsewhere (IPCC, 2013, 2014; Hansen et al., 2013a). However, sea level rise sets the lowest limit on allowable human-made climate forcing and CO2 , because of the Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms extreme sensitivity of sea level to ocean warming and the devastating economic and humanitarian impacts of a multi-meter sea level rise. Ice sheet response time is shorter than the time for natural geologic processes to remove CO2 from the climate system, so there is no morally defensible excuse to delay phase-out of

fossil fuel emissions as 5 rapidly as possible. We conclude that the 2 ◦C global warming “guardrail”, affirmed in the

Copenhagen Accord (2009), does not provide safety, as such warming would likely yield sea level rise of several meters along with numerous other severely disruptive consequences for human society and ecosystems. The Eemian, less than 2 ◦C warmer than pre-industrial 10 Earth, itself provides a clear indication of the danger, even though the orbital drive for

Eemian warming differed from today’s human-made climate forcing. Ongoing changes in the Southern Ocean, while global warming is less than 1 ◦C, provide a strong warning, as observed changes tend to confirm the mechanisms amplifying change. Predicted effects, such as cooling of the surface ocean around Antarctica, are occurring even faster than modeled. Our finding of global cooling from ice melt calls into question whether global temperature is the most fundamental metric for global climate in the 21st century. The first order requirement to stabilize climate is to remove Earth’s energy imbalance, which is now about +0.6 W m−2 , more energy coming in than going out. If other forcings are unchanged, removing this imbalance requires reducing atmospheric CO2 20 from ∼ 400

to ∼ 350 ppm (Hansen et al., 2008, 2013a). The message that the climate science delivers to policymakers, instead of defining a safe “guardrail”, is that fossil fuel CO2 emissions must be reduced as rapidly as practical . Hansen et al. (2013a) conclude that this implies a need for a rising carbon 25 fee or tax, an approach that has the potential to be near-global, as opposed to national caps or goals for emission reductions. Although a carbon fee is the sine qua non for phasing out emissions, the urgency of slowing emissions also implies other needs including widespread technical cooperation in clean energy technologies (Hansen et al., 2013a). Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms The task of achieving a reduction of atmospheric CO2 is formidable, but not impossible. Rapid transition to abundant affordable carbon-free electricity is the core requirement, as that would also permit production of net-zero-carbon liquid fuels from electricity. The rate at which CO2 emissions must be reduced is about 6 % yr−1 to reach 5 350 ppm atmospheric CO2 by about 2100, under the assumption that improved agricultural and forestry practices could sequester 100 GtC (Hansen et al., 2013a). The amount of CO2 fossil fuel emissions taken up by the ocean, soil and biosphere has continued to increase (Fig. S23), thus providing hope that it may be possible to sequester more than 100 GtC. Improved understanding of the carbon cycle and non-CO2 10 forcings are needed, but it is clear that the

essential requirement is to begin to phase down fossil fuel CO2 emissions rapidly. It is also clear that continued high emissions are likely to lock-in continued global energy imbalance, ocean warming, ice sheet disintegration, and large sea level rise, which young people and future generations would not be able to avoid. Given the inertia of the climate and energy systems, and the grave threat posed by continued high emissions, the matter is urgent and calls for emergency cooperation among nations.

Resource wars - foodEmpirics prove that climate change causes war – Decreased food production will cause social unrest, which will lead to conflictFang et al 2015

Lingbo Xiao, Xiuqi Fang, Jingyun Zheng and Wanyi Zhao. “Famine, migration and war: Comparison of climate change impacts and social responses in North China between the late Ming and late Qing dynasties” Ebscohost. Holocene. Jun2015, Vol. 25 Issue 6, p900-910. Accessed 6-29-16.

Climate change in 1470–1911 is described mainly based on previous studies. Specifically, temperature change was based on the temperature anomaly series in North China since the 1380s (Figure 2a, in 10-year

resolution; Wang et al., 1998); the precipitation change is mainly based on the annual dry-wet index series on the North China Plain over the past 1500years (Figure 2b; Zheng et al., 2006). To indicate the annual intensity of flood/drought in North China, the flood/drought index is calculated using the annual wetness/dryness grade data of 26 stations in North China from the Yearly Charts of Dryness/Wetness in China for the Last 500-Year Period (classified into five grades: 1, very wet; 2, wet; 3, normal; 4, dry; 5, very dry; CMA, 1981). The flood index, Pf (Figure 2c), and drought index, Pd (Figure 2d), are calculated with formula (1; Fang et al., 2013). P N = ×1 W N 122 + ×W (1) where N1 is the number of severely affected stations (dryness/ wetness grade is 1 or 5), N2 is the number of minimally affected stations (2 or 4), and W1 and W2 are the weights, which are assigned as 0.8 and 0.2, respectively.

Additionally, flood/drought is defined as 1 year with extreme drought/flood disaster when Pf or Pd⩾10. Climatic impacts and social responses Famine. In this paper, ‘county-time’ was used to quantify the frequency of ‘cannibalism’ (1 county-time signifies that cannibalism was recorded once in a county), which was an extreme consequence of famine caused by disasters. In China’s traditional society, whenever cannibalism occurred, the rulers and officials are blamed for serious dereliction of duty, and thus, it received much concern from historians. As a type of local history record, the chorography in the Ming and Qing, which nearly covered every county in North China, kept abundant historical information about natural disasters and consequent famine, among which cannibalism was hardly omitted. The data source was derived from A Compendium of Chinese Meteorological Records of the Last 3000Years (Zhang, 2004), whose original information was collected from the chorography in the Ming and Qing dynasty and contained the intensity and direct consequences of disasters. Therefore, records on cannibalism were fully preserved in this collection, and the place name of each record has been linked to the corresponding modern county. In total, 1115 pieces of records on cannibalism within the modern territory of five provinces and two municipalities of North China in 1470–1911 were collected on a county-level spatial resolution. An annual time-series of the frequency of cannibalism (countytime) was reconstructed (Figure 2e). Migration. Some sparsely populated regions in and around North China in the Ming and Qing dynasties became major destinations of refugees mainly caused by disasters from the core area of North China. When the immigrants increased above a certain level, the central government would set up a series of administrative units named Fu (equivalent to prefectures), Ting, Zhou and Xian (equivalent to counties) to manage them. Thus, the frequency of the establishment of administrative units in different periods could reflect the variation on the migration scale, and the spatial distribution of the new units indicated major destinations of refugees (Fang et al., 2013; Xiao et al., 2014; Ye et al., 2012). In this paper, the frequency of newly established administrative units was used as an indicator to describe the scale of migration in a certain period (Figure 2f), which was quantified with the annual number of new administrative units (Fu, Ting, Zhou and Xian) in and around North China. Considering individual travel distance under pre-industrial transportation conditions and migrating directions of refugees in North China in the Ming and Qing dynasties (Cao, 1997a, 1997b), the territory of the area ‘around North China’ was defined as the whole of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Gansu; portions of Hubei, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces located to the north of the Yangtze River; and a portion of Sichuan province located west of the Minjiang River and north of the Yangtze River (Figure 1).

These new administrative units are all marked on the modern map based on their geographic coordinates provided by Niu (1990, 1997; Figure 1). War. In this

paper, the war includes two categories: 1. Popular unrest (including armed uprising) occurring in North China. The great majority of the historical popular unrest was related to a survival crisis for refugees who were suffering from a shortage of food, and the survival crisis was often aggravated and even triggered by a reduction in grain production caused by climate change and disasters. Therefore, historical popular unrest was often taken as an extreme social response to climate deterioration (Zhang et al., 2007). For the North China Plain in the Qing dynasty, the relationship between popular unrest and climate change has been quantitatively identified (Fang et al., 2013; Xiao et al., 2011). In this paper, the annual frequency of popular unrest occurring in or spreading to North China was based on Chinese Military History: Tabulation of Wars (Fu et al., 1986) and General History of China (Fan and Cai, 1994; Figure 2g). 2. Wars between the central regime and nomadic tribes on the northern border (specifically, to the north of the Great Wall). In the Ming dynasty, the wars were against the Mongols and Manchus, and in the Qing, they were mainly against the Junggar Mongols. War between the central regime based on agriculture and nomadic tribes was an important theme of China’s history and played a crucial role in the rise and fall of many dynasties (Wang, 1996; Wang et al., 2010). The frequency variation could intuitively reflect the military pressure on the northern border, which further impacted the fiscal conditions, military power, migration policy decisions, and finally the social responsive strategy in North China. In this paper, the annual frequency of foreign wars on the northern border was based on Chinese Military History: Tabulation of Wars (Fu et al., 1986; Figure 2h). Analytical framework of the impacts of climate change and social responses

Agricultural production was the foundation of the socioeconomic system in ancient China. The impact of climate change on the society was made possible fundamentally through its direct impact on food production.

According to the theory of vulnerability and risk management, the social impact of climate change is a result of the interaction between climate change as an external perturbation and the vulnerable exposure of the social system, and the

vulnerability could be defined as the sensitivity to climate change and the capacity of the social system to respond (Gallopín, 2006; IPCC, 2012, 2014). Accordingly, a

food-security-based analytical framework of the impacts of historical climate change and social responses was constructed (Fang et al., 2013; Figure 3). In this framework, given a certain physical exposure, the impact of climate change on society was directly proportional to the intensity of climate change and the sensitivity of social system to climate change, whereas it was inversely proportional to the capacity of social response. Based on the framework and relevant proxy indicators, the mechanisms of the social impacts of climatic cooling around the turn of the 19th century on the North China Plain have been analysed (Fang et al., 2013). In this paper, we discuss the different climatic impacts and social responses between the late Ming and late Qing dynasties from three aspects: the intensity of climate change, sensitivity and responsive capacity of the social system.

Empirics prove that climate change worsens food insecurity – decreased food production ensures popular unrestFang et al 2015

Lingbo Xiao, Xiuqi Fang, Jingyun Zheng and Wanyi Zhao. “Famine, migration and war: Comparison of climate change impacts and social responses in North China between the late Ming and late Qing dynasties” Ebscohost. Holocene. Jun2015, Vol. 25 Issue 6, p900-910. Accessed 6-29-16.

Impacts of climate disasters and social responses Similarities between the late Ming and Qing dynasties. The previous studies on the North China Plain in the Qing dynasty have shown that the dominant responsive strategy of local society to

flood/drought altered significantly in different stages (Xiao et al., 2014); among these stages, the most important shift around

the turn of the 19th century could be described as the rapidly decreasing governmental efforts on disaster relief, remarkably increasing scale of refugees and more and more violent refugee behaviour. The climate deterioration occurring simultaneously was an important background of the shift. It was estimated that the reduction in crop yield because of climate deterioration had accelerated the intensification of the food insecurity on the North China Plain by approximately 20years (Fang et al., 2013). On a larger spatio-temporal scale,

namely, the whole North China in 1470–1911, it was also found that the climate deterioration in both the late Ming and Qing

enhanced the shift of social responses, which meant that in the two periods, extreme disasters (in particular drought)

more and more played the role of accelerator or even the trigger of social crisis , mainly embodied in the increasing occurrence of famine and popular unrest. In 1780– 1911 (the late Qing), cannibalism occurred for 163 county-times (1.23 per year), whereas it was only 51 in 1645–1779 (0.38); in the 85years of the late Ming (1560–1644), cannibalism occurred for 563 county-times (6.62), much more frequently than in 1470– 1559 (3.76; Figure 2e). A similar characteristic could be found in the frequency series of popular unrest: in the 1470s–1550s, 1560s–1640s, 1650s–1770s and 1780–1911, popular unrest broke out 15 (0.17 per year), 74 (0.82), 9 (0.07) and 30 (0.23) times, respectively (Figure 2f).

Empirics prove that climate change and disaster is proportional to their impacts – the more severe the change, the worse the impact Fang et al 2015

Lingbo Xiao, Xiuqi Fang, Jingyun Zheng and Wanyi Zhao. “Famine, migration and war: Comparison of climate change impacts and social responses in North China between the late Ming and late Qing dynasties” Ebscohost. Holocene. Jun2015, Vol. 25 Issue 6, p900-910. Accessed 6-29-16.

The intensity of climate change and extreme disaster is directly proportional to their impacts on society.

Under the same conditions, the greater the amplitude of climate change, the more severe the social consequences. The differences in climatic impacts and social responses between the late Ming and late Qing dynasties should be first attributed to different intensities of climate change and disaster. In both periods, there was significant climate deterioration; however, the one in the late Ming was much more severe,

which could be summarized as the following. 1. The disaster-concentrated period overlapped an extremely cold period in the late Ming. The late Ming and Qing dynasties were both relatively cold period. In North China, average temperature anomaly in 1560s–1640s (late Ming) was −0.42°C, and in 1780s–1910s (late Qing) was −0.29°C (Wang et al., 1998). The cooling rate in the early 17th century (temperature fell by 1.18°C in 1610s–1650s, about 0.30°C/10a) was also more rapid than the turn of 18th and 19th centuries (temperature fell by 1.18°C in 1780s–1830s, about 0.23°C/10a; Figure 2a). Moreover, in the late Ming (or more accurately at the turn of Ming and Qing dynasties) and late Qing, there was a disaster concentrated period, 1631–1660 and 1871–1900, respectively (Figure 4). Compared with the temperature anomaly series in North China (Wang et al., 1998), the temperature anomaly was −0.71°C on average (1630s–1650s) in the former peak stage and 0.1°C (1870s–1890s) in the latter one. The former one was an extremely cold period (just warmer than the 1650s–1670s and 1810s–1830s), while the latter one was a relatively warm period. The overlap between the disaster-concentrated period and

extremely cold period sharply increased the threat of climate deterioration to agricultural production. 2. Extreme disasters occurred more frequently with greater intensity in the late Ming. In 1560–1644, extreme flood/drought occurred for 498 station times (5.86 per year), in which extreme drought took a share of 63.1%. There were 14 extreme disaster years (with Pf or Pd⩾10) in a total of 85 years. Meanwhile in 1780–1911, extreme flood/ drought occurred for 669 station-times (5.07 per year) with extreme drought of 43.8% and 12 extreme disaster years out of 132years (Figure 2c and d). In the frequency peak of extreme disasters at the turn of Ming and Qing dynasties (1631–1660), extreme disasters occurred for 8.63 station-times per year and 6.73 station-times per year in the disaster-concentrated period in the late Qing (1871–1900; Figure 4). The Chongzhen Mega-drought at the end of the Ming dynasty was the most severe drought in the past 500 years in North China, even in the past 1500years (Zheng et al., 2006). Extreme drought occurred for 76 station-times in the peak stage of 1638–1641, 73% of the total. By contrast, during the Guangxu Mega-drought, the most severe drought in the Qing dynasty, extreme drought occurred for 49 station-times in the peak stage of 1876–1878, 63% of the total. In summary, in the late Ming, the frequency of extreme disaster, especially extreme drought, was higher and the intensity greater.

Sea Level Rise

New studies show that climate change higher than two degrees will cause unprecedented storms, washing away most if not all coastal cities and shoresGILLISMARCH 3/22/2016 ; JUSTIN, ““At the end of March, Columbia University awarded the 2011 Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism to New York Times reporter Justin Gillis for his ongoing multimedia series, Temperature Rising, examining the fundamental tenets of manmade climate change. Articles in the series, most of which appear on the front page, provide in-depth, back-to-basics assessments of global warming’s effects on glaciers, forests, food supply, weather, and more, and Gillis often follows up with more details on the Times’s Green Blog. Following his latest A1 story, about the strange run from hot to cold temperatures in recent weeks, CJR’s Curtis Brainard talked to Gillis about staying focused on a story that’s lost traction elsewhere in the media.” Scientists Warn of Perilous Climate Shift Within Decades, Not Centuries, nytimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/science/global-warming-sea-level-carbon-dioxide-emissions.html?smid=nytnow-share&smprod=nytnow&_r=0&mtrref=eoinhiggins.com

The nations of the world agreed years ago to try to limit global warming to a level they hoped would prove somewhat tolerable. But leading climate scientists warned on Tuesday that permitting a warming of that magnitude would actually be quite dangerous. The likely consequences would include killer storms stronger than any in modern times, the disintegration of large parts of the polar ice sheets and a rise of the sea sufficient to begin drowning the world’s coastal cities before the end of this century, the scientists declared. “We’re in danger of handing young people a situation that’s out of their control,” said James E. Hansen, the retired NASA climate scientist who led the new research. The findings were released Tuesday morning by a European science journal, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. A draft version of the paper was released last year, and it provoked a roiling debate among climate scientists. The main conclusions have not changed, and that debate seems likely to be replayed in the coming weeks.

The basic claim of the paper is that by burning fossil fuels at a prodigious pace and pouring heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, humanity is about to provoke an abrupt climate shift. Specifically, the authors believe that fresh water pouring into the oceans from melting land ice will set off a feedback loop that will cause parts of the great ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica to disintegrate rapidly. The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. We get it. This is your cheat sheet. That claim has intrigued some experts who say the paper may help explain puzzling episodes in Earth’s past when geological evidence suggests the climate underwent drastic shifts. Yet many other scientists are unconvinced by some of the specific assertions the authors are making. “Some of the claims in this paper are indeed extraordinary,” said Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. “They conflict with the mainstream understanding of

climate change to the point where the standard of proof is quite high.” Despite any reservations they might have about the new paper, virtually all climate scientists agree with Dr. Hansen’s group that society is not moving fast enough to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, posing grave risks. An agreement reached late last year in Paris seeks to cut emissions, but it is not remotely ambitious enough to limit global warming to the degree Dr. Hansen regards as necessary. Among Dr. Hansen’s colleagues, some of the discomfiture about the new paper stems from his dual roles as a publishing climate scientist and, in recent years, as a political activist. He has been arrested at rallies, and he has joined with a group of young people who sued the federal government over what they said was its failure to limit global warming. Dr. Hansen argues that society is in such grave peril that he feels morally compelled to go beyond the normal role played by a scientist and to sound a clear warning. That stance has made him a hero to college students fighting climate change, but some fellow scientists fear he has opened himself to

the charge that he is skewing his scientific research for political purposes. In 2009, nations agreed to try to limit the planetary warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius, above the preindustrial level. The Earth has already warmed by about half that amount. The climate appears to be destabilizing, virtually all land ice on the planet has started to melt, and the oceans are rising at an accelerating pace. The

paper, written by Dr. Hansen and 18 other authors, dwells on the last time Earth warmed naturally, about 120,000 years ago, when the temperature reached a level estimated to have been only slightly higher than today. Large chunks of the polar ice disintegrated then, and scientists have established that the sea level rose 20 to 30 feet. Climate scientists agree that humanity is about to cause an equal or greater rise in sea level, but they have

tended to assume that such a large increase would take centuries, at least. The new paper argues that it could happen far more rapidly, with the worst case being several feet of sea-level rise over the next 50 years, followed by increases so precipitous that they would force humanity to beat a hasty retreat from the coasts. “That would mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities and all their history,” Dr. Hansen said in a video statement that accompanied the new paper. The paper identifies a specific mechanism that the scientists say they believe could help cause such an abrupt climate shift. Their idea is that the initial melting of the great ice sheets will put a cap of relatively fresh water on the ocean surfaces near Antarctica and Greenland. That, they think, will slow or even shut down the system of ocean currents that redistributes heat around the planet and allows some of it to escape into space. Warmth will then accumulate in the deeper parts of the ocean, the scientists

think, speeding the melting of parts of the ice sheets that sit below sea level. In addition, a wider temperature difference between the tropics and the poles will encourage powerful storms, the researchers contend. The paper cites evidence, much of it contested, that immense storms happened during the warm period 120,000 years ago. For instance, the paper says such storms might have thrown giant boulders onto coastal ridges in the Bahamas, though other experts think a tsunami might have been responsible.

Sea levels are rising at the fastest rate in 28 centuries, immediate action key to stop melting iceGILLISMARCH, 2/22/16 ; JUSTIN, “At the end of March, Columbia University awarded the 2011 Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism to New York Times reporter Justin Gillis for his ongoing multimedia series, Temperature Rising, examining the fundamental tenets of manmade climate change. Articles in the series, most of which appear on the front page, provide in-depth, back-to-basics assessments of global warming’s effects on glaciers, forests, food supply, weather, and more, and Gillis often follows up with more details on the Times’s Green Blog. Following his latest A1 story, about the strange run from hot to cold temperatures in recent weeks, CJR’s Curtis Brainard talked to Gillis about staying focused on a story that’s lost traction elsewhere in the media.” Seas Are Rising at Fastest Rate in Last 28 Centuries, Nytimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/science/sea-level-rise-global-warming-climate-change.html

The worsening of tidal flooding in American coastal communities is largely a consequence of greenhouse gases from human activity, and the problem will grow far worse in coming decades, scientists reported

Monday. Those emissions, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, are causing the ocean to rise at the fastest rate since at least the founding of ancient Rome, the scientists said. They added that in the absence of human emissions, the ocean surface would be rising less rapidly and might even be falling. The increasingly routine tidal flooding is making life miserable in places like Miami Beach; Charleston, S.C.; and Norfolk, Va., even on sunny days. Though these types of floods often produce only a foot or two of standing saltwater, they are straining life in many towns by killing lawns and trees, blocking neighborhood streets and clogging storm drains, polluting supplies of freshwater and sometimes stranding entire island communities for hours by overtopping the roads that tie them to the mainland. Such events are just an early harbinger of the coming damage, the new research suggests. “I think we need a new way to think about most coastal flooding,” said Benjamin H. Strauss, the primary author of one of two related studies released on Monday. “It’s not

the tide. It’s not the wind. It’s us. That’s true for most of the coastal floods we now experience.” In the second study, scientists reconstructed the level of the sea over time and confirmed that it is most likely rising faster than at any point in 28 centuries, with the rate of increase growing sharply over the past century — largely, they found, because of the warming that scientists have said is almost certainly caused by human emissions. They also confirmed previous forecasts that if emissions were to continue at a high rate over the next

few decades, the ocean could rise as much as three or four feet by 2100. Experts say the situation would then grow far worse in the 22nd century and beyond, likely requiring the abandonment of many coastal cities. The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. We get it. This is your cheat sheet. The findings are yet another indication that the stable climate in which human civilization has flourished for thousands of years, with a largely predictable ocean permitting the growth of great coastal cities, is coming to an end. “I think we can definitely be confident that sea-level rise is going to continue to accelerate if there’s further warming, which inevitably there will be,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of ocean physics at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in Germany, and co-author of one of the papers, published online Monday by an American journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In a report issued to accompany that scientific paper, a climate research and communications organization in

Princeton, N.J., Climate Central, used the new findings to calculate that roughly three-quarters of the tidal flood days now occurring in towns along the East Coast would not be happening in the absence of the rise in the sea level caused by human emissions. The lead author of that report, Dr. Strauss, said the same was likely true on a

global scale, in any coastal community that has had an increase of saltwater flooding in recent decades. The rise in the sea level contributes only in a limited degree to the huge, disastrous storm surges accompanying hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy. Proportionally, it has a bigger effect on the nuisance floods that can accompany what are known as king tides. The change in frequency of those tides is striking. For instance, in the decade from 1955 to 1964 at Annapolis, Md., an instrument called a tide gauge measured 32 days of flooding; in the decade from 2005 to 2014, that jumped to 394 days. Flood days in Charleston jumped from 34 in the earlier decade to 219 in the more recent, and in Key West, Fla., the figure jumped from no flood days in the earlier decade to 32 in the more recent. The new research was led by Robert E. Kopp, an earth scientist at Rutgers University who has won respect from his colleagues by bringing elaborate statistical techniques to bear on longstanding problems, like understanding the history of the global sea level. A motorist driving through seawater in Charleston, S.C., last year. In the decade from 1955 to 1964, Charleston registered 34 days with flooding; in the decade from 2005 to 2014, the number jumped to 219. Based on extensive geological evidence, scientists already knew that the sea level rose drastically at the end of the last ice age, by almost 400 feet, causing shorelines to retreat up to a hundred miles in places. They also knew that the sea level had basically stabilized, like the rest of the climate, over the past several thousand years, the period when human civilization arose. But there were small variations of climate and sea level over that period, and the new paper is the most exhaustive attempt

yet to clarify them. The paper shows the ocean to be extremely sensitive to small fluctuations in the Earth’s temperature. The researchers found that when the average global temperature fell by a third of a degree Fahrenheit in the Middle Ages, for instance, the surface of the ocean dropped by about three inches in 400 years. When the climate warmed slightly, that trend reversed. “Physics tells us that sea-level change

and temperature change should go hand-in-hand,” Dr. Kopp said. “This new geological record confirms it.” In the 19th century, as the

Industrial Revolution took hold, the ocean began to rise briskly, climbing about eight inches since 1880. That sounds

small, but it has caused extensive erosion worldwide, costing billions. Due largely to human emissions, global temperatures have jumped about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century. The sea is rising at what appears to be an accelerating pace, lately reaching a rate of about a foot per century. One of the authors of the new paper,

Dr. Rahmstorf, had previously published estimates suggesting the sea could rise as much as five or six feet by 2100. But with the improved calculations from the new paper, his latest upper estimate is three to four feet. That means Dr. Rahmstorf’s forecast is now more consistent with calculations issued in 2013 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that periodically reviews and summarizes climate research. That body found that continued high emissions might produce a rise

in the sea of 1.7 to 3.2 feet over the 21st century. In an interview, Dr. Rahmstorf said the rise would eventually reach five feet and far more — the only question was how long it would take. Scientists say the recent climate agreement negotiated in Paris is not remotely ambitious enough to forestall a significant melting of Greenland and Antarctica, though if fully implemented, it may slow the pace somewhat. “Ice simply melts faster when the temperatures get higher,” Dr. Rahmstorf said. “That’s just basic physics.”

Tech Competitiveness Adv

US Falling Behind Failure to update our clean tech has a laundry list of reprecussionsKoranyi 16 (David Koranyi, 4/7/16, Paicific Council, “A U.S. Strategy for Sustainable Energy Security”, https://www.pacificcouncil.org/newsroom/us-strategy-sustainable-energy-security)

The national energy system of the United States is aging and has to be renewed in a dynamic fashion to adapt to the transformative changes in the world of energy. Failure to do so will result in substantial economic disadvantage and national security vulnerabilities, and risk the United States’ position as the leading global power in the twenty-first century. The need for modernization represents a unique opportunity to upgrade the United

States to a cutting edge system of energy hardware and software. Moreover, climate change is a severe threat to the United States and an existential one to much of the rest of humanity. Climate change represents an ever growing, direct risk to the American people as extreme weather events wreak havoc, rising sea levels engulf coastal cities, and natural beauties and wildlife habitats degrade. The impact of climate change on other countries’ economic, political, and security postures will have major repercussions on US national security and economic prosperity. The United States cannot isolate itself from political and social instability, mass migration, conflict over resources, poverty, and health epidemics that excessive climate change would induce and future generations will have to endure. Taking resolute action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a form of ‘insurance’ against the most severe and irreversible potential consequences of climate change. The longer action is postponed, the greater risks and higher costs are faced .

The US is falling behind in the primed market of clean tech development – allows foreign companies to make bank off of it in a litany of fieldsRosenthal 11 (Elizbeth Rosenthal, 6/8/11, New York Times, “U.S. Is Falling Behind in the Business of ‘Green’”, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/business/09subsidies.html?_r=0)

LEICESTER, England — The Mark Group started hunting for a new untapped market when it realized that its core business — insulating old homes using innovative technology — would drop off in coming years. Based in this rust-belt city, the company had grown rapidly over the last decade largely because of generous and mandatory government subsidies for energy conservation that impelled the British to treat their homes. But as a result of those incentives, market saturation was nearly complete — more than 80 percent of the country’s older homes had been at least partly retrofitted by 2010, the company estimated. So the Mark Group recently opened its newest office in another country, one with a relative paucity of expertise in the company’s specialty of cutting home energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions. The office is in Philadelphia. “The United States was a nearly untouched market with 120 million homes, most of them very energy-inefficient — it was a

massive opportunity,” said Bill Rumble, the company’s commercial director, who had recently returned from its new American headquarters. Many European countries — along with China, Japan and South Korea — have pushed commercial development of carbon-reducing technologies with a robust policy mix of direct government investment, tax breaks, loans, regulation and laws that cap or tax emissions . Incentives have fostered rapid entrepreneurial growth in new industries like solar and wind power, as well as in traditional fields like home

building and food processing, with a focus on energy efficiency. But with Congress deeply divided over whether climate change is

real or if the country should use less fossil fuel, efforts in the United States have paled in comparison. That slow start is

ceding job growth and profits to companies overseas that now profitably export their goods and expertise to the United States. A recent report by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that while the clean technology sector was booming in Europe, Asia and Latin America, its competitive position was “at risk” in the United States because of “uncertainties surrounding key policies and incentives.” “This is a $5 trillion business and if we fail to be serious players in the new energy economy, the costs will be staggering to this country,” said Hal Harvey, a Stanford engineer who was an adviser to both the Clinton and the first Bush administration and is now chief executive of the San Francisco-based energy and environment nonprofit organization Climate Works. Although the 2009 stimulus bill provided a burst of funding — $45 billion

— that has now tapered off, he said, “We’ve let energy policy succumb to partisan politics.” The aggressive entry of Britain into the field over the last few years shows the power of government inducements to redesign a nation’s energy economy away from traditional fuel. The country’s Green Deal, as it is called, is currently being spearheaded by the Conservative-led coalition government. In Britain, reducing carbon dioxide emissions was one of the few policies supported by political parties of both the right and left, which both accepted that climate change was a serious problem and saw clean technology investment as a growth opportunity rather than an onerous obligation. “We are determined to harness the industrial benefits of the low-carbon economy ahead of the rest of the pack — we see it as a competitive advantage,” said Gregory Barker, Britain’s minister of state for energy and climate change. Last month, Mr. Barker led the first British green trade delegation to the United States; it included a wind energy company and a battery maker, but also Adnams Southwold, a famed brewery that now makes beer using less energy and water, and the Mark Group. President Obama has vowed a switch to cleaner energy,

and some states, like California, have taken aggressive measures. But the current patchwork of government inducements remains generally insufficient as a draw for American companies and investors to jump into new fields like wind power, energy-efficient appliances or even mass-market insulation, because upfront costs are large and profits uncertain. Energy Department officials express frustration that they cannot do more at a crucial juncture without the support of Congress. Dr. Arun Majumdar, senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, said that the department’s $5 billion budget for research should be tripled as it currently financed less than 5 percent of proposed projects. He said the country needed better low-cost financing methods to bring companies into the market, as well as stricter energy-efficiency standards to stimulate customer demand. “We want this ecosystem to grow and thrive like I.T. and biotechnology,” he said, adding he was “concerned” it

would not. While he agreed the United States remained a hotbed of good ideas, he said, “in actual downstream deployment we are at risk of falling behind — we are falling behind already.” Of the three largest operators of wind farms doing business in the United States, only one, NextEra, is American.

Iberdrola is Spanish and Horizon Wind Energy is a subsidiary of Energias de Portugal. Among manufacturers making components for the industry, just one American company, General Electric, is in the top 10 . The others

include Suzlon (India), Vestas (Denmark), Goldwind (China) and Enercon (Germany). Tighter energy-efficiency standards for machinery and appliances established in Europe, Japan and China have “primed the demand pump” for companies in those countries to develop innovative designs that use less energy than United States products , said Stefan Heck, head of McKinsey’s global clean technology practice. California is the only American state to adopt similarly high standards. With less ambitious targets for things like emissions reductions and far lower financial incentives than are common elsewhere, United States policies have had a lackluster incubator effect. The United States’ Energy Star Program, for example, offers homeowners who buy energy-efficient

appliances or add insulation to their homes a tax credit equal to 10 percent of the cost — with a cap of $500. When David Slap recently hired the Mark Group to insulate his four-bedroom house in Penn Valley, Pa. — motivated by drafts and a fear of rising fuel prices — he paid over $5,000, all of it out of pocket. Contrast that to the subsidy

program offered in Britain. Power companies in Britain have been required to progressively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and this year 68 percent of that reduction had to come from subsidizing professionally installed insulation in customers’ homes. Low-income and elderly customers got the home improvements free. Others paid less than $1,000 to insulate a four-bedroom home, the full cost subsidized 40 to 60 percent. Residents recouped their investment in 12 to 18 months as fuel bills after insulation typically decreased 20 to 30 percent. “This policy framework allowed the industry to mature — we became cheaper, the quality improved,” Mr. Rumble said. The company developed a mobile infrared scanner operated from a van that could screen 1,000 homes an hour for heat loss as it cruised by. Other British initiatives included money for new offshore wind farms, payments to homeowners who generated electricity and heat with renewable power, and loans for installing rooftop solar panels that could be progressively repaid from savings on home energy bills. With its extensive experience in retrofitting homes in Britain, the Mark Group is expecting success in United States markets like Philadelphia, where the business is

largely the province of small local contractors. Some federal incentives may be on the horizon, though many will require Congressional approval. The Energy Department has pressed hard for a new home energy score program that would rate

homes for energy efficiency just as cars are rated for gas mileage; that rating would be available to potential buyers. Will United States companies be able to compete on the world market in the future? Not unless the country invests more in basic research in renewable energy and energy efficiency, said Emily Carter, a professor of energy and the environment

at Princeton University. “If we don’t invest in ways to efficiently produce sustainable energy, then I worry that once we stop importing from the Middle East, we’ll simply find ourselves importing from China.”

Other G20 countries are successfully using clean energy- its time the US joined themFielding 10 (Rachel Fielding, 3/25/10, BusinessGreen: part of the Guardian Environment Network, “Pew report: China overtakes US as top clean tech investor”, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/mar/25/pew-report-china-us-clean-tech)

China has overtaken the US for the first time in a league table of investments in low-carbon energy among the G-20, according to a new report by not for profit group the Pew Charitable Trusts published this week. The report found that despite an overall

6.6 per cent global decline in clean energy investments last year, China invested almost twice as much as the United States in clean energy during 2009. Pew blamed the worst financial downturn in over half a century for the reduction in clean techinvestments, but echoed growing confidence in the sector, predicting investments will bounce nback to around $200bn this year. The report, entitled Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race?, said that last year China invested $34.6bn in the clean energy economy, placing it top

of the clean energy investment league and well ahead of the US in second place with investment of $18.6bn. Phyllis Cuttino, director of

Pew Environment Group's US Global Warming Campaign, criticised the US government for failing to deliver stronger national policies to support renewable energy. "I'm worried that we are going to fall further down the list next year," she said. "We really need to pass policy." The US administration has been locked in a year long battle to pass a climate change bill that would impose a national carbon pricing mechanism and introduce new incentives for low carbon projects. However, the bill has faced staunch opposition from Republicans and some Democrats and while a compromise version of the legislation is expected to be unveiled

in the next few weeks commentators remain sceptical that the bill can pass this year. The Pew report also expressed concern about America's competitive position in the clean energy marketplace, noting that relative to the size of its economy the US clean energy finance and investments lag behind many of its G20 partners. In relative terms, the UK invested three times more than the United States last year, and overall 10 other G20 members devoted a greater percentage of gross domestic product to clean energy than the United States in 2009. The Pew report said those countries with strong, national policies aimed at reducing global warming and

encouraging the use of renewable energy – including the UK, Germany and Spain - had succeeded in establishing stronger competitive

positions in the clean energy economy. "Nations seeking to compete effectively for clean energy jobs and manufacturing would do well to evaluate the array of policy mechanisms that can be employed to stimulate clean energy investment," the report stated. "This is especially true for policymakers in the United States, which is at risk of falling further behind its G20 competitors in the coming years absent adoption of a strong national policy framework to spur more robust clean energy investment."

US is losing the race – they have an ineffective strategy to competeAtkinson et. al 10 ( Rob Atkinson, Ph.D, is founder and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Darrene Hackler, Ph.D, is Senior Fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Jesse Jenkins is Director of

Energy and Climate Policy at the Breakthrough Institute. Devon Swezey is Project Director at the Breakthrough Institute. Mark Muro is

Fellow and Director of Policy at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program., June 2010, Breakthrough Institute, ITIF, and the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, STRENGTHENING CLEAN ENERGY COMPETITIVENESS: OPPORTUNITIES FOR AMERICA COMPETES REAUTHORIZATION, accessed 6/29/16, http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Strengthening_Clean_Energy_Competitiveness.pdf)

Accelerating U.S. clean energy innovation, manufacturing, and commercialization is an environmental necessity. Without new innovations and a robust clean energy technology policy, the United States will not be able to reduce greenhouse

gas emissions (GHG) to needed levels, unless the price of GHGs rises to politically unsustainable levels.1 As important as these environmental objectives are, clean energy innovation is also an economic imperative . Investments in the global clean energy industry are expected to grow 25 percent to $200 billion in 20102 and are predicted to reach $600 billion by 2020.3 Government policy and public investment will be critical determinants of which countries become leaders in the race to attract that clean

energy technology investment and the economic and job creation benefits these investments will bring. Unfortunately, the United

States is lagging behind in this race, in part because it lacks an effective strategy to compete. Even if proposed carbon trading legislation becomes law, the resulting price on carbon will be too low and accompanying efficiency and renewable energy regulations will not be sufficient on their own to ensure that the United States catches up to countries like China in building the clean energy industries of the future.4 To regain leadership in the global clean energy industry, the United States must prioritize major public investments in clean energy technology and embrace bold new paradigms in clean energy innovation, education, production, and manufacturing.5

US was ranked dead last in improvement from 2000-2010 – China ranked firstAtkinson et. al 10 ( Rob Atkinson, Ph.D, is founder and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Darrene Hackler, Ph.D, is Senior Fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Jesse Jenkins is Director of

Energy and Climate Policy at the Breakthrough Institute. Devon Swezey is Project Director at the Breakthrough Institute. Mark Muro is

Fellow and Director of Policy at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program., June 2010, Breakthrough Institute, ITIF, and the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, STRENGTHENING CLEAN ENERGY COMPETITIVENESS: OPPORTUNITIES FOR AMERICA COMPETES REAUTHORIZATION, accessed 6/29/16, http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Strengthening_Clean_Energy_Competitiveness.pdf)

The United States faces broad challenges in its innovation system. The recent Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) report, “Atlantic Century,” ranked the United States sixth out of 40 countries in innovation capacity and internal competitiveness, but dead last among the 40 nations in the rate of improvement over the last decade.10 Meanwhile, China ranked first in rate of improvement, just one among several nations investing heavily to make rapid gains in innovation capacity.11 In other words, having already ceded the lead in innovation, the U.S. position relative to other nations will only continue to deteriorate unless Congress takes concrete steps to regain an innovative edge. America’s lead in next generation clean energy technologies is tenuous at best. Although the United States invented many of the clean energy technologies in wide application today – including nuclear, wind, and solar power – clean energy innovation is now global, with other Breakthrough Institute, ITIF, and the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program JUNE 2010 STRENGTHENING CLEAN ENERGY COMPETITIVENESS 5 countries competitively investing in next generation clean technology R&D. The United States is only slightly ahead of Japan in clean energy patents and government investment in energy R&D, yet as a percentage of GDP, the governments of Japan and South Korea actually outspend the United States on energy innovation two-to-one.12 U.S. private sector energy R&D spending is minuscule, accounting for less than one half of one percent of industry revenues – one tenth of the nation-wide industry average and two orders of magnitude less than innovation-intensive industries like IT or biomedical technology.13 In fact, U.S. firms are even moving state-of-the-art energy research operations overseas.14 us, increased U.S. public investment in clean energy R&D is necessary to !ll the innovation gap and secure America’s leadership in clean energy innovation.

China surpasses the US in pretty much every clean energy fieldAtkinson et. al 10 ( Rob Atkinson, Ph.D, is founder and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Darrene Hackler, Ph.D, is Senior Fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Jesse Jenkins is Director of

Energy and Climate Policy at the Breakthrough Institute. Devon Swezey is Project Director at the Breakthrough Institute. Mark Muro is

Fellow and Director of Policy at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program., June 2010, Breakthrough Institute, ITIF, and the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, STRENGTHENING CLEAN ENERGY COMPETITIVENESS: OPPORTUNITIES FOR AMERICA COMPETES REAUTHORIZATION, accessed 6/29/16, http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Strengthening_Clean_Energy_Competitiveness.pdf)

The United States also lags behind its economic competitors in the growing race to commercialize and manufacture clean energy technologies. The Breakthrough Institute and ITIF report, “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” documents that China, Japan, and South Korea have collectively surpassed the United States in the

production of virtually all clean energy technologies, from solar and wind energy, to nuclear power, high-speed rail, and advanced vehicles and the batteries that power them .15 Job creation has become a top concern among policymakers, and recent studies indicate that a large portion of clean energy jobs are created in the design and manufacturing stages of the value chain. For example, 70 percent of the jobs associated with wind energy deployment are created in manufacturing, with only

30 percent created in installation and maintenance.16 Yet clean energy manufacturing continues to move overseas, threatening the growth of a critical industry that could contribute to the nation’s economic recovery .17

US clean tech industry in danger of failing – key to US economic competitiveness.Martin 4/20/12, Richard (editorial director of Pike Research, the leading cleantech market intelligence firm). “Can America avoid a cleantech collapse?” Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/pikeresearch/2012/04/20/can-america-avoid-a-cleantech-collapse/

In a sharply worded analysis that will cause fear and trembling in the U.S. cleantech industry, a group of three research and policy organizations have produced a report saying that a cleantech collapse is imminent in this country unless subsidies, incentives, and federal policies are extended and reformed. Entitled “Beyond Boom & Bust,” the lengthy report from the Brookings Institution, the Breakthrough Institute, and the World Resources Institute argues

that, according to many indicators, the cleantech sectors have achieved remarkable successes over the last half decade: “Renewable energy generation doubled from 2006 to 2011, the first new nuclear plants in decades are under construction, and prices for solar, wind and other clean energy technologies have fallen while employment in those sectors has risen by

70,000 jobs even during a deep recession.” Unfortunately those gains are not enough to create a self-sustaining and thriving cleantech industry: “Despite this recent success, however, nearly all clean tech segments in the United States remain reliant on production and deployment subsidies and other supportive policies to gain an expanding foothold in today’s energy

markets. Now, many of these subsidies and policies are poised to expire—with substantial implications for the clean tech industry.” On both the glowing-success and the looming-chasm side, this echoes many of the themes we at

Pike Research have been pointing out over the last year, including in this blog on the so-called cleantech bust. The cleantech subsidies provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which are now winding down, are not only the target of withering scorn from the opponents of President Obama, but also generally tend to be viewed differently than fossil fuel subsidies, which have been around so long as to have become an accepted feature of the energy landscape. Whatever your

political or economic point of view, though, there’s one fact that is incontestable: the U nited States stands to fall far behind other nations in its commitment to new energy technology and new business models for generating and supplying energy. The “cleantech gap” is especially worrisome when it comes to China, which is shaping up to be both an economic and military revival to the U nited States in this century. But a quick scan of Pike Research blogs turns up this theme repeatedly, whether it’s Denmark pledging to move to 100% renewable energy by 2050 , smart grid development in Germany , green data centers in Iceland , the United Kingdom becoming a leader in offshore wind power , or the European Union’s ambitious“20/20/20” initiative, which could impose stiff costs to businesses in the short run but is nevertheless an achievement in long-term, non-partisan policy thinking that the U.S. seems structurally incapable of today. The “Beyond Boom & Bust” report makes several policy recommendations for avoiding the possible decimation of America’s cleantech industry, including “Reforming energy deployment subsidies and policies to reward technology improvement and cost declines,” and “Strengthen the U.S. energy innovation system to make clean energy cheap.” Unfortunately those are the kind of sweeping ideals that tend to gather dust on policy maker’s shelves. And the economic boom being powered, in some regions of the country, by cheap natural gas (which I cover in the current issue of Fortune) makes investment in clean-energy technology an even more courageous effort. A bipartisan energy bill that puts in place a far-sighted vision for the future of energy seems, more than ever, like a receding goal.

There are small signs , though, that at least at the state level, politicians and businesspeople are waking up to the danger of letting the cleantech achievements slide off a cliff. There’s nothing like the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and the erosion of national economic competitiveness to grab people’s attention.

Clean Energy Key

Clean energy can have a large contribution to America’s international tech competitiveness – lots of innovation, growth, and trade in the field proveWhitehouse.gov 11 (2011, “transitioning to a clean energy future”, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/2011_erp_chapter6.pdf)

A future with cleaner energy sources promises numerous benefits. Innovation in cleaner energy will reduce U.S. dependence on oil—over half of which is imported—decreasing the vulnerability of the U.S. economy to supply disruptions and price spikes (Box 6-1). Cleaner energy will improve the quality of the air American families breathe, because energy use accounts for the vast majority of air pollution such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide. Cleaner energy is essential for the United States to make progress toward its pledge, as part of the United Nations Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, to cut carbon dioxide (CO2 ) and other human-induced greenhouse gases by roughly 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and to meet its long-term goal of reducing emissions

by more than 83 percent by 2050. Finally, supported by well-designed policies, clean energy can make an important contribution to America’s ability to compete internationally using innovative new technologies, while also having ancillary economic benefits like lower risks from accidents at coal mines and oil wells . These same security, environmental, and economic risks confront all the countries of the world to varying degrees. And many, like the United States,

have embarked on efforts to transition to cleaner sources of energy. As a consequence, the clean energy sector is likely to be a vibrant source of innovation, growth, and international trade worldwide. Innovation is an engine of the American economy and a key to long-term job creation and economic growth. Those nations that invest first, and whose transition efforts are most successful, are likely to lead the world in exporting equipment and expertise as the rest of the world’s countries seek the same secure, clean, affordable energy. The number of clean energy patents worldwide grew about 20 percent per year from 1997 through 2007, and the United States was home to 18 percent of the clean energy patents issued between 1988 and 2007, behind Japan with 30 percent (UNEP, EPO, and ICTSD 2010). The Obama Administration’s commitment to clean energy represents an effort to ensure that the United States does not slip behind but instead leads the world in this critical sector. The benefits of transitioning to clean energy—energy security, cleaner air, fewer risks from climate change, and enhanced economic competitiveness—are enjoyed by everybody, not just the producers or consumers of the clean energy. As a

consequence, the benefits are not fully represented in market prices. Examples of these benefit spillovers abound. Clean energy innovators reap only part of the overall rewards for their efforts—the rest spill over to others who build on their work. The payments that solar and wind power generators receive for the electricity they supply do not reflect the benefits that spill over to the rest of the economy. Energy users reap only part of the benefits from weatherizing their homes and driving electric vehicles. These spillover benefits are substantial. A peer-reviewed report prepared by the EPA estimates that for the year 2010 alone, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 yielded net benefits of $1.2 trillion—everything from lives saved to healthier kids to a more productive workforce (EPA

2010). These spillovers mean that market rewards for switching to clean energy production are lower than the societywide benefits, market costs of switching to clean energy consumption are higher than the societywide costs, and markets alone provide less clean energy than is optimal.

Clean energy field is key – estimated $600 billion in investments by the end of the decade –but government policy is the determining factorAtkinson et. al 10 ( Rob Atkinson, Ph.D, is founder and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Darrene Hackler, Ph.D, is Senior Fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Jesse Jenkins is Director of

Energy and Climate Policy at the Breakthrough Institute. Devon Swezey is Project Director at the Breakthrough Institute. Mark Muro is

Fellow and Director of Policy at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program., June 2010, Breakthrough Institute, ITIF, and the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, STRENGTHENING CLEAN ENERGY COMPETITIVENESS: OPPORTUNITIES FOR AMERICA COMPETES REAUTHORIZATION, accessed 6/29/16, http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Strengthening_Clean_Energy_Competitiveness.pdf)

Accelerating U.S. clean energy innovation, manufacturing, and commercialization is an environmental necessity. Without new innovations and a robust clean energy technology policy, the United States will not be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to

needed levels, unless the price of GHGs rises to politically unsustainable levels.1 As important as these environmental objectives are, clean energy innovation is also an economic imperative. Investments in the global clean energy industry are expected to grow 25 percent to $200 billion in 20102 and are predicted to reach $600 billion by 2020.3 Government policy and public investment will be critical determinants of which countries become leaders in the race to attract that clean energy technology investment and the economic and job creation benefits these investments will bring. Unfortunately, the United States is lagging behind in this race, in part because it lacks an effective strategy to compete. Even if proposed carbon trading legislation becomes law, the resulting price on carbon will be too low and accompanying efficiency and renewable energy regulations will not be sufficient on their own to ensure that the United States catches up to countries like China in building the clean energy industries of

the future.4 To regain leadership in the global clean energy industry, the United States must prioritize major public investments in clean energy technology and embrace bold new paradigms in clean energy innovation, education, production, and manufacturing.5

An increase in clean energy funded by the government will further our nation’s economic competitiveness- empirics proveCaperton 12 (Richard W. Caperton; Director of Clean Energy Investment at the Center for American Progress, 1/10/12, Center for American Progress, “Good Government Investments in Renewable Energy”, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2012/01/10/10956/good-government-investments-in-renewable-energy/)

Budget deficits drove the conversation in Washington in 2011 with the daily news dominated by government shutdown threats, the “super committee,” continuing resolutions, and arcane budgeting practices. Unfortunately, this left Americans convinced that government investments in the future are off the table because of large federal budget deficits that need to be reduced. Americans were misled. As the Center for American Progress points out, the United States can balance our budget, reduce our long-term debt, and make key investments in our future all at the same time. CAP’s plan works toward a more vibrant economy where all Americans are better off and clean energy is an integral part of

this future. Best of all, the investments that government needs to make are relatively modest and can be paid for by ending wasteful spending in the same energy sector. There is no doubt that Americans need clean energy because it’s vital to our nation’s economic competitiveness, security, and health. There is also no doubt that government will play an important role in making the transition to clean energy. Why? Because the federal government always has been—and always will be—a player in energy markets. The federal government has made investments in energy for more than a century7 , by granting access to resources on public lands, helping build railroads and waterways to transport fuels, building dams to provide electricity, subsidizing exploration and extraction of fossil fuels, providing financing to electrify rural America, taking on risk in nuclear power, and conducting research and

development in virtually all energy sources. There’s no reason that Washington should stop making new investments. Considering the history, government investment has led to amazing developments, including universal access to reliable and

affordable electricity, lasting economic development, and industrial growth. This success story alone could justify continued government engagement of vibrant energy markets. When we consider that investments in clean

energy are investments in America’s future, it’s clear that the smart choice is to make these investments to meet the next generation of energy challenges and to produce a foundation of affordable, reliable, and clean energy alternatives for future waves of investment and opportunity. At the same time we can no longer afford indiscriminate or wasteful subsidies. It is essential that government’s investments in energy be fair, effective, and efficient. This issue brief

examines how the government currently invests in renewable energy, when those investments are effective, and how those investments should work in the future.

The clean tech industry is necessary for future economic competitivenessMartin 4/20/12, Richard (editorial director of Pike Research, the leading cleantech market intelligence firm). “Can America avoid a cleantech collapse?” Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/pikeresearch/2012/04/20/can-america-avoid-a-cleantech-collapse/

In a sharply worded analysis that will cause fear and trembling in the U.S. cleantech industry, a group of three research and policy organizations have produced a report saying that a cleantech collapse is imminent in this country unless subsidies, incentives, and federal policies are extended and reformed. Entitled “Beyond Boom & Bust,” the lengthy report from the Brookings Institution, the Breakthrough Institute, and the World Resources Institute argues

that, according to many indicators, the cleantech sectors have achieved remarkable successes over the last half decade: “Renewable energy generation doubled from 2006 to 2011, the first new nuclear plants in decades are under construction, and prices for solar, wind and other clean energy technologies have fallen while employment in those sectors has risen by

70,000 jobs even during a deep recession.” Unfortunately those gains are not enough to create a self-sustaining and thriving cleantech industry: “Despite this recent success, however, nearly all clean tech segments in the United States remain reliant on production and deployment subsidies and other supportive policies to gain an expanding foothold in today’s energy

markets. Now, many of these subsidies and policies are poised to expire—with substantial implications for the clean tech industry.” On both the glowing-success and the looming-chasm side, this echoes many of the themes we at

Pike Research have been pointing out over the last year, including in this blog on the so-called cleantech bust. The cleantech subsidies provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which are now winding down, are not only the target of withering scorn from the opponents of President Obama, but also generally tend to be viewed differently than fossil fuel subsidies, which have been around so long as to have become an accepted feature of the energy landscape. Whatever your

political or economic point of view, though, there’s one fact that is incontestable: the U nited States stands to fall far behind other nations in its commitment to new energy technology and new business models for generating and supplying energy. The “cleantech gap” is especially worrisome when it comes to China, which is shaping up to be both an economic and military revival to the U nited States in this century. But a quick scan of Pike Research blogs turns up this theme repeatedly, whether it’s Denmark pledging to move to 100% renewable energy by 2050 , smart grid development in Germany , green data centers in Iceland , the United Kingdom becoming a leader in offshore wind power , or the European Union’s ambitious“20/20/20” initiative, which could impose stiff costs to businesses in the short run but is nevertheless an achievement in long-term, non-partisan policy thinking that the U.S. seems structurally incapable of today. The “Beyond Boom & Bust” report makes several policy recommendations for avoiding the possible decimation of America’s cleantech industry, including “Reforming energy deployment subsidies and policies to reward technology improvement and cost declines,” and “Strengthen the U.S. energy innovation system to make clean energy cheap.” Unfortunately those are the kind of sweeping ideals that tend to gather dust on policy maker’s shelves. And the economic boom being powered, in some regions of the country, by cheap natural gas (which I cover in the current issue of Fortune) makes investment in clean-energy technology an even more courageous effort. A bipartisan energy bill that puts in place a far-sighted vision for the future of energy seems, more than ever, like a receding goal.

There are small signs , though, that at least at the state level, politicians and businesspeople are waking up to the danger of letting the cleantech achievements slide off a cliff. There’s nothing like the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and the erosion of national economic competitiveness to grab people’s attention.

K 2 Economy

Renewable energy boosts the economy -- They create thousands of jobs and help increase tax revenue which both have a ripple efffect to the rest of the economyUnion of Concerned Scientists, No date, Benefits of Renewable Energy Use, (latest cite in article from 2013) The Union of Concerned Scientists is a nonprofit science advocacy organization based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists, Accessed from http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/public-benefits-of-renewable.html#.V37rj5MrIp9 on 7-7-2016 -O'Brien

Compared with fossil fuel technologies, which are typically mechanized and capital intensive, the renewable energy industry is more labor-

intensive. This means that, on average, more jobs are created for each unit of electricity generated from renewable sources than from fossil fuels.∂ Renewable energy already supports thousands of jobs in the United

States. For example, in 2011, the wind energy industry directly employed 75,000 full-time-equivalent employees in

a variety of capacities, including manufacturing, project development, construction and turbine installation, operations and maintenance, transportation and logistics, and financial, legal, and consulting services [10].

More than 500 factories in the United States manufacture parts for wind turbines, and the amount of domestically manufactured equipment used in wind turbines has grown dramatically in recent years: from 35 percent in 2006 to 70 percent in 2011 [11,

12].∂ Other renewable energy technologies employ even more workers. In 2011, the solar industry employed approximately

100,000 people on a part-time or full-time basis, including jobs in solar installation, manufacturing, and sales [13]; the

hydroelectric power industry employed approximately 250,000 people in 2009 [14]; and in 2010 the geothermal industry employed 5,200 people [15].∂ Increasing renewable energy has the potential to create still more jobs. In

2009, the Union of Concerned Scientists conducted an analysis of the economic benefits of a 25 percent renewable energy standard by 2025; it found that such a policy would create more than three times as many jobs as producing an equivalent amount of electricity from fossil fuels—resulting in a benefit of 202,000 new jobs in 2025 [16]. ∂ In addition

to the jobs directly created in the renewable energy industry, growth in renewable energy industry creates positive economic “ripple” effects. For example, industries in the renewable energy supply chain will benefit, and unrelated local businesses will benefit from increased household and business incomes [17].∂ In addition to creating new jobs,

increasing our use of renewable energy offers other important economic development benefits. Local governments collect property

and income taxes and other payments from renewable energy project owners. These revenues can help support vital public services, especially in rural communities where projects are often located. Owners of the land on which wind projects are built also often receive lease payments ranging from $3,000 to $6,000 per megawatt of installed capacity, as well as payments for power line easements and road rights-of-way. Or they may earn

royalties based on the project’s annual revenues. Similarly, farmers and rural landowners can generate new sources of

supplemental income by producing feedstocks for biomass power facilities.∂ UCS analysis found that a 25 by 2025 national renewable electricity standard would stimulate $263.4 billion in new capital investment for

renewable energy technologies, $13.5 billion in new landowner income biomass production and/or wind land lease payments, and $11.5 billion in new property tax revenue for local communities [18].∂ Renewable energy projects therefore keep money circulating within the local economy, and in most states renewable electricity production would reduce the need to spend money on importing coal and natural gas from other places. Thirty-eight states were net importers of coal in 2008—from other states and, increasingly, other countries: 16 states spent a total of more than $1.8 billion on coal from as far away as Colombia, Venezuela, and Indonesia, and 11 states spent more than $1 billion each on net coal imports [19].

Clean energy is key to global economic growthMahmoud Habboush January 16, 2016 “Renewable Energy Focus Could Give Global Economic Growth a Boost” Staff writer for Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-16/renewable-energy-focus-could-give-global-economic-growth-a-boost

Doubling the share of solar, wind and other renewables in the energy mix would boost global economic growth by as much as 1.1 percent by 2030, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. The gains equal to $1.3 trillion would mostly come from increased investment, IRENA said in a report on Saturday. That would boost “direct and indirect” industry employment to 24.4 million people, according to the report. Last year, it estimated sector employment at as many as 9.2 million people. “Doubling the share of renewables in the global energy mix pays back in terms of economic growth, social welfare, job creation and overall trade balances,” it said in conjunction with its annual meeting in Abu Dhabi. “This study, the first of its kind, provides a solid basis for future work to quantify the growth-enhancing potential of renewable energy in the global economy.” Total energy demand is expected to increase by 21 percent by 2030, the group said, citing International Energy Agency data. The share of the energy sector to gross domestic product is 6 percent, ranging from 57 percent in Kuwait to 3 percent in Germany, it said

K 2 ManufacturingClean energy is key to US manufacturingBY AYESHA RASCOE Wed Nov 4, 2009 3:17pm EST “Clean energy to boost US manufacturing jobs-study” Staff writer for Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-renewables-manufacturing-idUSTRE5A351U20091104

U.S. clean energy legislation could help create 850,000 manufacturing jobs around the country, a report from a group representing business and environmental interests said on Wednesday. The study conducted the Blue Green Alliance found that policies such as a renewable electricity mandate would provide steady demand for clean energy and put Americans to work building the components needed to make wind turbines, solar panels and other technologies. "There's no question that our big investment in clean energy can lead to the rebirth of American manufacturing," said David Foster, executive director of the alliance. States with the most potential for creating renewable manufacturing jobs include California with an estimated 95,616 jobs, Texas with 60,100 and Illinois with 56,579. The Obama administration has promoted development of clean energy technology as a way to revive the lagging economy, while lowering the nation's dependence on climate-warming fossil fuels. A center piece of the administration's energy agenda is establishing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, forcing industries to adopt greener practices. The alliance's report said such legislation is necessary to bolster creation of clean manufacturing jobs. Critics say claims of a clean energy revolution are overblown and climate legislation would kill many more jobs than it creates. In addition to limits on carbon emissions, the study also recommended creating a renewable electricity standard that would require utilities to generate at least 25 percent of electricity from renewables by 2025. The report also calls for more efficiency standards and construction of more transmission lines.

Clean energy is key to US manufacturingDavid Danielson October 8, 2015 Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy “A few thoughts on manufacturing in the 21st century” http://www.windpowerengineering.com/policy/a-few-thoughts-on-manufacturing-in-the-21st-century/

It’s no secret that American manufacturing took it in the teeth in recent decades. After a steep decline in the 2000’s, when 40% of all large U.S. factories closed their doors, American manufacturing is making a comeback, adding jobs at its fastest rate in decades with nearly 900,000 new manufacturing jobs created since February 2010. This is in part due to the fact that the winds of competitiveness have begun to blow back in the direction of the United States , including increasing wage rates overseas and a growing appreciation by American companies of the

importance of co-locating manufacturing and innovation to maintain their competitive technology edge. And the Administration’s support in rebuilding U.S. manufacturing, especially in the clean-energy manufacturing area, has also played a major role in America’s advanced manufacturing renaissance . Significant

increases in U.S. shale gas production and the attendant decreases in U.S. natural gas prices are making America a more competitive destination for energy-intensive manufacturing across the board. At the same time,

rapidly growing markets for a wide array of new clean energy products are also presenting a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity for the United States to capture a large and growing share of the manufacturing and jobs associated with this $300 billion per year set of markets. And these markets are expected to rapidly grow into the trillions of dollars per year as the cost of these technologies continues to

drop through innovation and scale. Just prior to this posting, leaders in science and industry gathered at the Energy Department and the Council on Competitiveness’s 2015 American Manufacturing and Competitiveness Summit in Washington, D.C. to showcase and celebrate the tremendous accomplishments to date of the Energy Department’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI), launched just two and a half years ago. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, in addition to senior executives from Alstom, Whirlpool, Siemens, and a wide variety of other leading companies, shared their perspectives about the biggest successes and remaining challenges and opportunities they are seeing in energy and manufacturing. Innovation leaders from the Energy Department and its national labs also discussed exciting new partnership models such as Lab-Corps –a training curriculum for National Lab researchers to accelerate the commercialization of their technologies – and the Small Business Vouchers pilot, which is making available $20 million for national labs to strike up research partnerships with more than 100 small businesses over the next two years. American companies and our national labs pulled out all the stops to give attendees a close-up look of some of the new high-impact technologies that are resulting from CEMI-supported research and development (R&D). Oak Ridge National Laboratory rolled in the 3D-printed Shelby Cobra, made possible through a collaboration with industry partners and resources at Oak Ridge’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility. Not to be outdone, Magna International and Ford Motor Company showcased their Mach 1 multi-material lightweight vehicle. Developed in cooperation with Cosma International and the Energy Department, this vehicle integrates high strength steel, advanced aluminum alloys, and carbon fiber composites to make a vehicle 23% lighter than today’s Ford Fusion, improving fuel economy by up to 15%, and essentially

lowering it one full weight class. Not only was the AEMC Summit a perfect opportunity to celebrate successes, but it also was a key time to regroup and chart the future course of clean energy manufacturing in America. At the Summit, we announced a number of exciting new initiatives, including the launch of a new competition for a $70 million Innovation Institute on Smart Manufacturing, and the launch of a new Manufacturing Demonstration Facility focused on high performance computing for manufacturing and an associated $3 million competitive partnership opportunity. We also announced the five awardees of a $22 million Next Generation Electric Machines funding opportunity – focused on developing a next generation of wide bandgap power electronics-enabled ultra-efficient industrial motors –and the seven pioneering national lab-industry pairs who will be participating in CEMI’s Technologist in Residence pilot. Under the pilot, top technologists from national laboratories and industry will work together, with a significant focus on “in-residence” activities within each other’s facilities, to map out a

comprehensive long-term joint research agenda. With these exciting and innovative new R&D partnership models and others being launched by CEMI, I am convinced that the United States will compete and win more than its fair share of the clean energy manufacturing economic growth and jobs that lie ahead of us in the years and decades to come. Let’s keep up our great work together to make that exciting future a reality.

Clean energy boosts US manufacturingMichael Kanellos August 24, 2010 “Will green technology boost manufacturing in the US?” Journalist for Eastwick Communications, Greentech Media, CNET and CMP

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/will-green-technology-boost-manufacturing-in-the-u.s

The average turbine tips the scale approximately 200 to 400 short tons. In all, a turbine might incorporate 8,000 components. A 64-watt solar panel, barely enough to power an incandescent bulb, can weigh 24 pounds. With diesel and port fees steadily rising, that heft could translate directly into manufacturing jobs. To some degree, it’s happening already. Nine of the top-ten wind companies have current or announced U.S. facilities for building towers, blades, or nacelles. Foreign and domestic solar companies have erected module facilities in Oregon, California and Arizona.

Manufacturing Solves EconManufacturing key to the economy – employs almost a fifth of the workfoce and produces one third of US GDPScott,15, 1-22-2015, The Manufacturing Footprint and the Importance of U.S. Manufacturing Jobs, Economic Policy Institute, Rob Scott joined the Economic Policy Institute in 1996. His areas of research include international economics, trade and manufacturing policies and their impacts on working people in the United States and other countries, the economic impacts of foreign investment, and the macroeconomic effects of trade and capital flows. He has published widely in academic journals and the popular press, including The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, The International Review of Applied Economics, and The Stanford Law and Policy Review, as well as The Los Angeles Times, Newsday, USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Times, and other newspapers. He has also provided economic commentary for a range of electronic media, including NPR, CNN, Bloomberg, and the BBC. Accessed form http://www.epi.org/publication/the-manufacturing-footprint-and-the-importance-of-u-s-manufacturing-jobs/ on 7-7-2016 -O'Brien

This report examines the role manufacturing plays in employment at the national, state, and congressional district levels, including the number of jobs manufacturing supports, the wages those jobs pay, and manufacturing’s contribution to GDP. (This report updates an earlier EPI report

but includes U.S. congressional district data for the first time.) The data show that manufacturing employment was stable for three decades until 1998, and has been on a largely downward trajectory since then, with traditional manufacturing states hit particularly hard. Given its size and importance, we cannot ignore the consequences of such a decline. Further, the policies that would help manufacturing the most are those that would help close the nation’s large trade deficit. Reducing this trade deficit would, in turn, provide a valuable macroeconomic boost to a U.S. economy that is still operating far below

potential.∂ The manufacturing sector has a large footprint in the U.S. economy. It employed 12.0 million workers in 2013, 8.8 percent of total U.S. employment .∂ Manufacturing plays a particularly important role in supporting jobs in a core group of states in the upper Midwest (East North Central and selected West North Central) and South (East South Central) states. The top 10 states ranked by manufacturing’s share of total state employment in 2013 are Indiana (16.8 percent, 491,900 jobs), Wisconsin (16.3 percent, 458,400 jobs), Iowa (14.0 percent, 214,500 jobs), Michigan (13.5 percent, 555,300 jobs), Alabama (13.1 percent, 249,100 jobs), Arkansas (12.9 percent, 152,400 jobs), Ohio (12.6 percent, 662,100 jobs), Kentucky (12.4 percent, 228,600 jobs), Mississippi (12.3 percent, 136,700 jobs), and Kansas (11.9 percent, 162,900 jobs).∂ The top 10 states ranked by total manufacturing employment in 2013 are California (1,251,400 jobs), Texas (871,700 jobs), Ohio (662,100 jobs), Illinois (579,600 jobs), Pennsylvania (563,500 jobs), Michigan (555,300 jobs), Indiana (491,900 jobs), Wisconsin (458,400 jobs), New York (455,100 jobs), and North Carolina (442,500 jobs).∂ The top 10 congressional districts ranked by manufacturing’s share of total district employment are Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District (76,200 jobs, 23.3 percent of district employment), Indiana’s 2nd (73,500 jobs, 23.1 percent), Wisconsin’s 6th (80,000 jobs, 22.6 percent), California’s 17th (63,400 jobs, 19.9 percent), Indiana’s 6th (60,400 jobs, 19.4 percent), Alabama’s 4th (48,500 jobs, 19.2 percent), Wisconsin’s 8th (69,600 jobs, 19.2 percent), Ohio’s 4th (61,000 jobs, 19.0 percent), Michigan’s 2nd (57,500 jobs, 18.6 percent), and Wisconsin’s 5th (66,200 jobs, 17.9 percent).∂ The top 50 congressional districts ranked by share of employment in manufacturing are widely dispersed throughout 16 states, nearly one-third of all the states. The states represented in the top 50 congressional district list include Indiana (seven congressional districts), Michigan (seven), Wisconsin (six), Ohio (five), Alabama (three), Arkansas (three), California (three), Iowa (three), Tennessee (three), Kentucky (two), North Carolina (two), South Carolina (two), Georgia (one), Kansas (one), Mississippi (one), and Oregon (one).∂ Complete data for employment in each state and for all 435 congressional districts (and the District of Columbia) are also available in the EPI Manufacturing Footprint Map below. This interactive feature also includes details on

employment by state and congressional district in each of 25 unique manufacturing industries.∂ Manufacturing industries generated $2.1 trillion in GDP (12.5 percent of total U.S. gross domestic product) in 2013. But even these figures do not fully capture manufacturing’s role in the

economy. Manufacturing provides a significant source of demand for goods and services in other sectors of the economy, and these sales to other industries are not captured in measures of manufacturing sector GDP but are counted in the broader measure of its gross output. U.S. manufacturing had gross output of $5.9 trillion in 2013, more than one-third (35.4 percent) of U.S. GDP in 2013. Manufacturing is by far the most important sector of the U.S. economy in terms of total output and employment. The manufacturing sector supported approximately 17.1 million indirect jobs in the United States, in addition to the 12.0 million persons directly employed in manufacturing, for a total of 29.1 million jobs directly and indirectly supported, more than one-fifth (21.3 percent) of total U.S. employment in 2013.∂ The manufacturing sector is also a particularly important

provider of jobs with good wages for workers without a college degree . This can be seen in the manufacturing wage premium—the dollar amount by which the average manufacturing worker wage exceeds the wage of an otherwise comparable worker outside the manufacturing sector. The average wage premium for all U.S. manufacturing workers without a college degree was $1.78 per hour (or 10.9 percent) in 2012–2013.∂ The United States lost 5.7 million manufacturing jobs between March 1998 and 2013. The principal causes of manufacturing job losses were growing trade deficits, especially with China, Mexico, and other low wage nations, and the weak recovery from the Great Recession since 2009.

Manufacturing is key to the economy – all other services are dependent on itRoosevelt Institute, 11, 5-23-2011, Six Reasons Manufacturing is Central to the Economy, The Roosevelt Institute is the nonprofit partner to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY—America’s first presidential library and the only one used by a sitting president. Click here to learn more about becoming a member. Accessed form http://rooseveltinstitute.org/six-reasons-manufacturing-central-economy/ on 7-7-2016 -O'Brien

It has been the strategic achievement of rich nations over the last several hundred years to create a high-quality manufacturing sector in order to develop national wealth and power, as Erik Reinert shows in his book “How Rich Countries

Got Rich…and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor.” From the rise of England in the 19th century, to the rise of the US, Germany, Japan and the USSR in the 20th, to the newly industrializing countries like Korea, Taiwan, and now China, manufacturing has been the key to prosperity.∂ 2. Manufacturing is the foundation of global “Great Power”∂ The most powerful nations in the world — the “Great Powers” — are those that control the bulk of the global production of manufacturing technology. That is, it isn’t enough simply to have factories and produce more goods, you have to know how to make the machinery that

makes the goods. The key to power, then, is to make the “means of production.”∂ As the machinery industries go, so goes

Great Power. My own research shows that about 80% of the world’s production of factory machinery has been controlled by what we would consider the “Great Powers.” Until the 1950s, the US had produced about 50%; we now produce less than

China’s 16%.∂ 3. Manufacturing is the most important cause of economic growth∂ The growth of manufacturing machinery output,

and technological improvements in that machinery, are the main drivers of economic growth. No machinery industries, no sustained, long-term economic growth. Just consider the explosion of the Internet, iPhones, and the like — all made possible by a small subset of production machinery called semiconductor-making equipment (SME), which itself is dependent on other forms of production machinery, such as the machine tools that grind the lenses they use or the alloys of metal the metal-making industries output. These technologies reproduce themselves, as when an SME makes the semiconductors that then go to make more SMEs, or when a machine tool makes the metal components that not only go into other pieces of machinery, such as cars, but are used to produce yet more machine tools. The technological and productive potential of machine tools and SMEs affect each other as well, leading to the explosive economic growth of the last two

hundred years. 4. Global trade is based on goods, not services∂ A country can’t trade services for most of its goods.

According to the WTO, 80% of world trade among regions is merchandise trade — that is, only 20% of world trade is in

services. This closely matches the trade percentages that even the US, allegedly becoming “post-industrial,” achieves. If in the extreme case an economy was composed only of services, then it would be very poor, because it couldn’t trade for goods; its currency would be worth very little. The dollar is also vulnerable in the long-term. A “post-industrial” economy is really a pre-industrial economy — that is, poor.∂ 5. Services are dependent on manufactured goods∂ Services are mostly the act of using manufactured goods. You can’t export the experience of using something. Retail and wholesale, which make

up about 11% of the economy, are the act of buying and selling manufactured goods. The same goes for real estate, another 13%, which is the act of buying and selling a “real” or physical asset, a building. Even health, which makes up about 8% of

the economy, is the act of using medical equipment and drugs (all figures from 2010, value-added).∂ Finance involves the

redirection of surplus resources that the nonfinancial sector of the economy produces, which means that indirectly, even finance is dependent on manufacturing. The cycle of rise and decline usually runs like this: some clever society figures out how to take advantage of the current technologies of production, thus generating huge surpluses, which either the financial forces, the very wealthy, or the military then appropriate for their own wealth and power ; they

kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs. To sum up: the health of the economy is critically dependent on the health of the manufacturing sector.∂ 6. Manufacturing creates jobs∂ Most jobs, directly or indirectly, depend on manufacturing —

and reviving the sector could provide tens of millions of new jobs, eradicating the Great Recession. In 2005, the Japanese manufacturing sector was 20.2% of its economy, in Germany it was 23.2%, and in the US manufacturing accounted for 13.4%, according to the the OECD. Using 2005 figures, if the US had the same percentage as Japan, we would have 7 million more high-quality, long-term, well paying

jobs. If we were equal with Germany, we would have 10 million more. And according to the Economic Policy Institute, each manufacturing job supports almost three other jobs in the economy . That makes sense, considering the other five reasons that manufacturing is central to the economy.∂ Thus, there are six solid reasons that we need to rebuild the manufacturing sector of

the United States. It’s time for the United States to wake up before it’s too late and rebuild the foundation of a strong, prosperous, middle class economy.

Competitiveness k2 heg

A competitive economy is key to maintaining the US’s heg in a time of rising powersEdelman 10 (Eric Edelman, 10/21/10, The Foreign Policy Initiave, Center for Strategic and Budgetary assessments, “IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN ITS PRIMACY IN THE 21ST CENTURY, THE US MUST BEGIN DEBATE ON ITS STRATEGY SAYS FPI DIRECTOR ERIC EDELMAN”, http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/content/order-maintain-its-primacy-21st-century-us-must-begin-debate-its-strategy-says-fpi-director-)

All the countries we have considered have strengths and the potential to increase their power, but all of them are also certain to face serious

problems. The period of unipolarity has been based on a singular fact: the United States is the first leading state in modern international history with decisive preponderance in all the underlying components of power: economic, military, technological and geopolitical. With the possible exception of Brazil, all the other powers face serious internal and external security challenges. Japan, with its economic and demographic challenges, must deal with a de facto nuclear-armed, failing state (the DPRK) nearby and must also cast an uneasy glance at a rising China. India has domestic violence, insurgencies in bordering countries (Nepal and Bangladesh) and a persistent security dilemma with respect to China. The demographic challenges will be particularly acute for Europe, Japan, and Russia in the areas of military manpower and economic growth. The results will either diminish overall military strength or, in the case of Russia, impose a greater reliance on nuclear weapons. With all of the problems and

uncertainties that the emerging economies face and the enormous challenges that bedevil the developed world in Europe and Japan, only one thing seems certain: events will drive international economics and politics in directions that no one now anticipates and the certainties about rising and falling powers are likely to be knocked askew by a fickle and unpredictable fate. As global wealth and power flow to Asia, even if it does not occur as quickly and completely as some boosters maintain, America’s margin of superiority will decline to some degree. Whether the international system moves toward a multipolar world, as forecast by Global Trends 2025, however, will depend to a large degree on how people perceive the relative shifts in power and how they choose to act on those perceptions. America’s geographic position is fixed and has been a persistent source of strength. As Samuel Huntington has noted, US power “flows from its structural position in world politics ... geographically distant from most major areas of world conflict” as well as from “being involved in a historically uniquely

diversified network of alliances.” Natural resources are another area of enduring advantage for the United States. America’s farmers and producers have never been more efficient or productive than they are today. Agriculture has been “a bastion of American competitiveness.” Energy resources are another advantage. The media have lavished a great deal of attention on the United States’ dependency on imported oil, a true strategic liability, but they have neglected coal and gas resources. In fact, the United States (combined with Canada) trails only the Middle East in the wealth of its energy resources. Industrial capacity is an area where the decline of the

US manufacturing sector has been seen as a surrogate for broader US decline. The United States’ transition to a post-industrial, information-technology oriented and heavily financialized economy was an important part of avoiding the predictions of “imperial overstretch” in the 1990s. In the wake of the Great Recession the post-industrial transition is seen as perhaps an Achilles’ heel of the US economy. These views probably underestimate a few factors that should help the

United States navigate the current transition from the first unipolar era to whatever follows it. Openness to innovation can play an important role in extending the United States’ leading role in the world. Some scholars believe that innovation is the

key to countries emerging as system leaders in sectors that power long waves of economic activity and growth. Failure to maintain system leadership in these sectors is a key cause of decline. Another factor that may propel the United States to a more

rapid recovery is the so-called “American creed,” which includes a very heavy dose of hostility to the role of the state in the economy. A larger private sector may well continue to provide entrepreneurs and innovators the scope to prolong

America’s eading sector primacy in the international economy. An additional, and extremely important, long-term factor underpinning likely continued US global economic leadership is demographics. The US fertility rates are among the highest in the developed world and are virtually at replacement. With a growing population that will be more youthful than other developed countries (or China) the United States would appear to be in a favorable position. One could also add to the long list of US advantages the political and social stability that has made it the safe haven for global investors. None of these advantages, however, including the United States’ military power, mean that the United States is destined to remain the preponderant power or that unipolarity will continue to characterize the international system indefinitely. Bad policy decisions in a number of areas could negate or squander US advantages. In addition the United States faces many of its own challenges. Despite its demographic health the United States will have to meet the unfunded pension liabilities represented by the aging of the baby boom generation. The nation’s standing has also suffered from the mismanagement of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without a concerted effort by the United States, the international system could move in the direction of nonpolarity or apolarity with no nation clearly playing a leading role in trying to organize the international system. The result would be a vacuum of leadership unable to manage the plethora of contemporary problems besetting the world like terrorism, nuclear proliferation, ethnic and sectarians wars, humanitarian disasters, crime, narcotics trafficking, pandemic disease and global climate change to name just a few. If the United States accepts the diagnosis of “decline” and

seeks to accommodate itself to rising powers, it will likely hasten the timing of that decline and the passing of American primacy. If US leaders choose to continue the path that earlier generations of leaders have blazed in seeking to preserve the US position as the preponderant power, they will have to build on the advantages described above to bolster and extend US predominance.

US hegemony deters great power conflicts – history proves.Zhang and Shi 11 [Yuhan, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C. *** AND*** Lin, Columbia University. She also serves as an independent consultant for the Eurasia Group and a consultant for the World Bank in Washington, D.C. “America’s decline: A harbinger of conflict and rivalry” http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/01/22/americas-decline-a-harbinger-of-conflict-and-rivalry/]

Over the past two decades, no other state has had the ability to seriously challenge the US military. Under these

circumstances, motivated by both opportunity and fear, many actors have bandwagoned with US hegemony and accepted a subordinate role. Canada, most of Western Europe, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia,

Singapore and the Philippines have all joined the US, creating a status quo that has tended to mute great power conflicts. However, as the hegemony that drew these powers together withers, so will the pulling power behind the US alliance . The result will be an international order where power is more diffuse,

American interests and influence can be more readily challenged, and conflicts or wars may be harder to avoid. As history attests, power decline and redistribution result in military confrontation. For

example, in the late 19th century America’s emergence as a regional power saw it launch its first overseas war of conquest towards Spain. By the turn of the 20th century, accompanying the increase in US power and waning of British power, the American Navy had begun to challenge the notion that Britain ‘rules the waves.’ Such a notion would eventually see the US attain the status of sole guardians of the Western Hemisphere’s security to become the order-creating Leviathan shaping the

international system with democracy and rule of law. Defining this US-centred system are three key characteristics: enforcement of property rights, constraints on the actions of powerful individuals and groups and some degree of equal opportunities for broad segments of society. As a result of such

political stability, free markets, liberal trade and flexible financial mechanisms have appeared. And,

with this, many countries have sought opportunities to enter this system, proliferating stable and cooperative relations. However, what will happen to these advances as America’s influence declines? Given that America’s authority, although

sullied at times, has benefited people across much of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, as well as parts of Africa and, quite extensively, Asia, the answer to this question could affect global society in a profoundly detrimental way. Public imagination and academia have anticipated that a post-hegemonic world would return to the problems of the 1930s: regional blocs, trade conflicts and strategic rivalry.

Furthermore, multilateral institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank or the WTO might give way to regional organisations. For example, Europe and East Asia would each step forward to fill the vacuum left by Washington’s withering

leadership to pursue their own visions of regional political and economic orders. Free markets would become more

politicised — and, well, less free — and major powers would compete for supremacy. Additionally, such power plays have historically possessed a zero-sum element. In the late 1960s and 1970s, US economic power declined relative to the rise of the Japanese and Western European economies, with the US dollar also becoming less

attractive. And, as American power eroded, so did international regimes (such as the Bretton Woods System in

1973). A world without American hegemony is one where great power wars re-emerge, the liberal international system is supplanted by an authoritarian one, and trade protectionism devolves into restrictive, anti-globalisation barriers. This, at least, is one possibility we can forecast in a future that will

inevitably be devoid of unrivalled US primacy.

US economic competitiveness is foundational to US hegemony – security interests and foreign perception.DeLeon 2011, Rudy (Senior Vice President of National Security and International Policy at American Progress). “Are we ready? An independent look at the readiness posture of US forces.” Center for American Progress. http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2011/03/are_we_ready.html/print.html

Meeting the readiness challenges of the next 20 years and creating the financial wherewithal for these capabilities will not happen if the Department of Defense and Congress maintain the status quo on managing fiscal resources—both within the defense budget and across the entire federal budget. In order to reap savings that may be reinvested within defense, and to justify additional resources for force structure and equipment modernization, the Department of Defense and Congress must work together to reestablish the tools that restore fiscal responsibility to the budget process—tools that were lost when balanced-budget rules were abandoned about ten years ago. The Gramm-Rudman budget agreement in 1987, the 1990 budget agreement between President George H. W. Bush and Congress, and the 1996 budget agreement between President Clinton and Congress that produced a balanced federal budget by the end of the 1990’s protected the fiscal resources

needed for our national security. But these agreements also demanded sound budget management on the national security side. But it is not just sound budget management of our national defense that’s needed. The U nited States must get its entire economic house in order. The notion that the economic decline of the U nited States is inevitable and irreversible hurts American security—even as U.S. military capabilities remain dominant. U.S. national security has long rested on the strength of our economy, but creeping doubts about American economic resiliency feed the foreign perception that Washington is a declining power. This gives rising global powers little incentive to heed U.S. calls for greater responsibility, cooperation, and transparency. Instead, it may well give them more license to discuss “anti-access strategies” and “economic and security zones of influence”—developments that could conceivably lead to military miscalculations highly dangerous to our national security. That is

why moving forward on the American economic challenge of creating jobs by promoting economic competitiveness and innovation while reducing our long-term budget deficits is extremely important to U.S. security interests. The character of American enterprise and resourcefulness should not be underestimated, but it requires unified actions by the United States and effective leadership by U.S. policymakers. The President and Congress need to make clear that they are up to the task, and then prove it in the

coming months. There is no higher national security priority.

Hegemony !- WarHegemony prevents conflict escalation and deters warBrooks et al 13, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul and the Daniel Webster Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, (John Ikenberry, Stephen G. Brooks, William C. Wohlforth, January/February 2013, Foreign Affairs, “Lean Forward: In Defense of American Engagement” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138468/stephen-g-brooks-g-john-ikenberry-and-william-c-wohlforth/lean-forward)

Of course, even if it is true that the costs of deep engagement fall far below what advocates of retrenchment claim, they would not be worth

bearing unless they yielded greater benefits. In fact, they do. The most obvious benefit of the current strategy is that it reduces the risk of a dangerous conflict. The United States' security commitments deter states with aspirations to regional hegemony from contemplating expansion and dissuade U.S. partners from trying to solve security problems on their own in ways that would end up threatening other states. Skeptics discount this benefit by arguing that U.S. security guarantees aren't necessary to prevent dangerous rivalries from erupting. They maintain that the high costs of territorial conquest and the many tools countries can use to signal their benign intentions are enough to prevent conflict. In other words, major powers could peacefully manage regional multipolarity without the American pacifier. But that outlook is too sanguine. If Washington got out of East Asia, Japan and South Korea would likely expand their military capabilities and go nuclear, which could provoke a destabilizing reaction from China. It's worth noting that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan tried to obtain nuclear weapons; the only thing that stopped them was the United States, which

used its security commitments to restrain their nuclear temptations. Similarly, were the United States to leave the Middle East,

the countries currently backed by Washington--notably, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia--might act in ways that would

intensify the region's security dilemmas. There would even be reason to worry about Europe. Although it's

hard to imagine the return of great-power military competition in a post-American Europe, it's not difficult to foresee governments there refusing to pay the budgetary costs of higher military outlays and the political costs of increasing EU defense cooperation. The result might be a continent incapable of securing itself from threats on its periphery, unable to join foreign interventions on which U.S. leaders might want European help, and vulnerable to the influence of outside rising powers . Given how easily a U.S. withdrawal from key regions could lead to dangerous competition, advocates of retrenchment tend to put forth another argument: that such rivalries wouldn't actually hurt the United States. To be sure, few doubt that the United States could survive the return of conflict among

powers in Asia or the Middle East--but at what cost? Were states in one or both of these regions to start competing against one another,

they would likely boost their military budgets, arm client states, and perhaps even start regional proxy wars , all of

which should concern the United States, in part because its lead in military capabilities would narrow. Greater regional insecurity could also produce cascades of nuclear proliferation as powers such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan built nuclear forces of their own. Those countries' regional competitors might then also seek nuclear arsenals. Although nuclear deterrence can promote stability between two states with the kinds of nuclear forces that the Soviet Union and the United States possessed, things get shakier when there are multiple nuclear rivals with less robust arsenals. As the number of nuclear

powers increases, the probability of illicit transfers, irrational decisions, accidents, and unforeseen crises goes up . The case for abandoning the United States' global role misses the underlying security logic of the current approach. By reassuring allies and actively

managing regional relations, Washington dampens competition in the world s key areas, thereby preventing the emergence of a hothouse in which countries would grow new military capabilities. For proof that this strategy is working, one need look no further than the defense budgets of the current great powers: on average, since 1991 they have kept their military expenditures as A percentage of GDP to historic lows, and they have not attempted to match the United States' top-end military capabilities. Moreover, all of the world's most modern militaries are U.S. allies, and the United States' military lead over its potential rivals .is by many measures growing. On top

of all this, the current grand strategy acts as a hedge against the emergence regional hegemons. Some supporters of retrenchment argue that the U.S. military should keep its forces over the horizon and pass the buck to local powers to do the dangerous work

of counterbalancing rising regional powers. Washington, they contend, should deploy forces abroad only when a truly credible contender for

regional hegemony arises, as in the cases of Germany and Japan during World War II and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Yet there is already a potential contender for regional hegemony-- China --and to balance it, the U nited S tates will need to maintain its key alliances in Asia and the military capacity to intervene there. The implication is that the United States should get out of Afghanistan and Iraq, reduce its military presence in Europe, and pivot to Asia. Yet that is exactly what the Obama administration is doing. MILITARY DOMINANCE, ECONOMIC PREEMINENCE Preoccupied with security issues, critics of the current grand strategy miss one of its most important benefits: sustaining an open global economy and a favorable place for the United States within it. To be sure, the sheer size of its output would guarantee the United States a major role in the global economy whatever grand strategy it adopted. Yet the country's military dominance undergirds its economic leadership. In addition to protecting the world economy from instability, its military

commitments and naval superiority help secure the sea-lanes and other shipping corridors that allow trade to flow freely and cheaply. Were the U nited S tates to pull back from the world, the task of securing the global commons would get much harder. Washington would have less leverage with which it could convince countries to cooperate on economic matters and less access to the military bases throughout the world needed to keep the seas open . A global role also lets the United States structure the world economy in ways that serve its particular economic interests. During the Cold War, Washington used its overseas security commitments to get allies to embrace the economic policies it preferred--convincing West Germany in the 1960s, for example, to take costly steps to support the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. U.S. defense agreements work the same way today. For example, when negotiating the 2011 free-trade agreement with South Korea, U.S. officials took advantage of Seoul's desire to use the agreement as a means of tightening its security relations with Washington. As one diplomat explained to us privately, "We asked for changes in labor and environment clauses, in auto clauses, and the Koreans took it all." Why? Because they feared a failed agreement would be "a setback to the political and security relationship." More broadly,

the United States wields its security leverage to shape the overall structure of the global economy. Much of what the United States wants from the economic order is more of the same: for instance, it likes the current structure of the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund and prefers that free trade continue. Washington wins when U.S. allies favor this status quo , and one reason they are inclined to support the existing system is because they value their military alliances . Japan, to name one example, has shown interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Obama administration's most important free-trade initiative in the region, less because its economic interests compel it to do so than because Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda believes that his support will strengthen Japan's security ties with the United

States. The United States' geopolitical dominance also helps keep the U.S. dollar in place as the world's reserve currency, which confers enormous benefits on the country, such as a greater ability to borrow money. This is perhaps clearest with Europe: the EU'S dependence on the United States for its security precludes the EU from having the kind of political leverage to support the euro that the United States has with the dollar. As with other aspects of the global economy, the United States does not provide its leadership for free: it extracts disproportionate gains. Shirking that responsibility would place those benefits at risk. CREATING COOPERATION What goes for the global economy goes for other forms of international cooperation. Here, too, American leadership benefits many countries but disproportionately helps the United States. In order to counter transnational threats, such as terrorism, piracy, organized crime, climate change, and pandemics, states have to work together and take collective action. But cooperation does not come about

effortlessly, especially when national interests diverge. The United States' military efforts to promote stability and its broader leadership

make it easier for Washington to launch joint initiatives and shape them in ways that reflect U.S. interests. After all, cooperation

is hard to come by in regions where chaos reigns, and it flourishes where leaders can anticipate lasting stability. U.S. alliances are about

security first, but they also provide the political framework and channels of communication for cooperation on nonmilitary issues. NATO, for example, has spawned new institutions, such as the Atlantic Council, a think tank, that make it easier for Americans and Europeans to talk to one another and do business. Likewise, consultations with allies in East Asia spill over into other policy issues; for example, when American diplomats travel to Seoul to manage the military alliance, they also end up discussing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Thanks to

conduits such as this, the United States can use bargaining chips in one issue area to make progress in others. The benefits of these

communication channels are especially pronounced when it comes to fighting the kinds of threats that require new forms of cooperation, such as terrorism and pandemics. With its alliance system in place, the United States is in a stronger position than it would otherwise be to advance cooperation and share burdens. For example, the intelligence-sharing network within NATO, which was originally designed to gather information on the Soviet Union, has been adapted to deal with terrorism. Similarly, after a tsunami in the Indian Ocean devastated surrounding countries in 2004, Washington had a much easier time orchestrating a fast humanitarian response with Australia, India, and Japan, since their militaries were already comfortable working with one another. The operation did wonders for the United States' image in the region. The United States' global role also has the more direct effect of facilitating the bargains among governments that get cooperation going in the first place. As the scholar Joseph Nye has written, "The American military role in deterring threats to allies, or of assuring access to a crucial resource such as oil in the Persian Gulf, means that the provision of protective force can be used in bargaining

situations. Sometimes the linkage may be direct; more often it is a factor not mentioned openly but present in the back of statesmen's minds." THE DEVIL WE KNOW Should America come home? For many prominent scholars of international relations, the answer is yes--a view that

seems even wiser in the wake of the disaster in Iraq and the Great Recession. Yet their arguments simply don't hold up. There is little evidence that the United States would save much money switching to a smaller global posture. Nor is the current strategy self-defeating: it has not provoked the formation of counterbalancing coalitions or caused the country to spend itself into economic decline. Nor will it condemn the United States to foolhardy wars in the future. What the strategy does do is help prevent the outbreak of conflict in the world's most important

regions, keep the global economy humming, and make international cooperation easier . Charting a different course would threaten all these benefits. This is not to say that the United States' current foreign policy can't be adapted to new circumstances and challenges. Washington does not need to retain every commitment at all costs, and there is nothing wrong with rejiggering its strategy in response to new opportunities or setbacks. That is what the Nixon administration did by winding down the Vietnam War and increasing the United States' reliance on regional partners to contain Soviet power, and it is what the Obama administration has been doing after the Iraq war by pivoting to Asia. These episodes of rebalancing belie the argument that a powerful and internationally engaged America cannot tailor its policies to a changing world. A grand strategy of actively managing global security and promoting the liberal economic order has served the United States exceptionally well for the past six decades, and there is no reason to give it up now. The country's

globe-spanning posture is the devil we know, and a world with a disengaged America is the devil we don't know. Were American leaders to choose retrenchment, they would in essence be running a massive experiment to test how the world

would work without an engaged and liberal leading power. The results could well be disastrous.

Hegemony !- EconHegemony solves for economy - positions US strategically preventing collapse ŞTEFAN PĂUN in 10 (ŞTEFAN PĂUN Politehnica University; “IS AMERICAN HEGEMONY STABLE AND SUSTAINABLE?” Geopolitics, History, and International Relations Volume 2(1), 2010, pp. 134–139, ISSN 1948-9145)

“Norrlof argues that the US benefits from being the most dominant power today, and that it will continue to be the greatest power for the foreseeable future . The US has benefited from the trade regime, and has used the threat of exclusion to advantage under various configurations of power. It has been well placed to reap

disproportionate benefits in international economic negotiations. The US alternates between an optimal tariff strategy and a strategy of limit pricing, and it is not receiving emergency assistance to balance payments. On Norrlof’s reading, the US attracts a lot of investment by offering equity in return, and has invested borrowed funds wisely, getting higher returns

than the costs of borrowing. The US position in the monetary domain has produced commercial advantages, and benefits disproportionately in the trade and monetary realm. It has experienced significant capital and exchange rate

gains on the value of its foreign assets and liabilities. The US is able to benefit from policies that would be disastrous for other countries, and is the key currency country and home to the world’s single largest market for goods and capital. Norrlof emphasizes that the US has attracted an enormous share of world capital, has an interest in extending dollar use, and enjoys higher

returns on its assets than it pays on its liabilities. The US commercial position is key to understanding its ability to play dollar cycles. The turmoil in financial markets is not a positive for the US. It has experienced exceptionally high capital and exchange rate gains. Norrlof states that there are risks involved with continuous deficits, which the US faces. The US ability to play cycles of limit pricing and optimal tariff pricing will continue. It has the strongest military capability and the largest stock of outstanding liabilities in the world. There is a strong correlation between military successes and increased financial flows into the US. It acquires greater leverage and a greater capacity to reap disproportionate benefits under certain phases of decline.1

Coop solves tech leadership issuesChina tech R&D has made huge progress – coop would benefit both partiesEast-West Center 11 (6/15/11, “CHINA NOT AN IMMEDIATE THREAT TO U.S. TECH LEADERSHIP, EXPERT TELLS REVIEW COMMISSION”, http://www.eastwestcenter.org/news-center/east-west-wire/china-not-an-immediate-threat-to-us-tech-leadership-expert-tells-review-commission)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 15, 2011) -- Contrary to common misperceptions, China’s innovation policies do not pose a threat to U.S. leadership in science and technology, East-West Center economist Dieter Ernst said today in testimony before the congressionally mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “The U.S. retains a strong lead in overall innovative capacity, and China still has a long way to go to close the innovation gap,” Ernst said. Instead, he said, China’s progress in innovation should be seen as a wake-up call for America: “Rather than fearing China and blaming it for our problems, we need to focus constructively on how this relationship can be improved.” Read the full text of Ernst’s testimony here. Download a pdf of Ernst’s presentation slides. Ernst urged the U.S. government and private sector to work together in implementing proactive trade diplomacy that takes into account the diverse forces and the conflicting agendas that drive China’s own innovation policy, and in developing a national strategy to upgrade America’s innovation system in order to cope with the competitive challenges posed by China. “Trade diplomacy and national innovation strategy are interrelated, and hence we need to pursue them simultaneously,” he testified. “Corrective action needs to start now, but there is still time to adjust policies and corporate strategies to the new challenges of an increasingly multi-polar global knowledge economy.” Ernst was among a handful of experts invited to testify at today’s hearing before the commission, which was created by Congress in 2000 to monitor the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and China, and to provide recommendations for legislative and administrative action where

appropriate. The topic of the hearing was “China’s Five Year Plan, Indigenous Innovation and Technology Transfers, and Outsourcing.” China’s innovation policy has produced massive investments in research & development infrastructure and higher education, Ernst said. Since 2000, China has increased R&D spending roughly 10 percent each year, with the result that China’s share in global R&D spending has increased from 9.1 percent in 2008 to 12.3 percent in 2010, while the U.S. share has declined from 35.4 percent to 34.4 percent. China’s share is projected to grow even further in 2011, Ernst said, overtaking Japan as the world’s second largest R&D investor. Since 1998, the number of colleges in China has doubled, and the number of students has more than quintupled to around 6 million, he said. More importantly, China's domestic doctorate awards in science and engineering have increased more than tenfold since the early 1990s, nearing the number of such doctorates awarded in the United States. China’s patent boom is of particular interest, Ernst said. In terms of total patenting activity, China has overtaken Korea and Europe, and it is catching up with the U.S. and Japan. And in 2009, he said, Chinese nationals accounted for nearly 90 percent of the country’s domestic patent applications, indicating that the government’s ‘indigenous innovation” policies have been successful, at least in quantitative terms. Even so, Ernst said, the gap in innovation capacity persists, and China’s leadership is very conscious that the U.S. retains a strong lead in R&D spending, patent applications and the per-capita number of scientists and engineers. A telling example, he said, is that no Chinese company is among the top 20 global R&D spenders in the information technology industry. In addition, China owns just two percent of worldwide patents, with 95 percent of its patents being domestic only. Ernst said that root causes of China’s continuing innovation gap include severe quality problems in education, scientific plagiarism and barriers to private R&D investment. A major weakness of China’s policy, he said, is its elaborate product and technology lists – constructed to assess compliance with government standardization requirements – which can quickly become outdated Even more significant for China’s indigenous innovation push, he added, is that such control lists focus on existing technologies, rather than on the future innovations they are designed to promote. China’s policies have no doubt increased technology-related trade conflicts with the U.S., adding further to disputes over exchange rates and foreign direct

investment, Ernst said, and America has the right to insist on safeguards against forced technology transfers. But more proactive trade diplomacy would also require substantial private investment and improved capacity for monitoring by U.S. government agencies. Given the current restrictions on U.S. public budgets, the private sector needs to contribute to the necessary funding , Ernst said. In addition, industry needs to be more forthcoming with information on employment effects, both at home and overseas, of its manufacturing and R&D activities in China, as well as on cyber security violations and other proven damages of Chinese policies. To identify areas where policy adjustments might be possible, the U.S. needs to conduct continuous monitoring and in-depth research

on how Chinese innovation policies are evolving over time, he said. “U.S. trade negotiations with China have a significantly greater chance of success if there is a sharing of benefits that is acceptable to both sides,” Ernst said. “It is certainly in America’s interest to foster U.S.-China cooperation on science, technology, and innovation. But these partnerships need to be on an equal footing, with reciprocity of rights and obligations on contentious issues, such as finding the right balance between the protection of intellectual property rights and China’s interest in technology diffusion. Progress towards such adjusted

rules of reciprocity should be possible, he said, “once the U.S. and China accept the fact that, while their economic systems are different, their economies and innovation systems are interdependent.” Print

Relations Stuff

Climate Coop Spills over

US China cooperation is key to relations, and setting emission reduction precedents for developing nationsJessica Stone 2015

http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/11/29/china-us-cooperation-crucial-on-global-climate-change “China, US cooperation crucial on global climate change” Jessica Stone is a Washington Correspondent for CCTV America, focusing on American politics, trade, and economics coverage

The historic emissions reductions announcement in November 2014 ushered in a new era of Sino-American climate cooperation a year ahead of the Paris climate talks. Wang Pu, a climate researcher at Harvard, said China’s commitment fits into its economic goals of reducing reliance on coal-powered manufacturing and moving to a services and technology-led economy that pollutes less, and emphasizes renewables. “I would say China is definitely one of the most important actors,” Wang said. “Climate policy is viewed by the Chinese government as both environmental and economic policy. I think it’s a win-win solution for environment and for the economy.” And win-win for China’s relationship with the United States. Wang says finding common ground with Americans on climate policy is also a way to manage diplomatic differences. For the U.S., Chinese cooperation is essential to achieving a goal of President Barack Obama’s: slowing climate change, according to Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “Unless both the U.S. and China are really committed to this, it’s very hard to get other countries to come along,” Diringer said. “I think the U.S. administration certainly recognized that and has worked really hard to reach out to China.” “I think China did set an example for these other emerging economies, particularly for India,” Pu said. “I think China has had some indirect influence over India decision to make their own national contributions.” Many experts also believe nations around the world are watching to see if and how the U.S. reaches its reduction targets. The U.S. has already reduced vehicle emissions and is now focusing on cutting emissions from power production, the largest source of carbon pollution nationwide. “That is a huge example to the rest of the world, that this is a challenge that can be met without sacrificing economic growth and development,” Diringer said. Beijing doubts whether the U.S. political system will allow it to accept any binding climate agreement. And Washington has reason to doubt whether Beijing will accept emissions transparency standards or commit to set new reduction goals every five years. But both have moved closer on other aspects of the climate negotiations. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s U.S. state visit in September, China matched the U.S. contribution of nearly $3 billion to help developing countries combat climate change. And perhaps its greatest impact, aside from reducing its own carbon footprint, will be to inspire other major economies to pledge ambitious reduction targets. Heading into the Paris climate talks, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said current commitments don’t achieve the goal of holding the increase in global temperature to two degrees Celsius. The U.S. and China in particular will need to use their influence to enlist the help of other countries during the negotiations to change that.

Climate change cooperation is key to relationsJunjie Zhang Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - 11:24am

https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/what-would-new-breakthroughs-climate-change-mean-us-china-relationship “What Would New Breakthroughs on Climate Change Mean for the U.S.-China Relationship?”Junjie Zhang is an Associate Professor of Environmental Economics in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at University of California, San Diego. He is also a Senior Adviser of Asia Society. Zhang’s research centers on empirical issues in environmental and resource economics.

The U.S.-China climate collaboration is aligned with the self interests of both countries. On the U.S. side, the Obama Administration is pushing the unprecedented regulation of coal-fired power plants. This initiative is perhaps the last opportunity for President Obama to craft his climate change abatement legacy. In order to gain domestic support, it is instrumental to leverage the climate actions of other major emitters. Since China accounts for over a quarter of global carbon emissions, working with China is crucial for the U.S. to achieve its climate target. As for China, the incentive for climate mitigation is not only from international pressures but also due to its own need to reduce energy consumption and improve air quality. As a middle-income country, climate change is not a top priority for the Chinese government. However, since energy security and environmental pollution are closely related to carbon emissions, these co-benefits convince China to engage in increasingly aggressive mitigation efforts. By collaborating with the U.S., China can learn from the U.S. experience how to grow the economy while curbing climate and air pollutants. The U.S. and China have made solid progress as climate change has become an important topic in all the recent meetings between the presidents. The bilateral climate collaboration started from an area that has the least impact on the economy. During the Sunnylands Summit in 2013, two countries agreed to limit the production and consumption of climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The climate diplomacy then achieved a landmark success during the 2014 APEC meeting in Beijing, when China promised to peak its carbon emissions by 2030. The momentum of the U.S.-China climate collaboration continues. In the highly anticipated State Visit in late September, presidents Obama and Xi are likely to focus on more detailed action plans, probably promoting sub-national level climate collaboration. Climate change is one of the few areas that the U.S. and China can achieve successful collaboration. As the rivalry between two countries has intensified in recent years, mutually beneficial climate collaboration can be an important step stone to improve bilateral relationship. By working together to reduce climate pollutants, both countries not only contribute to the protection of global climate but also send a positive signal to build a healthy U.S.-China relationship. Climate change has become one of the few areas that the US and China can improve bilateral relationship.

US/China cooperation on climate negotiations serves as a base for other cooperation Aldy et al 16

(Joseph ALDY Associate Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School Thomas BREWER Senior Fellow, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development CHEN Ji Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC) FU Sha Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, NCSC QI Yue Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, NCSC Robert STAVINS Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Robert STOWE Executive Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program WANG Pu Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School ZHANG Xiaohua Senior Policy Officer on Climate Cooperation, Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary General ZHENG Shuang Researcher and Director, CDM Management Center, NCSC ZOU Ji Professor and Deputy Director General, NCSC),

February 2016, “Bilateral Cooperation between China and the United States: Facilitating Progress on Climate-Change Policy”, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (China), http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/harvard-nscs-paper-final-160224.pdf

Cooperation on standards and procedures for comparing mitigation efforts can strengthen the technical basis for other aspects of China–U.S. cooperation, particularly in the area of cap-and-trade systems, and facilitate the linkage of

homogeneous or heterogeneous climate policies. Cooperation in this area can also increase transparency and consistency in climate negotiations, improve trust among parties, and advance efforts to track collective progress toward achieving global mitigation targets. But China and the United States have different preferences and interests in terms of the scope and timeframe of mitigation efforts and other issues. Thus it will be important to recognize from the outset that no single perfect comparison metric is likely to satisfy both countries’ needs. Instead, a suite of metrics is likely to offer the best option for

comprehensively reflecting and comparing the mitigation efforts undertaken by each country. More broadly, it will be important to develop a rigorous, systematic, and transparent system for tracking domestic policy developments in the context of an international climate policy framework.

Climate negotiations improve trade relations- cooperation spills over Aldy et al 16

(Joseph ALDY Associate Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School Thomas BREWER Senior Fellow, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development CHEN Ji Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC) FU Sha Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, NCSC QI Yue Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, NCSC Robert STAVINS Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Robert STOWE Executive Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program WANG Pu Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School ZHANG Xiaohua Senior Policy Officer on Climate Cooperation, Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary General ZHENG Shuang Researcher and Director, CDM Management Center, NCSC ZOU Ji Professor and Deputy Director General, NCSC), February 2016, “Bilateral Cooperation between China and the United States: Facilitating Progress on Climate-Change Policy”, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (China), http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/harvard-nscs-paper-final-160224.pdf

Interactions between trade and climate policy constitute a third important area for future U.S.–China cooperation. Reforms can be initiated within the WTO and UNFCCC, which currently provide the dominant frameworks for global

coordination on trade and climate change. But China and the United States should also explore opportunities to advance progress in this area through more flexible plurilateral and bilateral relationships. Cooperation between the two countries to develop GHG standards and methods for comparing the impact of domestic climate policies would be particularly helpful in reducing the potential for future trade conflicts and facilitating the coordination of climate and trade policies.

Solvency

Paris Specific Args

Implementation keyThe Paris agreement has no enforcement, every nation must do their partScott McAnsh January 19 2016 Scott McAnsh is a staff lawyer for Ecojustice

“The Paris Climate Agreement: What does it really mean for climate change?”

http://www.ecojustice.ca/the-paris-climate-agreement-what-does-it-really-mean-for-climate-change/

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) sparked important discussions this past December — including the importance of fossil fuel divestment, the world warming limits, and climate finance. And, in the final days of the conference, the world witnessed an act of global solidarity after 195 nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement. The source of much controversy, the Agreement was not only said to be a historic landmark but also an ambitious one for climate action. With world leaders back at home, and the new year just beginning, Ecojustice lawyer, Scott McAnsh takes an in-depth look at the Agreement’s legal powers, and what it could mean for climate action in the coming years. International agreements come in many different forms. They range from purely aspirational to legally binding with punitive consequences for non-compliance. The Paris Agreement, adopted in December at the close of the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), falls squarely somewhere in between. Over the next few months, countries will begin to work through the implications of the Paris Agreement. We see the Agreement as a strong political gain in the global fight against climate change. However, the legal text is largely aspirational and procedural and is not a bold legal response to the climate change crisis. The goals of the Paris Agreement are laudable and highly ambitious, with a statement that an increase of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is desired.

Agreement on that target is important, and one of the biggest victories for the climate in Paris. The mechanism for getting there is a platform for peer pressure, not enforcement, sanctions or other measures with meaningful consequences for the parties, such as exist in the world of international trade. The legal obligations found in the Paris Agreement primarily deal with reporting to the international community. Parties are required to share their nationally determined contributions (4(3)) every 5 years (4(9)) for inclusion in a public registry (4(12)). Developed countries are required to financially support developing countries to help them meet their obligations (9(1)) and report on that support every two years (9(5)). Parties also have to regularly report their greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sink capacity (13(7)). That is pretty well the extent of the binding obligations on the Parties to

the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a significant change for global climate efforts, which were governed by the Kyoto Protocol that was negotiated in 1997. The much maligned agreement required developed countries to meet set emissions reduction targets, which would increase over time. The Kyoto Protocol was largely modeled on the highly successful Montreal Protocol — the primary tool for phasing out ozone depleting substances. That Protocol set specific limits on the production and consumption for each substance which decreased over time until a set date at which they

would reach zero. Unfortunately what was lacking from both the Montreal Protocol and the Kyoto Protocol was sanctions for non-compliance — there were no clear consequences for countries that refused to comply with costly greenhouse gas reduction strategies. As a result, the Kyoto Protocol failed to have buy in from many countries, such as the United States, and saw open non-compliance in signatories like Canada, who ultimately withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2011. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 1994, has mechanisms by which states can face consequences for non-compliance. Recently, Canada was given approval to impose over a billion dollars a year in tariff restrictions on the United States for its failure to comply with the country of origin labelling rules in the agreement. To date, there has been no appetite for those kinds of powers in a climate agreement. The Paris Agreement is explicit that its transparency framework should be implemented in a non-punitive manner (13(5)). That is likely a reflection of the political landscape of climate change as opposed to trade. The Paris Agreement is a new approach to the problem of climate change after the command and control structure of the Kyoto Protocol failed. The Paris Agreement works on peer pressure. Naming and shaming has had some success in the human rights area, and might have the same effect in climate change. The mandatory provisions in the Paris Agreement are publicly available commitments and progress reports. The framework of the Paris Agreement is that everyone can see what you said you would do to reach a shared aspirational goal and what you did to get us there. This approach only works if failing to make big commitments and meet them has political consequences. The Paris Agreement has the potential to change the discourse and move us forward if the pressure to take action remains. While we are hopeful that the new political landscape apparent in the negotiation of the Paris Agreement will lead to strong action on climate change, there may come a time when an agreement with sanctions will be needed. Climate change will have staggering economic impacts, a reality acknowledged by leading financial institutions. As those impacts are realized, the international pressure to see that everyone takes meaningful action will increase. We hope that naming and shaming on the international stage will work, but expect that

someday sanctions will follow. The Paris Agreement cannot work on its own to fix climate change, it needs all the nations signed on to fulfill their commitments for positive action to happen in the coming years. Canada’s provinces need to work together to produce, and implement a credible plan — one that says no to pipelines and other major projects that

come with unacceptable climate impacts, and makes sure that polluters pay when they dump carbon into the air we all breathe. The Paris Agreement provided an understanding of what needs to be done, and now it is up to everyone, including

Canada, to make sure that the obligations set-out are fulfilled. The Agreement has us moving in the right direction, let’s make sure we don’t lose that momentum.

US Leadership KeyOnly the US can solve – its current economic and developmental status means it’s the only one positioned to leadKleven 16 (Anthony Kleven is an economic risk consultant based in Singapore, “Why US Leadership on Climate Change Still Matters”, The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2016/06/why-us-leadership-on-climate-change-still-matters/, accessed 7/7/16//KR)

As the United States hosted the 7th Clean Energy Ministerial in San Francisco on June 1-2, the Obama administration sought to demonstrate global leadership on green energy and climate change . Those efforts, however, are being undercut by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress. Just a few days before the meetings began, Trump promised to cancel the COP21 climate accords and embrace both coal energy and the Keystone XL pipeline if he

wins the election. With the European Union in disarray and China and India prioritizing economic growth over environmental concerns, U.S. leadership remains critical for the agreement’s success. If Washington fails to fulfill its obligations, the deal could fall apart—even as global temperatures rise and the devastating effects of climate change become ever more apparent. In

condemning such accords, opponents like Trump often cite insufficient action by China and India . Though the two countries are regularly scrutinized for not doing enough to cut greenhouse gas emissions and for their heavy reliance on coal to spur

development, the United States is to blame as well. As the world’s second-largest polluter and second-

highest per capita emitter (significantly higher than either India or China), the United States is ultimately just as much of a wildcard in climate change efforts . While President Obama has made historic commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the COP21 framework, it was not without political obstacles. The agreement faced stiff opposition in Congress, as has long been the case with climate accords. Having learned the lessons of past failed agreements, COP21 was made non-binding (in part to circumvent the need for Congressional ratification). Even so, a future president could just as easily undo the agreement, and that appears to be Donald Trump’s intention. This has already happened once: President George W. Bush reversed Bill Clinton’s decision to include the United States in

the Kyoto Protocol. European, Chinese, and Indian diplomats are already worried that an American decision to renege on the COP21 would fatally undermine the agreement. Such an outcome would be a tremendous embarrassment for the United States and a significant step backward from its position of global leadership. For all the obstacles faced in Washington, there is no other diplomatic workhorse willing to put its full weight behind the grinding work of a multilateral energy shift. The only recently changed attitudes of China and India toward climate change efforts illustrate this point. As the world’s first and fourth largest polluters respectively, and with emission volumes projected to increase significantly further, Chinese and Indian buy-in is essential. In place of cooperation, however, their actions on curtailing emissions have been inadequate and at times downright obstructive. The two countries jointly brought 2009’s COP15 to a halt: during the talks, China refused to accept proposed emissions targets and India rejected emissions reductions it had itself proposed. The two countries ultimately brokered their own agreement with South Africa and Brazil. China’s lingering reticence on climate issues is evident in other instances as well. The environmental safeguards put forward by its Asian Investment Infrastructure Bank (AIIB) were criticized for their rushed consultations and limited scope, seen as particularly meager for a $100 billion institution. It is still too early to know how seriously the AIIB will take implementing world-class standards, but critics worry the shortcomings in the bank’s environmental framework leave ample room for subjective

interpretation. Ultimately, both China and India are primarily concerned with sustaining economic growth and will use cheap, dirty energy like coal if it offers them the best avenue to do that. As such, they are unwilling to accept more drastic emissions cuts for fear of harming to their economies. Despite India and China’s derelictions, there are still some notable examples of leadership outside the core of developed nations. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), for example, played a major role at COP21. With rising sea levels threatening to swallow entire islands, AOSIS has been among the most vocal advocates for action on climate change. Even oil-producing states such as Kazakhstan have become vocal leaders in the fight against climate change, with president Nursultan Nazarbayev renewing calls at the recent Astana Economic Forum for the development of a green economy road map based on the COP 21. The Kazakh capital will host the green energy-focused Astana Expo 2017 next year, emphasizing energy efficiency technologies, smart cities, and renewable energies, thereby marking a strikingly bold tone

from other former Soviet republics. More immediately impacted by the effects of climate change, vulnerable countries like Bangladesh

added much political impetus to COP21 as well. Even the likelihood of danger, however, does not always suffice to compel nations to act. The Philippines is a case in point. Despite the threat of rising sea levels to the over 7,000 islands that make up the country, Manila is still

pushing ahead with coal plants to meet its drastic energy needs. Ultimately, the limited clout these countries enjoy and

their relatively small share of global emissions inhibits their ability to influence global environmental action . With Europe preoccupied, China and India conflicted, and other developing nations lacking influence, the United States is still the only nation positioned to lead the world in its efforts to combat climate change. The COP21 agreement is not without problems, but it also offers much hope. Only with faithful implementation in Washington will Beijing and New Delhi keep pace in tightening their emissions targets. For this to happen, U.S. policymakers must resist the distrust of the outside world seemingly embraced by a skeptical American public. If a President Donald Trump were to follow through on his pledges to throw out American climate commitments, he could doom the international community’s joint efforts less than a year after the agreement was signed in New York.

US-China Coop Solves

Paris deal encourages US-China engagement in climate change talks – it gave China a chance to lead and forged a stronger bond between the countriesTiezzi 15 (Shannon Tiezzi is an Editor at The Diplomat with her main focus is on China, and she writes on China’s foreign relations, domestic politics, and economy, “China Celebrates Paris Climate Change Deal”, the Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2015/12/china-celebrates-paris-climate-change-deal/, accessed 7/7/16//KR)

On Saturday, 195 countries approved a landmark deal committing the world to limit a rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius – with the more ambitious target of 1.5 C. UN President Ban Ki-moon praised the “truly universal agreement on climate change” as a “historic moment,” language that would be echoed around the world. Plans for emissions cuts already presented to the UN by 186 national governments will only get the world halfway to the goal of capping global warming at 2 C – which is why the Paris agreement calls for upgraded commitments every five years. Countries will also be required to monitor and report how they

are doing in implementing their commitments to emissions cuts. While the world celebrated, a commentary from Xinhua called the deal “a particularly sweet victory for China, which emerged to take a leading role” in the negotiations. The piece points to China’s recent commitments on climate change as a sign of its new role as a world leader in that regard. In the past year alone, China has signed climate change agreements with the United States and France (the host of this year’s conference); submitted an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution to the UN, pledging to have emissions peaks by 2030; and committed 20 billion RMB ($3.1 billion) to help developing countries deal with climate change. Xinhua also described a more concrete way

China pushed the talks forward. The commentary says Chinese negotiators teamed with the U nited States and France “to ensure the agreement was adopted” after some parties expressed doubts. China, which has staunchly defended the developing world’s right to continued economic growth, would be in the best position to bring the G-77 along on a final agreement. China’s chief negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, in particular has been outspoken about the need to keep the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” enshrined in the Paris agreement, insisting that developed countries fulfill previous commitments to provide money and technology to help the developing world fight climate change. Given that emphasis from Xie, and Beijing’s track record as a representative for the developing world at climate talks, knowing China was on board with the deal may have been enough to convince some developing countries to let go of their insistence on a legally binding commitment for the developed world to provide $100 billion per year to help the developing world mitigate the effects of climate change. China also ensured that the five-year reviews would include “flexibility” for

developing countries – which could ultimately mean they become merely optional for the developing world. U.S. President Barack Obama apparently agreed that China played a constructive role at the talks. According to a statement from the White House, he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the phone Monday “to express appreciation for the important role China played in

securing an historic climate agreement in Paris.” Xi and Obama noted “close coordination” between their negotiating teams in reaching

the agreement, and promised to work together to ensure the successful implementation of the Paris deal, according to Xinhua. Xie called the deal a “crucial point in the global climate governance process.”

While acknowledging the Paris agreement “is not perfect,” he said it would allow the world to move “one historical step forward.” He also expressed optimism that the Paris agreement would ultimately benefit Beijing’s domestic economy: “It should provide a lot of impetus for China’s own green, low-carbon development and as we implement it, it will promote our own domestic sustainable development.” China’s Foreign Ministry also praised the agreement, calling it “comprehensive, balanced, and ambitious” in a statement. “The Chinese delegation, who took a responsible, cooperative and constructive part in the negotiation, played an important role in bringing the Paris conference to a final deal,” spokesperson Hong Lei added. “This gives full expression to China’s sense of responsibility as a major country in tackling climate change.”

“The Paris conference is a new starting point for international cooperation on climate change,”

Hong said. It also apparently marks a new beginning for China’s efforts; along with the work China’s delegation did in Paris , Hong promised China “will contribute more” in the future.

US-China cooperation holds the key to solving the Paris agreement and jumpstarting future international agreements that go beyondHongzhou 15

Zhang Hongzhou (Associate Research Fellow with the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.), 10/13/15, “China-US Climate Change Cooperation: Beyond Energy”, The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/china-us-climate-change-cooperation-beyond-energy/

The Paris Summit in December 2015 is being seen as the “last chance” to save the world from the worst ravages of climate change, yet whether

the international community can reach a new climate change agreement remains to be seen. The United States and China, the two biggest economies and largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, hold the key to the success of not

only the Paris Summit but also long-term global efforts to combat climate change. Thankfully, unlike most aspects of Sino-U.S. relations where tensions are rising, bilateral cooperation on climate change has made remarkable progress, highlighted by the historic climate change agreement signed by the two countries in November 2014. During Xi

Jinping’s first state visit to the United States last month, the two sides announced a new set of policies to combat climate change, including a national cap-and-trade program in China and a $3 billion fund from China to help developing countries curb

global warming. Energy Cooperation: The Key Success Factor The remarkable success in Sino-U.S. climate change cooperation can be attributed to a wide arrange of factors, including growing domestic pressures, stable and flourishing non-official

exchanges, and a change of attitude towards some of the key climate issues, to name but a few. Nonetheless, the solid foundation which has been laid on bilateral energy cooperation, clean energy in particular, is the key driving factor. However,

relying on the energy sector alone is risky, and efforts in the energy sector might not be sufficient to sustain Sino-US climate change cooperation and curb global warming. The two countries’ commitment on clean energy should not be taken for granted. In the U.S., the Obama administration certainly has put curbing fossil fuels top of its policy agenda and has made very real efforts to enact policies and regulations to achieve these goals. However, whether those measures can survive political opposition remains uncertain. The 2016 presidential election could be a critical moment in the trajectory of U.S. climate policy. Moreover, the shale gas revolution not only enables the U.S. to achieve energy self-sufficiency, it may also make America the world’s top exporter of fossil energies. This means energy security concerns might no longer be the top policy issue for the United States, which could then weaken the government’s commitment towards developing clean energies. In the case of China, the current economic slowdown, if it persists, could force the country to rethink its ambitious plans for carbon emission reduction. For years, the bottom line for China on climate change mitigation has been to strike a balance between economic development and climate concerns. While in recent years, amid rapidly worsening pollution,

China has been more willing to take decisive action such as breaking away from cheap coal and closing down energy intensive factories to curb domestic greenhouse gas emission at the expense of economic growth. However, it does not mean that climate change concerns will prevail over economic development. With hundreds of millions of people still living in poverty and per-capita incomes lagging far behind those of the developed

countries, China’s development needs are immense and the government’s top priority is to maintain stable growth. Therefore, if the economic situation in China worsens, it will be no surprise if the Chinese government retreats from efforts to curb emissions in favor of stabilizing economic growth.

Green Finance SolvesUS-China collaboration on green finance is key- only massive movement of new investments in renewable energy can lead to successful implementation of the Paris agreementPete Ogden, Melanie Hart, Kelly Sims Gallagher in 2016, Melanie Hart is a Senior Fellow and Director of China Policy at American Progress, PhD in Poli Sci, Pete Ogden is a Senior Fellow at American Progress, Green Finance: The Next Frontier for U.S.-China Climate Cooperation, Center for American Progress, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2016/06/13/139276/green-finance-the-next-frontier-for-u-s-china-climate-cooperation/

China and the United States emerged from Paris with clear climate goals but incomplete blueprints for how they would achieve them. To a large extent, this was inevitable, as there are no silver bullets for the kinds of ambitious transformations that the United States and China have committed to achieving. Rather, both countries need to develop a range of new policies across a number of interrelated sectors to either replace or build upon the policy landscape that currently exists. Regardless of the path each country pursues,

however, one thing is increasingly clear: Mobilizing finance will be critical to achieving the needed emission reductions. In this regard, China is guided by three top-tier national climate targets: Peak carbon dioxide emissions around 2030, and aim to peak before 2030 if possible Increase the nonfossil fuel portion of the nation’s energy mix from 11.2 percent at year-end 2014 to around 20 percent around 2030 Reduce carbon intensity—which is the amount of carbon emitted per unit of gross domestic product, or GDP

—to 60 percent to 65 percent below 2005 levels around 2030. China already has a number of domestic policy measures in place to move it toward these climate goals. Those existing policy measures include increasingly stringent energy efficiency standards for motor vehicles, industrial equipment, and appliances; a feed-in-tariff scheme that pays renewable energy producers a premium for the power they generate; and fast-track coal control and emission peak programs that impose particularly ambitious coal use and emission reduction targets in regions that, when added together, produced more than 66 percent of China’s GDP in 2014. In addition, under China’s new five-year plan for 2016 to 2020, its leaders are working to reform the electric regulatory system and impose more stringent coal caps in the nation’s inland and western regions. Power-sector reform will be particularly critical to this effort because China’s state-run power grid has been a bottleneck for clean energy expansion. In September 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that Beijing plans to move the nation toward a “green dispatch” system that would put renewable energy at the top of the priority list for transmission across the nation’s overloaded power grids. That would be a critical step toward meeting China’s international commitment to nearly double the nonfossil fuel portion of its energy mix by 2020. China’s other major new climate policy is a national emissions trading system that is expected to cover the

nation’s power sector as well as six or more major industries starting in 2017. The effectiveness of these and other new policies remains to be seen, but there is wide recognition that any path forward will require scaled-up investment. When Chinese officials speak of “green finance”—which they do increasingly frequently—they are referring precisely to the public and private investment that China will require to meet its environmental challenges, which include its climate targets. According to the latest estimates, China will need to invest up to $6.7 trillion in low-carbon industries by 2030, or around $300 billion to $445 billion per year over the next 15 years to meet its goals under the Paris Agreement. According to China’s Institute of Finance and Capital Markets,

at most, only 10 percent to 15 percent of that investment will come from public funds; the vast majority will need to come from the private sector.

Key to Future Agreements

Early success of the Paris obligations builds momentum for further reductions in emissionsKathleen Mogelgaard 6/30/16, What Next? Climate Mitigation After Paris, New Security Beat is the blog of the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program, https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2016/06/next-climate-mitigation-paris/

The Paris Climate Agreement sets forth a bold goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, keep global temperature rise below 2.0 degrees Celsius, and employ best efforts toward no more than 1.5 degrees of warming. It also sets forth a new set of

rules to achieve these goals. [Video Below] Unlike prior climate agreements like the Kyoto Protocol, all 195 countries that are signatories – industrialized and developing alike – are obliged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Countries set their own emission reduction targets and outline their strategies to achieve those targets in documents known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Early success stories from these NDCs – now submitted by a majority of countries –

are essential, according to USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator Carrie Thompson, who leads the agency’s climate change work. “We feel it’s critically important to come out of the blocks very strong to demonstrate success and show countries around the world that it is possible to make progress against commitments countries have made in their NDCs,” she said at the Wilson Center on June 14. Furthermore, it is hoped that reaching early targets will “begin a virtuous cycle to build ambition,” Thompson said. While the NDCs submitted to date aren’t enough to achieve the 1.5- or 2.0-degree temperature goals, the Paris Agreement incorporates processes to ratchet up mitigation action over time. To kick off such a cycle and reach the ultimate temperature and emission goals requires demonstrations that targets can be reached and exceeded.

Paris agreement ensures a re-convenment on future issues –Kyoto offsets proveBonner & Snowcroft 15 (Mark Bonner; Principal Manager–International Climate Change, John Scowcroft; EMEA Executive Adviser, 6/15/15, Global CCS Institute, “Are we heading to a successful new climate agreement in Paris?”, http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/insights/authors/MarkBonner/2015/06/15/are-we-heading-successful-new-climate-agreement-paris)

One positive of the above outcome could be that discussions on the development and use of carbon markets will eventually re-convene with a full understanding of what their formal role will be in the post-2020 period under the new Agreement. This is a key consideration for both the future of the Kyoto offset mechanisms (such as CDM and Joint Implementation) and the establishment of any new market-based scheme under the Convention. Resolving FVA on the other hand is seen by many as being useful to the mitigation efforts of Parties (especially smaller countries that have few domestic abatement opportunities) in the pre-2020 period. Many governments, including the Umbrella Group of Parties (including United States (US), Canada, Australia and New Zealand) are not seeking permission under the UNFCCC to use carbon markets if they so choose, but rather, are looking for institutional arrangements (international rules, objectives and principles) that will ensure environmental integrity and avoidance of double counting of abatement outcomes.

Paris Agreement has opened up a newer and larger cycle of climate talks that involve investments and fuel transitionsCarraro 16 (Carlo Carraro; Director for the International Center for Climate Governance, 1/11/16, “The Paris Agreement: key points and future prospects”, http://www.carlocarraro.org/en/topics/climate-policy/paris-agreement-key-points-and-future-prospects/)

Overall, the Paris Agreement is an important step in the right direction. A realistic step, which will enable governments

to work together within a robust process of review and growth in commitments. The Paris conference has therefore closed one cycle, that of the Kyoto Protocol, and opened up another, larger one in terms of participation based on past

achievements, but open to future improvements. It is now up to the individual countries to adopt concrete mitigation and

adaptation measures. In particular, there are some very important decisions to be taken urgently: Investing significant resources, quadrupling those invested today, in research and development of low-carbon technologies, especially for producing electricity and for its use and storage. Research and development of technologies for CO2 removal from the atmosphere, to reduce energy and water poverty, for developing climate-resistant seed, and for low-

cost dissemination of education programs throughout the world. Taking steps to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels,

starting with coal, which should be eliminated at least in all the industrialized countries, and replaced by gas. Promoting the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy by eliminating subsidies to the former and using the financial resources so obtained to fund research on the latter. Taking measures to make sure that every ton of carbon emitted has a price that will encourage technological innovation, energy efficiency and the gradual replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energies. Thus we need far-sighted public and private investment decisions. In Paris one important role was played by the private sector, which for the first time has made important commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. More generally, the success of COP 21 is also due to the great work of the civil society and local institutions: the mayors of major cities, private companies, activity and research networks, and the actions of many NGOs

are showing how change is possible and above all an opportunity. We need to continue on this path with vision and foresight.

Green Financing

StandardizationChina needs US funding for its green energy—standardized rules are keyMelanie Hart, Pete Ogden, and Kelly Sims Gallagher | Monday, June 13, 2016

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2016/06/13/139276/green-finance-the-next-frontier-for-u-s-china-climate-cooperation/ “Green Finance: The Next Frontier for U.S.-China Climate Cooperation” Melanie Hart is a Senior Fellow and Director of China Policy at American Progress. She focuses on U.S. foreign policy toward China and works to identify new opportunities for bilateral cooperation, particularly on energy, climate change, and cross-border investment. Pete Ogden is a Senior Fellow at American Progress. From 2012 to 2013, he served on the White House National Security Staff as director for climate change and environmental policy. Prior to that, he served on the White House Domestic Policy Council as senior director for energy and climate change. Kelly Sims Gallagher is Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. She directs the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Fletcher. From June

2014-September 2015 she served in the Obama Administration as a Senior Policy Advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and as Senior China Advisor in the Special Envoy for Climate Change office at the U.S. State Department.

When it comes to the climate arena, the United States and China are enjoying a wave of international goodwill resulting from the role each played in rallying other nations to achieve the iconic Paris climate agreement. In November 2014, China and the United States stood shoulder to shoulder as the first two countries to announce their post-2020 national greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and remained constructive partners on the path to reaching a historic outcome in Paris this past December. Now, as the United States and China put new policies in place to achieve their national targets and fulfill their domestic and international commitments, both countries confront a common challenge: mobilizing sufficient investment at home to meet domestic energy, climate, and

environmental protection goals, while at the same time steering outbound investments toward sustainable projects in other nations that support, rather than undermine, those nations’ climate targets . In this Center for American Progress issue brief, the authors consider the key domestic and international policies that were recently—or are currently being—put in place by China and the United States to achieve their respective climate goals. In addition, we evaluate the implications of these policies—both positive and negative—for green investment domestically and globally. Finally, we provide recommendations for enhanced cooperation in this

space. How green financing enables emission reductions China and the United States emerged from Paris with clear climate goals but incomplete blueprints for how they would achieve them. To a large extent, this was inevitable, as there are no silver bullets for the kinds of ambitious transformations that the United States and China have committed to achieving. Rather,

both countries need to develop a range of new policies across a number of interrelated sectors to either replace or build upon the policy landscape that currently exists. Regardless of the path each country pursues, however, one thing is increasingly clear: Mobilizing finance will be critical to achieving the needed emission reductions . In this regard, China is guided by three top-tier national climate targets: Peak carbon dioxide emissions around 2030, and aim to peak before 2030 if possible Increase the nonfossil fuel portion of the nation’s energy mix from 11.2 percent at year-end 2014 to around 20 percent around 2030 Reduce carbon intensity—which is the amount of carbon emitted per unit of gross domestic product, or GDP—to 60 percent to 65 percent below 2005 levels around 2030. China already has a number of domestic policy measures in place to move it toward these climate goals. Those existing policy measures include increasingly stringent energy efficiency standards for motor vehicles, industrial equipment, and appliances; a feed-in-tariff scheme that pays renewable energy producers a premium for the power they generate; and fast-track coal control and emission peak programs that impose particularly ambitious coal use and emission reduction targets in regions that, when added together, produced more than 66 percent of China’s GDP in 2014. In addition, under China’s new five-year plan for 2016 to 2020, its leaders are working to reform the electric regulatory system and impose more stringent coal caps in the nation’s inland and western regions. Power-sector reform will be particularly critical to this effort because China’s state-run power grid has been a bottleneck for clean energy expansion. In September 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that Beijing plans to move the nation toward a “green dispatch” system that would put renewable energy at the top of the priority list for transmission across the nation’s overloaded power grids. That would be a critical step toward meeting China’s international commitment to nearly double the nonfossil fuel portion of its energy mix by 2020. China’s other major new climate policy is a national emissions trading system that is expected to cover the nation’s power sector as well as six or more major industries starting in 2017. The effectiveness of these and other new policies remains to be seen, but there is wide recognition that any path forward will require scaled-up investment . When Chinese officials speak of “green finance ” —which they do increasingly frequently—they are referring precisely to the public and private investment that China will require to meet its environmental challenges, which include its climate targets. According to the latest estimates, China will need to invest up to $6.7 trillion in low-carbon industries by 2030, or

around $300 billion to $445 billion per year over the next 15 years to meet its goals under the Paris Agreement. According to

China’s Institute of Finance and Capital Markets, at most, only 10 percent to 15 percent of that investment will come from public funds; the vast majority will need to come from the private sector. Meanwhile, in the absence of comprehensive energy and climate legislation, the Obama administration is working to implement a series of policies and regulations needed to put the United States on a track to achieve its Paris commitment of 26 percent to 28 percent reduction in greenhouse gas pollution below 2005 levels by 2025. As of 2015, U.S. emissions were 12 percent below 2005 levels, so the trajectory is consistent with the target. At the federal level, this includes the Clean Power Plan, which will for the first time regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants; performance standards for motor vehicles; regulations on methane emissions from new oil and gas sources; and reforms to U.S. policy on coal leasing on public lands, all of which are being complemented by action at the state and local levels. All told, the United States and China are making significant efforts

to reduce domestic emissions. Both countries are demonstrating strong leadership on domestic climate policy, and that has opened up new opportunities for mutually beneficial bilateral and multilateral cooperation . The United States and China are already collaborating through the Climate Change Working Group, which has launched multiple collaborative projects under the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, or S&ED; the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, which brings U.S. and Chinese experts together for joint clean energy technology development; and the Mission Innovation initiative, which aims to raise research and development funding across multiple sectors, including clean energy sectors in the United States and China. U.S. and Chinese officials also are engaged in a Domestic Policy Dialogue, formally established at the 2015 S&ED, which is a bilateral forum for sharing lessons learned from each nation’s climate policy experiences to date. Going forward, there is room to expand these initiatives. Possible areas for enhanced cooperation on domestic policy include reducing non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions, improving measurement capabilities for land-use and forestry-sector climate impacts and for policies for the power sector, technological innovation, and resilience policy. Mobilizing green

financing to meet domestic investment needs Despite the array of collaborative exchanges that are already underway, the United States and China are not yet collaborating in any significant manner on one of their most important shared challenges: how to mobilize private-sector investment to achieve their emission reduction goals. Building out a new clean energy economy requires significant investment capital. Going forward, both nations will try out different approaches to catalyze those investments. Domestic climate policy and investment policy are mutually reinforcing. Without clear, stable, and consistent climate policies, private firms cannot easily finance investments in low-carbon technologies. Understandably, banks are unwilling to make loans to projects where a reasonable return on investment cannot be expected. This is where policies such as Production Tax Credits, or PTCs; feed-in tariffs for renewables; performance standards; carbon taxes; or emissions trading programs come into play by creating economic return for cleaner technology industries. Such policies create markets for low-carbon technologies and thereby spur greater investment in clean energy. Even so, barriers to financing still can exist for newer technologies that are perceived as risky. Here again, smart renewable investment incentives delivered though Investment Tax Credits, or ITCs; Production Tax Credits, or PTCs; or loan guarantees can help firms obtain financing that otherwise would be unavailable through private capital markets.

The United States has fostered support for domestic clean energy investment through policies designed to reduce the cost of capital necessary to finance these projects. These policies include tax breaks in the federal tax code and several loan programs. To help companies seeking to commercialize new clean energy technologies, for instance, the U.S. Department of Energy disburses Title XVII loan guarantees for clean energy projects and Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing, or ATVM, loans for automakers to increase transportation fuel efficiency. Title XVII loan guarantees help fledgling clean energy companies secure investment at more affordable rates than they would on their own because the federal government assumes some of the financial risk

associated with new technologies. These types of programs allow companies to attract the investment necessary to develop commercial-scale production and build the clean energy marketplace. The federal programs have helped create or save an estimated 56,000 jobs through 2015 and have prevented 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to removing 5.28 million cars from the road. On the other side of project development, the federal government provides an ITC and a PTC to attract investment in new clean energy projects. These two tax credits are central to U.S. clean electricity development and can be claimed by clean electricity generators and investors according to the cost of initial investments or electricity produced over time. From 2000 to 2013, the PTC supported the generation of approximately 417 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity and recently has been extended with a phasedown through 2020. The ITC, which has been extended with a phasedown through 2022, predominantly supports solar projects and has been credited with helping the solar industry grow by more than 1,600 percent since 2006 and increasing solar employment in the United States by 86 percent since 2011. These programs and others—including the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program, and Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds—have all supported more than $442 billion of clean energy investment in the United States since 2007. Since 2008, they have helped wind and solar power more than triple in capacity and will continue to fuel growth. For example, by 2020, the extension of the ITC is expected to support an additional 100 gigawatts of solar power and some $40 billion in investment specifically because of its extended tax credit. In 2015, $56 billion was invested in U.S. clean energy sectors, which amounts to an 8 percent increase from the year before. China, meanwhile, leads the world in clean energy investment. In 2015, $110.5 billion was invested in China’s clean energy sector, a 17 percent increase over the previous year and twice the U.S. investment total of $56 billion. Much of this investment has been driven by the market formation policies in support of renewable energy discussed above, most notably China’s feed-in tariffs for wind and solar power. Now Chinese leaders are introducing a new array of financial incentives designed to

move beyond clean energy market stimulation measures to address specific market failures in clean energy finance. As mentioned above, even when there are good market demand signals for clean energy, individual technologies and firms still can fall through the cracks, particularly if they are working on breakthrough technologies that do not yet have a strong track record of commercial market success and are therefore seen as risky investments in private capital markets. Just like the United States, China is looking for ways to lower the risks and transaction costs associated with such investments. Beijing is rolling out multiple new initiatives on this front, some of which could provide new opportunities for U.S.-China cooperation. Green finance vs. climate finance Some investment is described as ‘green finance,’ some as ‘climate finance,’ and some as both Green finance refers to financing or financing mechanisms—for example, loans, bonds, or insurance—that support any project with environmental benefits, both climate and nonclimate related, from public transportation to clean energy to improved water quality. Green finance also can refer to efforts by businesses and banks to track and disclose the climate implications of their investments and/or incorporate climate indicators—such as a potential carbon price—into their cost-benefit

and risk-return analyses. Climate finance, often referred to as international climate finance, generally refers to the suite of public and private assistance and investment that flows between countries to support reduced greenhouse gas emissions and enhanced resiliency. Chinese policymakers tend to use the term “climate

finance” when referring to the climate financing commitments made in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Chinese leaders kick-started this new green finance effort last September when the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the

Chinese State Council jointly issued an “Integrated Reform Plan for Promoting Ecological Progress” that, for the first time, specifically called for the establishment of a “green finance” system in China. The high-level document orders Chinese officials at multiple levels of government to experiment with new green finance mechanisms, including: Green bonds. Beijing is encouraging banks, corporations, and municipalities to conduct research on and experiment with issuing debt securities earmarked for green projects. Green stock indices. Beijing is encouraging stock market regulators to experiment with indices that exclude fossil fuel projects and other projects with high environmental or climate risks. Preferential green loans. Beijing is encouraging regulators to experiment with new programs such as loan guarantees or interest subsidies that reduce the costs associated with green project loan financing. Beijing echoed this green finance call again in its 13th Five-Year Plan released in March 2016. China’s new five-year development plan for 2016 to 2020 encourages the development of a “green finance system” with particular focus on green loans, green bonds, and a new green development fund. China’s green finance push appears to be following the same trajectory as other Chinese policy initiatives: The central government pilots several programs around the country, watches to see how those programs change behavior, and then tweaks the policies as needed to fine tune the outcomes while scaling up to the national level. See Figure 1 in the PDF for the Chinese government agencies that are leading the nation’s green finance push. Of the new financing tools, green bonds have generated the most enthusiasm in China. In December 2015, the People’s Bank of China, or PBOC, issued the country’s first green financial bond guidelines to lay a regulatory framework for green bonds issued by banks and corporations. China’s National Development and Reform Commission, or NDRC, followed suit later that month with green bond regulations for enterprises and municipalities. As soon as that regulatory framework emerged, investors rushed in. In the first quarter of 2016, China issued $7.9 billion in green bonds, accounting for nearly half the global quarterly total of $16.9 billion. Quickly, China overtook the United States as the largest green bond issuer in the world. The United States came in second at $3.4 billion. Some analysts predict that China’s green bond markets could raise $230 billion in sustainable investments over the next five years. Those are impressive investment totals, but it is not yet clear how much impact they are having in terms of redirecting capital flows away from dirtier projects and toward cleaner projects. One particularly difficult problem is the question of what counts as a so-called green project in China. The PBOC and the NDRC have issued different investment edicts, so a project eligible for green bonds under the PBOC guidelines and catalogue may not be eligible under the NDRC guidelines. One commonality between the two is that both allow some coal projects to qualify for green bonds. The NDRC regulations include investments in energy efficiency and emission reduction technologies for coal plants, and the PBOC regulations state that green bonds can be used to invest across the coal sector, including in high-efficiency, supercritical, or ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants; coal washing and processing technologies; coal mining; and petroleum refining. Beyond concerns about conflicting implementation, these regulations seem to be inconsistent with Beijing’s recent decision to halt new coal construction. In addition, it is unclear if—and to what extent—China’s green bonds are sufficiently concessionary—that is to say, do they offer terms that are more attractive than what companies could get otherwise on the commercial market to shift the investment landscape and redirect investment flows toward green projects? Put another way, in the absence of green bonds, would these same projects have been financed anyway? Going forward, China could improve the effectiveness and integrity of this program by tightening and standardizing the definitions for what types of projects are eligible and determining the effects of various forms of concessionality on project selection and overall portfolio impact to ensure that green bonds are in fact a cost-effective policy tool. International finance: Going green or brown? In the post-Paris era, the United States and China not only will need to grapple with domestic green finance challenges but also will play critical roles in determining whether the world meets the climate challenge through their roles in overseas investment and assistance. Moreover, there is reason to be concerned that absent policy intervention, China’s overseas investments will skew “brown”—toward fossil-fuel-intensive energy infrastructure—rather than “green”—toward a low-carbon pollution future. This would undermine global efforts to achieve the goals of the Paris climate agreement. While this section of the brief focuses on policies in the United States and China that shape and direct overseas investments and assistance, it is important keep in mind the

central role of the host country to which the investments flow in all of this. The Paris Agreement provides some very useful parameters in this regard, as virtually every country in the world has committed to a plan to reduce domestic emissions and, collectively, to the goal of limiting global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius. The United States has ramped up its international climate assistance over the past six years, reaching $15.6 billion of public support between 2010 and 2015. This includes bilateral assistance; public support provided by the U.S.’s development finance institution and export credit agency, which in turn leverages significant additional private green finance; and U.S. support though multilateral institutions such as the World Bank. As part of this effort, the United States has committed to provide $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund by 2020 and delivered its first installment of $500 million earlier this year. The other side of the coin is the extent to which the United States is working to limit its public support for overseas assistance and investment and public assistance for highly polluting technologies, infrastructure, and other projects that do not move countries along a path of sustainable economic development consistent with the Paris climate agreement. On this front, the United States also has made progress, though more work remains to be done. In 2013, President Barack Obama announced that the administration would not provide public support for new coal plants overseas except in “rare circumstances,” a policy now shared by the World Bank and a number of other countries around the world. The administration’s announcement also helped make possible a 2015 agreement by all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development export credit agencies to eliminate financing for new coal plants that were not ultra-supercritical by 2017, albeit with exceptions for supercritical coal power plants smaller than 500 megawatt capacity and subcritical coal power plants smaller than 300 megawatt capacity built in International Development Association-eligible countries. In addition, in 2014, President Obama issued executive order 13677, which requires U.S. government agencies to factor climate resilience considerations systematically into the federal government’s international development work. In other words, U.S. foreign assistance programs should not promote maladaptation to climate change or worsening resilience. In China, the situation is more complicated and, from a climate perspective, potentially perilous if the necessary policy guidelines are not instituted quickly. On one hand, China has for the first time demonstrated a new willingness to participate directly and publicly in international climate aid efforts by launching and then pledging 20 billion renminbi, or $3.2 billion, for the new China South-South Cooperation Fund on Climate Change. China also supports green finance initiatives internationally though the World Bank and other multilateral development banks. In contrast to these instances of positive investment strategies that promote sustainable economic growth and development through cleaner energy, adaptation, and climate resilience, the Chinese government does not appear to have any overarching technical guidelines or policies governing its overseas

development investments or aid to avoid negative investment outcomes. Unlike the United States, for example, China does not impose limitations on public financing for highly polluting projects in other nations, such as high-emission coal plants. The lack of overseas investment guidelines is triggering concerns that China may continue to make green investments at home and brown investments abroad. Some observers speculate that this investment inconsistency could be intentional. Coal, steel, cement, and other pollution-intensive heavy industry sectors are suffering from overcapacity in China. Where overcapacity is particularly acute, investing in heavy industry projects abroad is generally seen as a winning strategy for creating new export markets to absorb excess production in an era of declining demand at home. In the open market, firms would react to weaker demand by scaling back production or closing down. If clean energy policies swing demand from coal to renewable sources, the market should follow suit. In China, however, coal and other heavy industry sectors are dominated by state-owned enterprises with strong local government ties, access to cheap capital, and a tendency to leverage both of those advantages to keep their factories running regardless of the market’s ability to absorb what is produced. One thing those sectors have done when demand slows at home is to seek new markets abroad, often using state funds to do so. China’s new Belt and Road program is the epitome of that strategy. Under the program, Beijing is leveraging the nation’s diplomatic ties to help Chinese companies secure projects in other nations and then backing those projects through the country’s $40 billion Silk Road investment fund. Some observers are concerned that rising overcapacity in China’s domestic coal sectors combined with unclear environmental and climate standards for outbound investments will trigger a new wave of overseas Chinese coal investments that could counteract some of the good work China is doing at home to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Officials in Shanxi Province—one of China’s biggest coal-producing regions—state that they are actively pushing coal companies to “go out” and build projects in Indonesia, Pakistan, and other Belt and Road nations to draw down the province’s excess coal capacity. If the goal is to maximize coal consumption in other nations, those investments could pose significant greenhouse gas emission risks. The Global Economic Governance Initiative at Boston University has compiled a new data set on China’s overseas energy investments. Based on this data set, it appears that between 2001 and 2016, the Chinese government has supported the construction of more than 50 coal-fired power plants abroad. A majority of these power plants—58 percent—use subcritical coal technology, which is the most energy inefficient form of coal-fired power plant and therefore the type that is most carbon intensive. Most of the remainder were supercritical plants, which are approximately 12 percent more efficient than subcritical plants. One such plant, in Egypt, was an ultra-supercritical plant, which is the most energy efficient coal-fired power plant technology available. On an annual basis, this fleet of more than 50 coal-fired power plants was estimated to release 594 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to 11 percent of total U.S. emissions in 2015 and 6 percent of total Chinese emissions in 2014—the latest year for which data are available. If a 30-year lifetime for these plants is assumed, they will emit 17,828 metric tons of carbon dioxide cumulatively, equal to slightly more than U.S. and Chinese emissions put together on an annual basis. greenfinance_webfig China already is one of the biggest providers of international energy assistance through the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. Now, it is establishing major new financial institutions, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB; the New Development Bank, which is often referred to as the bank of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, or the BRICS Development Bank; President Xi’s signature Belt and Road initiative; and China’s

South-South Cooperation Fund on Climate Change. In light of this, guideline clarifications for both bilateral development aid and overseas investments represent an important opportunity for U.S.-China collaboration going forward. Not only would clarified policy statements be useful to guide investments and potentially

harmonize standards, but the two nations could also once again demonstrate joint leadership. China and the United States could collaborate on positive, climate-friendly investment strategies—including on

specific projects—and establish information-sharing protocols regarding these investments. Moreover, both countries could experiment with a wider range of investment programs, learning from each other’s successes. The most recent U.S.-China joint statement—on the occasion of President Xi’s September 2015 visit to

Washington, D.C.—provides a promising diplomatic opening for bilateral engagements. During the visit, China pledged to “strengthen green and low-carbon policies and regulations with a view to strictly controlling public investment flowing into projects with high pollution and carbon emissions both domestically and internationally.” For its part, the United States reaffirmed its existing commitment to end “public financing for new conventional coal-fired power plants except in the poorest countries.” Both nations reiterated these commitments at the June 2016 U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, or S&ED, meetings in Beijing. Given this alignment, the United States and China could work to maximize economic benefits for developing countries while minimizing environmental, social, and

climate risks. The United States and China have a near-term opportunity to work together on their respective implementation plans for the Paris climate agreement. It is critical for both nations to get the implementation right—not only because they are the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters but also because U.S. and Chinese policy successes can provide a blueprint for the rest of the world to follow . To that end, U.S. and Chinese leaders should expand cooperation as follows: Enhance bilateral cooperation on domestic policy. This would include work in the areas of gases other than carbon dioxide, improved measurement capabilities for land-use change and the forestry sector, technological innovation, and resilience. Devise common definitions for “climate finance” and “green finance” and set up a new collaborative initiative on domestic clean energy finance policy. The United States and China have different economic and political systems, so the same financing solutions will not always apply in both nations. However, China and the United States have enough in common that both would benefit from the exchange of best practices and lessons learned as they relate to clean energy finance. Clarify guidelines for both bilateral development aid and overseas investments. Not only would clarified policy statements be useful to guide investments and potentially harmonize standards, but the two countries could also once again demonstrate leadership by collaborating on positive, climate-friendly investment strategies and projects. Establish information-sharing protocols regarding these investments to promote transparency, learning, and improved practices over time. Launch a U.S.-China collaboration on mobilizing green finance abroad. These types of foreign investment should be aimed at helping the least-developed countries achieve the goals and targets that they set for themselves—such as their Nationally Determined Contributions—as part of the Paris Agreement.

Clear criteria for green bonds in k2 investmentBy Kelly Yu, January 29, 2016

http://www.iisd.org/blog/green-bonds-green-boundaries “Green Bonds, Green Boundaries: Building China’s green financial system on a solid foundation” Kelly Yu is a staff writer for IISD Established in 1990, IISD is an independent, non-profit organisation that provides practical solutions to the challenge of integrating environmental and social priorities with economic development. We report on international negotiations, conduct rigorous research, and engage citizens, businesses and policy-makers on the shared goal of developing sustainably.

Green bonds are one promising element of green finance. They were developed as a new investment channel in 2007, with the first few issuances by multilateral development banks, and are growing rapidly in the global market. The global green bonds market amounted to over USD 40 billion in 2015, with issuers including the World Bank, commercial banks, corporations and municipalities from all over the world. Chinese banks and companies are already issuing green bonds: Xinjiang Goldwind and Agricultural Bank of China have debuted green bond sales in London, and others have introduced domestic issuances.

However, these moves remain tentative and experimental without an officially endorsed set of criteria for "green bonds." It is clear that the PBoC’s Green Financial Bond Guidelines have filled a need in the domestic market by setting out procedures and requirements for financial bond issuers, encouraging second opinions report and bond rating schemes. The Green Bond Endorsed Project Catalogue developed by the Green Finance Committee of the China Society of Finance and Banking is an important supplement to the guidelines, setting out the boundaries of what is and is not considered "green." Potential green bond issuers and buyers say these definitions have been keenly awaited . Shortly after the new rules were announced, the Industrial Bank of China launched the first Chinese green credit asset-backed securitization on January 5, 2016, in

line with PBoC Guidelines, with a value of approximately USD 401.6 million. It was oversubscribed by 2.5 times. Half a dozen Chinese banks have already submitted applications to PBoC to issue green financial bonds according to the new guidelines. While market forecasts vary, it seems likely that 2016 will see a big leap in issuance of green bonds in China, marking the country’s entry as a big player into this market.

Regulations are key to green financeYu 16

http://www.iisd.org/blog/green-bonds-green-boundaries “Green Bonds, Green Boundaries: Building China’s green financial system on a solid foundation” Kelly Yu is a staff writer for IISD Established in 1990, IISD is an independent, non-profit organisation that provides practical solutions to the challenge of integrating environmental and social priorities with economic development. We report on international negotiations, conduct rigorous research, and engage citizens, businesses and policy-makers on the shared goal of developing sustainably.

The development of China's diverse green bond guidelines raises a number of questions. Who has the final say on what is "green"? And how do Chinese standards compare to international standards? The evolving set of guidelines are broadly complementary and target different types of bond issuers; however, they do have some different and conflicting definitions and criteria. And while there are large areas of overlap between Chinese and international standards, there are some differences. For example the PBoC catalogue and NDRC guidelines both include "clean coal utilization," whereas the international voluntary Climate Bonds Initiative

taxonomy excludes energy-efficiency measures in relation to fossil fuel use (all coal and oil power). Such differences, in part, reflect different priorities and needs of emerging and developed economies, but also point to an ongoing evolution in the needs and definition of green investment. For this reason the PBoC catalogue recognizes that standard-setting is an ongoing process and includes a principle of regular updating "according to technological advancement, policy adjustment, updated standards and changes in resource and environmental conditions." It is sensible to call for "clean coal utilization" to be questioned in the catalogue's first revision.

, learning, and improved practices over time. Launch a U.S.-China collaboration on mobilizing green finance abroad. These types of foreign investment should be aimed at helping the least-developed countries achieve the goals and targets that they set for themselves—such as their Nationally Determined Contributions—as part of the Paris Agreement.

Strong investment guidelines are key- without them China will increase foreign investment in brown energy projects.Pete Ogden, Melanie Hart, Kelly Sims Gallagher in 2016, Melanie Hart is a Senior Fellow and Director of China Policy at American Progress, PhD in Poli Sci, Pete Ogden is a Senior Fellow at American Progress, Green Finance: The Next Frontier for U.S.-China Climate Cooperation, Center for American Progress, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2016/06/13/139276/green-finance-the-next-frontier-for-u-s-china-climate-cooperation/

In the post-Paris era, the United States and China not only will need to grapple with domestic green finance challenges but also will play critical roles in determining whether the world meets the climate challenge through their roles in overseas investment and assistance. Moreover, there is reason to be concerned that

absent policy intervention, China’s overseas investments will skew “brown”—toward fossil-fuel-intensive energy infrastructure—rather than “green”—toward a low-carbon pollution future. This would undermine global efforts to achieve the goals of the Paris climate agreement. While this section of the brief focuses on policies in the United States and China that shape and direct overseas investments and assistance, it is important keep in mind the central role of the host country to which the investments flow in all of this. The Paris Agreement provides some very useful parameters in this regard, as virtually every country in the world has committed to a plan to reduce domestic emissions and, collectively, to the goal of limiting

global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius. The United States has ramped up its international climate assistance over the past six years, reaching $15.6 billion of public support between 2010 and 2015. This includes bilateral assistance; public support provided by the U.S.’s development finance institution and export credit agency, which in turn leverages significant additional private green finance; and U.S. support though multilateral institutions such as the World Bank. As part of this effort, the United

States has committed to provide $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund by 2020 and delivered its first installment of $500 million earlier this year.

The other side of the coin is the extent to which the United States is working to limit its public support for overseas assistance and investment and public assistance for highly polluting technologies , infrastructure, and other projects that do not move countries along a path of sustainable economic development consistent with the Paris climate agreement. On this front, the United States also has made progress, though more work remains to be done. In 2013, President Barack Obama announced that the administration would not provide public support for new coal plants overseas except in “rare circumstances,” a policy now shared by the World Bank and a number of other countries around the world. The administration’s announcement also helped make possible a 2015 agreement by all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development export credit agencies to eliminate financing for new coal plants that were not ultra-supercritical by 2017, albeit with exceptions for supercritical coal power plants smaller than 500 megawatt capacity and subcritical coal power plants smaller than 300 megawatt capacity built in International Development Association-eligible countries. In addition, in 2014, President Obama issued executive order 13677, which requires U.S. government agencies to factor climate resilience considerations systematically into the federal government’s international development work. In other words, U.S. foreign assistance programs

should not promote maladaptation to climate change or worsening resilience. In China, the situation is more complicated and, from a climate perspective, potentially perilous if the necessary policy guidelines are not instituted quickly. On one hand, China has for the first time demonstrated a new willingness to participate directly and publicly in international climate aid efforts by launching and then pledging 20 billion renminbi, or

$3.2 billion, for the new China South-South Cooperation Fund on Climate Change. China also supports green finance initiatives internationally though the World Bank and other multilateral development banks. In contrast to these instances of positive investment strategies that promote sustainable economic growth and

development through cleaner energy, adaptation, and climate resilience, the Chinese government does not appear to have any overarching technical guidelines or policies governing its overseas development investments or aid to avoid negative investment outcomes. Unlike the United States, for example, China does not impose limitations on public financing for highly polluting projects in other nations, such as high-emission coal plants. The lack of overseas investment guidelines is triggering concerns that China may continue to make green investments at home and brown investments abroad.

Tech SharingThe US and China should cooperate through the production and sharing of clean energy and climate related technology, and promoting cooperation between Chinese and US corporations and research centers.Kenneth Lieberthal Visiting Fellow, The Brookings Institution Professor, University of Michigan David Sandalow Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution 2009 “Overcoming Obstacles to U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change” http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2009/1/climate-change-lieberthal-sandalow/01_climate_change_lieberthal_sandalow.pdf

1. Acknowledge legitimacy of each other’s perspective U.S. and Chinese leaders start from different places when thinking about climate change. For China, key considerations include the facts that the United States’ cumulative historic emissions of greenhouse gases vastly exceed those of China; that the United States’ per capita emissions are about five times those of China; and that the United States is at a stage of development where urbanization, industrialization and basic infrastructure development have already taken place. For the United States, key considerations are that China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world; that Chinese greenhouse gas emissions are on a steep upward curve, unlike U.S. emissions; that the United States’ legacy infrastructure could be expensive to reconfigure and retrofit; that lifestyles in the United States are deeply embedded and would be hard (and politically costly) to change; and that, regardless of other considerations, China must reduce its projected emissions very substantially for the world to keep carbon levels in the atmosphere low enough to avoid risk of considerable danger for the world as a whole. These different perspectives have been exceedingly difficult to resolve because each has objective merit and because each has a potentially great impact on responsibilities for addressing the problem. Unfortunately, neither side’s perspective, if narrowly adhered to, provides a foundation for bilateral cooperation or multilateral agreement on these topics. Asking either country to give up expressing its perspective on these issues is unrealistic. The views are too grounded in Jo h n L. Th o r nto n Ch i n a Ce nt e r at BROOKINGS 47 objective realities and too deeply entrenched. However each side can respect the points the other is making and not seek to delegitimize those points. The operable principle should be that each side should not only state its own views but also explicitly recognize the other’s perspective, validating it to the extent possible. Both sides should agree that, within this context, it is important to find practical ways to achieve a set of win-win-win (domestic, bilateral, global) outcomes. The different perspectives of industrialized and developing countries have shaped multilateral dialogue on global warming since the 1980s. Compromises have been struck as far back as the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and as recently as in the 2007 Bali Action Plan. Yet fundamental divisions remain very significant. If the United States and China, as the world’s major industrialized country and largest developing country, can start by recognizing and accepting different perspectives, and proceeding from there to constructive action, it could reduce obstacles to developing more widespread multilateral agreements. Including such an approach in U.S.-China bilateral agreements on climate change and clean energy could

contribute to shaping post-Kyoto agreements to control greenhouse gas emissions globally. 2. Build a clean energy framework for cooperation “Clean energy” provides a more politically attractive framework for U.S.-China bilateral cooperation than does climate change per se. clean energy evokes fewer ideological differences, more clearly highlights issues that provide economic opportunities and nests cooperation in better-established policy and bureaucratic communities. The term “clean energy” has been used in a variety of ways. We use the term in this report to refer broadly to measures to increase energy efficiency, make greater use of renewable energy and promote the overall transition to

a low-carbon economy. Such measures in general promote the related objective of energy security (that is, secure energy supplies). They also are central parts of any program to fight climate change. In both the United States and China, greenhouse gases come

primarily from the use of energy. While sectoral distributions differ significantly between the two countries, with the United States emitting a greater percentage in transportation and China emitting a greater percentage in manufacturing, more than 90% of emissions in each country come from energy usage in power generation, transportation, manufacturing and residential/commercial real estate.45 The transition of these sectors to a low-carbon, clean energy economy is the key to fighting global warming in both countries. A focus on clean energy can help highlight benefits in related areas, from local air pollution reduction to economic recovery to national security. Bilateral cooperation can very usefully, therefore, focus on clean energy—potentially taking

an expansive approach to the term to include energy efficiency/ intensity, renewable energy, urban design, transportation design and products, natural gas distribution, clean coal, carbon capture and storage, capacity building and more. To be sure, there are topics related to climate change that do not fit within the topic of “clean energy.” Some emissions in both countries come from non-energy sources, such as forest clearing. Perhaps most importantly, any bilateral programs should also address the critical issue of adaptation to inevitable climate change, such as the potential need to build sea walls to cope with rising ocean levels and prepare agriculture for changes in rainfall patterns.46 Yet in both the United States and China, there are already relatively well developed policy communities around many clean Jo h n L. Th o r nto n Ch i n a Ce nt e r at BROOKINGS 49 energy issues and support for clean energy is widespread. In each country, it is likely less difficult (but by no means easy!) to manage a cooperative agenda with substantial attention to clean energy than it would be to manage one with “climate change” as the sole focus. 3. Highlight one or two major headline initiatives When it comes to cooperation on climate change and clean energy, the United States and China should think big and aim high. They are two great nations addressing one of the great challenges of our time. Talking about small measures only will not suffice. Furthermore, capturing the public’s imagination with easily understood and transformational programs can help leaders in both countries address these issues on a politically sustainable basis. In both the U.S. and China, public support can play an important role in promoting climate change and clean energy programs. Public support requires visibility. Today, opinion polls make clear that Americans are more likely to support bold steps than small ones when it comes to clean energy and most want their country to play a leadership role in fighting climate change. In China, bold steps can capture the public imagination as well. There are many candidates for headline programs. They include efforts to transform vehicle fleets, maximize energy efficiency of buildings, launch projects to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and/or bring together millions of volunteers from each country to work in a new “Clean Energy Corps.” Leaders in both countries should identify and shape the most promising among these, to become an easily understood symbol of the two nations’ work together on these issues. 50 Ov e rco m i ng Obstacl e s to U.S.-Ch i n a Co

o p e r at i o n o n Cli m at e Ch a nge 4. Emphasize co-development of technology The United States and China have complementary strengths with regards to technology development. The U.S. has a relative lead in terms of human capital, basic science research, and the ability to move breakthroughs from research to commercialization. China has a keener grasp of what will work in developing countries, has its own substantial technical capabilities, and can provide good conditions for test beds and scaling up. It is

also often able to manufacture products more rapidly and cheaply than the United States. Technology cooperation between the two countries has tremendous potential to help advance clean energy and fight global warming. Technologies are typically developed to

optimize outcomes under particular circumstances. Co-development linking U.S. and Chinese efforts would be a powerful approach to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in each country. Many joint technology projects will primarily entail the private sector and

private research labs, think tanks and universities. The two governments can, nevertheless, take measures to encourage and enable the link-ups that will produce results. First, the two governments should find methods to build bridges between pertinent people and projects on both sides. This might entail funding databases and research,

promoting public-private partnerships, and encouraging specific exchanges. All of this will work better if the two governments explicitly agree to make co-development of emissions reduction technologies a major sphere of joint initiative. Both sides can contribute funds to these efforts, and it should be possible, with government assistance, to mobilize international financial support at some level. The nature and scale of technology cooperation will depend on the ability of each side to meet the concerns of the other. Jo h n L. Th o r nto n Ch i n a Ce nt e r at BROOKINGS 51 U.S. partners will ask questions about the ability of Chinese partners to protect intellectual property and enforce contracts setting forth rules with respect to the use of technology. Chinese partners will ask questions about concessional financing. There is ample room for the United States and China to work together to answer these questions and address concerns. If the senior leaders of the United States and China agree on this approach, they should seek to announce a few major joint projects that would highlight the commitment to the new effort and capture the public’s imagination. Possibilities include pilot projects to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and joint efforts to develop and promote electric vehicles.47 Under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United States and other industrialized countries assumed specific responsibilities with respect to technology transfer to developing countries. These responsibilities were re-affirmed under the recent Bali accord. One challenge in meeting these obligations is that, in the United States, much of the potentially relevant technology belongs to private sector companies. Projects of the kind described above can help fulfill obligations under the Framework

Convention while reducing emissions and spurring economic growth. 5. Promote local-to-local cooperation Local initiatives and programs in both the United States and China are numerous, dynamic and creative. This is a rich part of each country’s overall climate change and clean energy activities. China often encourages local experimentation to gain experience and then popularizes approaches that prove effective. In the

United States, the political system produces numerous local initiatives, and climate change and clean energy have been the focus of literally thousands of these. 52 Ov e rco m i ng Obstacl e s to U.S.-Ch i n a Co o p e r at i o n o n Cli m at e Ch a nge

Cooperation among national leaders on climate change/clean energy should enhance the capacities of local projects and programs in the two countries to link up with each other and with those in other countries. This should be a high priority. A major problem is

simply the lack of convenient ways to share information about problems, projects, and prospects, along with resulting best practices. Overcoming information barriers, providing limited targeted funding to help foster dialogues and link-ups, and making available some staff to foster cooperation can provide rich dividends to all sides at minimum cost. This amounts to having the two central

governments consider how most effectively to cooperate to foster and leverage local-level cooperation for the climate change/clean energy issues. The United States and China should be able to nurture this type of exchange among local actors—including governments, companies, research institutes, universities, and NGOs—in both countries on a far larger scale. Ideally, this will also draw in

participants from other countries, but the United States and China can focus initially on how best to facilitate this through national level coordinated action and to scale it up. This could include ideas such as a “Green Cities Program” to work between local

municipalities—and bringing in companies, universities, etc.—in both countries. The potential for impact is large. 6. Promote capacity building One potentially fruitful sphere of U.S.-China cooperation is for the U.S. to contribute to enhancing China’s capacity to implement and monitor its own policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As noted in Chapter 2, Beijing encounters various kinds of systemic difficulties in assuring that

wide-ranging initiatives such as improving energy intensity of GDP are faithfully and effectively implemented. Jo h n L. Th o r nto n Ch i n a Ce nt e r at BROOKINGS 53 The United States has technical capabilities in areas such as standards setting, regulation and legal drafting, large-scale database management, and instrumentation that can contribute significantly to enhancing Beijing’s capacities to monitor and evaluate energy policy outcomes. Part of this can be accomplished through government-to-government programs; other aspects will require private and university sector participation. But this is an extremely important sphere that is not terribly costly and therefore is potentially even more attractive during the current period of great economic uncertainty. 7. Seek common ground on commitments Neither China nor the United States has accepted internationally binding commitments to control emissions of greenhouse gases.49 The nature and extent of such commitments loom among

the most important issues in the global negotiations to reach a post-Kyoto accord. U.S.-China bilateral discussions cannot resolve this issue—that will necessarily occur during the course of the global negotiations. But to the extent possible the United States and China should address the positions they will assume in principle, especially as this is potentially important in the considerations in each capital about enhancing cooperation on energy and climate change with the other. As an industrialized country, the United States should be prepared to accept a cap on emissions as of a specified date with commitments to substantial reductions over time. As a rapidly developing country that is the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gases, China should be prepared to accept commitments as well, reflecting China’s state of development and the imperative of controlling emissions that threaten the planet as a whole. Such commitments might include a binding “intensity target” (limiting emissions per unit of GDP); renewable energy requirements; emissions limits in specific sectors; or “policies 54 Ov e rco m i ng Obstacl e s to U.S.-Ch i n a Co o p e r at i o n o n Cli m at e Ch a nge and measures” such as shutting down old inefficient plants or adopting and enforcing appropriate building efficiency standards, each with metrics to gauge level of effort and results. These commitments should reduce the growth in Chinese emissions substantially below business-as-usual levels and help build China’s capacity to play a central role in addressing this global problem, even as they allow room for additional overall Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases for a period of time. These commitments should be effective for a minimum of five years. Predictability is important to planning in both countries. Subsequent commitments should be determined based upon the science of climate change, as it evolves in the years ahead, and changes in the economies of both countries. Scientific assessments, technology development, rates of growth of both countries’ economies, and the sectoral composition of that growth will all change in somewhat unpredictable ways in the years ahead. Subsequent commitments should be shaped by these factors. These commitments should impose significant obligations on both the United States and China—befitting the gravity of the consequences of global warming, the economic opportunities that come from pursuing innovation to shape solutions, and the importance of each side’s making its best contribution to the solution. Reaching agreement will require substantial negotiations that go far beyond the U.S.-China dialogue on cooperation on energy/climate change. But if the senior leaders of the United States and China can announce agreement on an approach for each side in principle, that could help significantly to shape broader multilateral

agreements to fight global warming. 8. Use and improve existing structures for cooperation Cooperation between the United States and China on these issues is not new. Substantial work on these topics took place Jo h n L. Th o r nto n Ch i n a Ce nt e r at BROOKINGS 55 at high levels during the 1990s under the leadership of Vice President Al Gore and Premiers Li Peng and Zhu Rongji. After a hiatus during the Bush administration’s first term, high-level cooperation was reinvigorated in recent years by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Vice Premier Wang Qishan. Under the auspices of the Strategic Economic Dialogue, co-chaired by Secretary Paulson and Vice Premier Wang, the U.S. and China adopted a “Ten-Year Energy and Environment Cooperation Framework” in June 2008. The Framework is useful,

although it gives too little emphasis to climate change and does not contemplate sufficient action overall by each side. Starting in 2009, the U.S. and Chinese governments should have three ongoing senior dialogues of a strategic nature: the Strategic Economic Dialogue on economic matters broadly defined; a “Senior” or “Strategic” Dialogue headed by the State Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for diplomatic issues broadly defined; and a new Climate Change/Clean Energy Dialogue, whose leadership will

have to be agreed by both sides. Each of these dialogues can initiate related activities, and none of them will displace other regular consultations such as those that already exist in the form of the Joint Committee on Commerce and Trade, the Defense Consultative Talks, and so forth. These three major dialogues, though, are to provide firm pillars for mutual strategic understanding on the economic, diplomatic and climate change/clean energy dimensions of the U.S.-China relationship. We recommend capturing this new initiative under the title of a new “U.S.-China Clean Energy Partnership.” It should not replace any other issues in the relationship but rather add a critical dimension to what both countries seek

to accomplish together. It should explicitly be based on the principles of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and of equality and mutual trust. 56 Ov e rco m i ng Obstacl e s to U.S.-Ch i n a Co o p e r at i o n o n Cli m at e Ch a nge In explicitly agreeing on principles and visible first steps, moreover, each leadership should adopt economic recovery measures that contribute to shifting toward a lower-carbon economy. 9. Highlight clean energy in a U.S.-China summit U.S. and Chinese leaders should hold an early summit highlighting cooperation on climate change and clean energy. This declaration of a partnership and affirmation of shared deep concern would mark the inauguration of a new stage in U.S.- China relations, one that promotes the capacity of both countries to consult and cooperate on the most critical issues on the changing global agenda of the 21st century. The global economic crisis inevitably makes timing and implementation more complicated than they would have been even in mid-2008. The new U.S. administration must focus enormous attention on putting the American economy aright and on contributing to the global effort to reform international financial institutions, regulations and practices. The recession in the United States will focus public expenditures on programs that directly contribute to economic recovery. In 2009, China too, will be deeply concerned with headwinds in its own economy and therefore inclined to undertake new programs that contribute to economic development and job growth. But energy policy and climate change join the economic crisis as the major issues on the global agenda for 2009, and neither can wait. Each year without effective action on climate change raises the costs of future action and increases the risks that catastrophic changes may be set in motion. U.S. and Chinese leaders should seek during 2009 to lay a firm political groundwork for cooperation, addressing the above recommendations. Jo h n L. Th o r nto n Ch i n a Ce nt e r at BROOKINGS 57 To provide the necessary visibility to jump start a new level of cooperation—and to galvanize the government bureaucracies in both countries to focus on how best to optimize cooperative opportunities—the two presidents should hold a summit meeting as early as possible. This summit should be in addition to other opportunities the two leaders will have to meet on the side of various international meetings such as the UN General Assembly in September, the APEC Leaders Meeting in November, the G-20 in March, and the G-8. Two considerations should govern the actual timing of the U.S.-China summit: the need for very substantial staff coordination in preparation for this meeting, and the urgency of moving forward to address financial and energy issues. Presumably, any such summit will have four agenda items: to put U.S.-China relations on a strong footing by affirming the basic desire of each country to continue to build a constructive overall relationship; to discuss positions and actions regarding the international financial crisis and related investment/ trade issues; to discuss as necessary issues such as cross-Strait relations; and to agree in principle on the promise, principles, goals and basic modalities of a “U.S.-China Clean Energy Partnership.” The objective of the summit would be to set relations firmly on a constructive track early in the new U.S. administration. This includes prominently having the summit lay out a bilateral U.S.-China commitment to fully consult on and cooperate wherever possible to address the 21st century’s most pressing issues, of which clean energy/global warming is a major part. Summit results should therefore include announcement of a rigorous, high profile process for following up on the new U.S.-China Clean Energy Partnership and statements that both convey the Partnership’s rationale and specify some initial actual efforts. 58 Ov e rco m i ng Obstacl e s to U.S.-Ch i n a Co o p e r at i o n o n Cli m at e Ch a nge Before the summit, both sides will need to decide the future of the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED). This report recommends continuation and strengthening of the SED but moving the climate change/clean energy cooperative effort into another venue. Very likely, three types of meetings will be necessary before the summit takes place. First, pertinent staff in each government will have to consult on all aspects of the summit program and arrangements. Second, if the past is a guide, it will be helpful to have a very high-level Chinese official visit Washington to convey China’s views on the issues that a summit will take up and to contribute to the comfort level on both sides in the period before a summit can occur. Third, some carefully developed Track II (or Track 1.5) diplomacy may provide a useful supplement as the two sides test out ideas on the climate change/clean energy issue, and receive feedback that is relatively authoritative but not necessarily directly attributable to the other government. Such Track II or Track 1.5 venues also provide a potentially excellent vehicle for bringing in participation of other very interested parties, such as Japan, the EU, and Australia.

Generic Coop

Paris

Climate ChangeThe US and China must find a solution for climate change that can work for both of themLieberthal and Sandalow 2009

Kenneth Lieberthal; Professor of Political Science and Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan, David Sandalow; Energy & Environment Scholar and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Overcoming Obstacles to U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change” brookings.edu. Number 1. Brookings Institute, 1-1-2009. 84 pgs. Pdf. 5-23-2016

The potential for U.S.-China cooperation on climate change can be best appreciated in terms of the broader context of the evolution of U.S.-China relations. Since

the famous Nixon visit in 1972, the U.S.-China relationship has grown and evolved in major ways. The early ties were based on a shared concern about the Soviet Union and therefore placed security issues at the core of the relationship. Under the Reagan administration, America began a program of military sales to China. Although economic ties grew gradually too, they remained very modest throughout the 1980s and suffered, along with the rest of the relationship, in the wake of the events of 1989. With the Soviet bloc collapse and the strong revival of reforms in China after Deng Xiaoping’s “southern journey” in 1992, economic ties became increasingly important to the overall relationship. This trend increased throughout the Clinton administration and, especially, in the wake of the recovery from the Asian financial crisis at the end of the decade and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. Since 2001, U.S.-China bilateral trade and investment have grown very rapidly, in part because China has increasingly become the point of final assembly in a newly-formed, regionally integrated East Asian manufacturing system that draws in parts and components produced around the region, assembles them in China, and then

ships the final products in large volumes to the United States and Europe. Over the course of three decades—and especially in the past decade—the political leaderships in both Beijing and Washington have made great progress in putting U.S.-China relations on a

relatively mature, wide-ranging, constructive and candid basis. The two countries have learned how to deal with each other across a very substantial set of issues—indeed, it is not an exaggeration to assert that most cabinet agencies in each capital deal with their counterparts in the other on a regular basis. This extends well beyond the traditional foreign policy and economic/trade agencies. It includes, for example, the

major national agencies in charge of public health and communicable diseases, environment, housing, and energy, among others. To be sure, there are numerous points of friction between the United States and China , and that is hardly surprising in view of America’s global position and China’s rapid rise. Perhaps because the two countries’ economies are now tightly interdependent, there are various concerns on each side regarding pertinent policies and actual practices on the ground. As China’s military grows rapidly and the U.S. military continues to invest heavily to improve its capabilities,

inevitably those focused on future security issues in both countries harbor doubts about the intentions of the other. In these and other spheres, greater familiarity has produced better capacities to manage the immediate relationship but has not decreased concerns about longer-term intentions and potential consequences. In fact, U.S.-China relations currently face a paradox: even as the relationship has become relatively mature and effective across a broad spectrum of issues, underlying distrust of the long-term intentions of each toward the other has nevertheless actually increased . Many Chinese believe that the United States is too zero-sum in its view of the world to accept China’s rise as a beneficent development. They assume that the United States will at some point take serious steps to constrain that rise and preserve America’s leadership position globally, and they tend to interpret American blandishments

on every hing from currency values to reducing carbon emissions as part of this underlying American objective to hold China back and disrupt its progress. Many Americans assume that a strong, wealthy China will naturally seek to marginalize the United States in Asia. But since Asia is the most important and dynamic region of the world, having China marginalize America in that region would strike directly at America’s most vital long-term national interests. U.S.-China relations are now entering a particularly important period. President Barack Obama is in the early stages of shaping his foreign policy. Superficially, it may appear that the pattern for handling U.S.-China ties that was set during the George W. Bush administration can relatively easily be continued. Over the past eight years, the two countries have expanded cooperation, become more sensitive to each other’s perspectives and concerns, and brought even the very difficult cross-Strait issue to a more stable and hopeful stage. The reality, however, is that new issues are likely to shape the

relationship over the coming years, and it is essential to understand the special importance of the coming two years in this context. The current global economic crisis will remain a major item on the global, national, and inevitably on the U.S.-China bilateral agendas for the coming year or more. The United States is at the center of this worldwide crisis and will wrestle with its aftermath for years to come. China is also feeling the crisis’s effects, and its huge holdings of foreign exchange and extensive international investments inevitably make Chinese policy an important factor going forward. The reactions of each government—and the ways in which they deal with each other concerning the various dimensions of this financial earthquake—can have

significant repercussions on the level of trust each develops concerning the long-term capabilities and intentions of the other The issue of cooperation over climate change/clean energy will unfold in this context. As explained below, the politics of this issue are changing rapidly in the United States, and President Obama has made clear that he seeks to move the United States from being a laggard to a leader on this global challenge. The single

most important step in the change is likely to be adoption of cap-and-trade legislation by the next U.S. Congress (2009-2010), using $150 billion of the resulting proceeds over the next ten years to invest in developing clean energy technologies. The overall economic and financial crises will, of course, affect the politics of

this. This new American attitude holds both potential and peril for U.S.-China relations. A new President who is committed to fighting global warming and promoting clean energy will inevitably turn to China to seek greatly enhanced cooperation on this issue. Should the United States and China through full consultation be able to find approaches that “work” for both countries, cooperation on clean energy and related climate change issues should become a major pillar in U.S.-China relations. This is, after all, a long-term issue, of vital importance to both countries, and one that impacts core interests in each society. na-to-US ratio is plausibly a negotiating focal point that will provide a way out of the impasse between arguments in favor of per capita-based formulas and those based on past consumption.

Cooperation key – bilateral US-Sino discussion are needed for successful climate change policyLewis 2011

Joanna Lewis. “The state of US-China relations on climate change: examining the bilateral and multilateral relationship” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, China environment series 2010/2011, pg6-7. Accessed 6-29-16. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Feature%20Article%20The%20State%20of%20U.S.-China%20Relations%20on%20Climate%20Change.pdf

China and the United States are the two largest national emitters of the greenhouse gases that contribute to

global climate change, and together comprise almost half of global emissions. Any global solution to climate change must

therefore include participation by these two countries. Around the world, there has been much discussion in recent months about how to bring the United States and China into a multilateral climate change agreement, and increased attention has been placed on the evolving bilateral relationship between the two counties with respect to climate and energy cooperation. The year 2009 seems, on paper at least, to have been a very successful year for U.S.-China cooperation on clean energy and climate change. It began with the inauguration of President Barack Obama who prioritized addressing climate change in partnership with China, and the release of several calls for action for increased energy and climate cooperation between the United States and China by researchers and NGOs (Asia Society & Pew Center, 2009; Lieberthal & Sandalow, 2009; NRDC, 2009; U.S.-China Clean Energy Forum, 2009). Presidents Obama and Hu Jintao seemed to have answered

the call by signing an impressively long list of bilateral agreements during their summit in Beijing in November (U.S. DOE, 2009a-i). Bilateral talks on climate and energy issues between the United States and China are critically important, not just for addressing climate change but for the future of the U.S. - China relationship. They may also be crucial to facilitating a multilateral climate agreement that involves both countries. Fundamental differences exist, however, between the United States and China in how they each view the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, and how they see their roles in the multilateral system; and these must be carefully navigated. This became plainly evident in the final months of 2009, when despite a successful summit between Presidents Obama and Hu in Beijing in November, U.S.-China climate change relations ended on a somewhat sour note in December at the close of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations.

US-China cooperation is key to preventing the impacts of climate change, now, and in the futureFingar et al. 2013 Thomas Fingar (Stanford University) Banning Garrett (Atlantic Council) Stephen J. Hadley (former US national security advisor to President George W. Bush). Barry Hughes (Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver) Li Zhaoxing (China Public Diplomacy Association), Qu Xing (China Institute of International Studies), Wang

Jisi (Peking University), and Ruan Zongze (CIIS) http://cusef.org.hk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/05_eng.pdf “China-US Cooperation: Key to the Global Future”

China-US cooperation will be increasingly critical to the global response to climate change. New scientific studies warn that the worst-case scenarios for climate change impacts are the most likely outcomes. Scientific assessments also maintain that anthropomorphic climate change is partly responsible for extreme weather events that the world is already experiencing at an increasing rate, from the floods in Pakistan and the heat wave in Russia to the melting glaciers and ice sheets and the “superstorm” Sandy that inflicted unprecedented destruction on New York and New Jersey. It is highly likely that global climate change will be a key issue in the coming two decades as the world faces increasing climate-induced humanitarian disasters and infrastructure destruction requiring immediate and expensive relief as well as costly, long-term adaptation. Climate change likely will increase social and political instability in many areas of the world, including emerging economies and developed countries. It also will likely renew political pressure for emissions reductions, especially by China and the United States, the world’s two biggest emitters. China-US cooperation in all these areas will be critical to whether the world cooperates and how effective any cooperation is in responding to the potentially existential threat posed by global climate change. The two countries also can build on decades of bilateral cooperation on energy and environment to seize opportunities for lucrative joint energy technology development that would substantially benefit Chinese and US businesses as well as lower costs and widely disseminate clean energy technologies.

Cooperation between China and the US can solve climate change- without cooperation, problems grow and zero-sum competition ensues Fingar et al 13

(Report was drafted by Thomas Fingar (Stanford University) and Banning Garrett (Atlantic Council), based on discussions of the joint China-US Working Group and draft input from the Chinese working group, with additional input from Stephen J. Hadley (former US national security advisor to President George W. Bush). Barry Hughes (Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver) prepared the graphic material. The report was vetted and approved by the Chinese side with minor modifications, with particular contributions from Li Zhaoxing (China Public Diplomacy Association), Qu Xing (China Institute of International Studies), Wang Jisi (Peking University), and Ruan Zongze (CIIS))., 9/2013“China-US Cooperation: Key to the Global Future”, Atlantic Council and China Institute of International Studies, http://cusef.org.hk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/05_eng.pdf

The global future is likely to be increasingly volatile and uncertain. The rate of change is increasing, driven by the accelerating pace of technological development, unprecedented urbanization and growth of the global middle class, and a wide range of

challenges beyond the control of any one country but potentially affecting the prosperity and security of all countries. Disruptive change in one geographic or functional area will spread quickly.. No country, and certainly not those with the largest populations and largest economies, will be immune. Global challenges like climate change, food and water

shortages, and resource scarcities will shape the strategic context for all nations and require reconsideration of traditional

national concerns such as sovereignty and maximizing the ability of national leaders to control their country’s destiny. What China and the United States do, individually and together, will have a major impact on the future of the global system. As

importantly, our individual fates will be inextricably linked to how that future plays out . The three illustrative

scenarios sketched out below underscore how critical the future of the US-China relationship is to each country and

to the world. • Global Drift and Erosion (the present world trajectory): In a world in which nations fail to resolve global

problems and strengthen mechanisms of global cooperation, governments gradually turn inward. Each nation

seeks to protect and advance its own narrow national interests or to preserve an unsustainable status quo that is rapidly

changing in ways that erode the international order. The international community’s lack of ability to cooperate to meet global challenges leads to international crises and instability. • Zero-Sum World: Unsustainable drift leads to a world of predominantly zero-sum competition and conflict in the face of severe resource constraints. The result is economic crises and internal instability as well as interstate confrontation .

There is risk of military conflict between major powers, which increases global mistrust and uncertainty and fosters

an “each nation for itself” mentality that further undermines the ability of states to cooperate in the face of growing

common challenges. • Global Revitalization and Cooperation: To escape the perils of drift or zero-sum competition, leaders in countries with the most to lose work together to manage and take advantage of global

challenges and megatrends. Cooperation makes it possible to achieve win-win outcomes that avoid or mitigate

negative consequences of increased demand for resources and the impact of climate change as well as to harness new technologies to improve living conditions through sustainable development. Cooperation creates and

utilizes new transnational institutions to prevent conflict and enhance security for all. China and the United States become more prosperous as we work together. China-US Cooperation: Key to the Global Future The possible futures sketched out above (and developed at greater length below) are intended to stimulate thinking about how current trends and

uncertainties could lead to very different global and national outcomes. For many reasons, the United States and China will have greater ability and incentives than other countries to cooperate in determining and shaping developments over the next

two decades. Indeed, it is very difficult to imagine a pathway to “global revitalization and cooperation” in which China and the United States do not cooperate and provide critical international leadership. Many factors will shape the future, some of which are beyond the control of any nation state, but China and the United States—and the character of the US-

China relationship—will be critical. The mutual dependence on each other’s economic performance and the success of the global economy as a whole was demonstrated during the 2008 financial crisis that began in the United States but quickly spread around the world. US and Chinese leaders recognized that they were in the “same boat” strategically and engaged in a closely coordinated response to the crisis, which played a key—if not decisive—role in preventing the situation from becoming much worse. The need for joint and coordinated responses to economic crises and to mounting economic challenges and threats is certain to increase as globalization continues and interdependence deepens.

ModelingChina and the US working together on climate change encourages other countries to follow suit Aldy et al 16

(Joseph ALDY Associate Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School Thomas BREWER Senior Fellow, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development CHEN Ji Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC) FU Sha Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, NCSC QI Yue Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, NCSC Robert STAVINS Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Robert STOWE Executive Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program WANG Pu Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School ZHANG Xiaohua Senior Policy Officer on Climate Cooperation, Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary General ZHENG Shuang Researcher and Director, CDM Management Center, NCSC ZOU Ji Professor and Deputy Director General, NCSC), February 2016, “Bilateral Cooperation between China and the United States: Facilitating Progress on Climate-Change Policy”, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (China), http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/harvard-nscs-paper-final-160224.pdf

Over the past two decades, disagreements between developing and developed countries have often frustrated efforts to reach consensus on an effective international response to the problem of global climate change. Key disputes have centered on the appropriate prioritization of economic development versus climate mitigation, responsibility for historic emissions versus contribution to current and forecasted emissions, and total emissions versus emission per capita. While differences between developing countries’

perspectives and developed-country perspectives on these issues are unlikely to be resolved in the short term, the imperative to move beyond these disputes toward a more cooperative and coordinated approach to global climate mitigation is becoming urgent. At this critical juncture, the recent joint announcements between China and the United States concerning climate change actions represented an important development in global climate

negotiations and were appropriately hailed as offering a new model for improved cooperation between emerging and developed

economies. Given the size of the two countries’ economies and their large contributions to global GHG emissions, the actions outlined in the joint announcements per se will have a significant impact on future mitigation efforts—and, indeed, did much to facilitate a successful outcome in Paris. By demonstrating these actions, China and the United States may encourage other countries to increase their climate mitigation ambitions.

Successful US/China cooperation on climate change paves the way for better international cooperation Aldy et al 16

(Joseph ALDY Associate Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School Thomas BREWER Senior Fellow, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development CHEN Ji Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC) FU Sha Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, NCSC QI Yue Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Department, NCSC Robert STAVINS Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Robert STOWE Executive Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program WANG Pu Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School ZHANG Xiaohua Senior

Policy Officer on Climate Cooperation, Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary General ZHENG Shuang Researcher and Director, CDM Management Center, NCSC ZOU Ji Professor and Deputy Director General, NCSC), February 2016, “Bilateral Cooperation between China and the United States: Facilitating Progress on Climate-Change Policy”, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (China), http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/harvard-nscs-paper-final-160224.pdf

Climate change has added a new dimension to a bilateral relationship that is already one of the most important of the twenty-first century. While China and the

United States have different national interests in many areas, climate change represents an important area where their interests,

and those of every other country interested in the wellbeing of its citizens and future generations, converge. But the success of the China–U.S. relationship in this arena will be determined less by the ability to find common ground than by the ability to find solutions that properly address the real socioeconomic and political differences that exist between these two nations. If an effective response to climate change eventually requires the participation of all countries, despite their different cultures, states of economic development, and political

systems, successful China–U.S. cooperation under the hybrid Paris climate policy architecture may well prove crucial in paving the way for broader international cooperation to reduce the risk of global climate change.

US China cooperation is key to relations, and setting emission reduction precedents for developing nationsJessica Stone 2015

http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/11/29/china-us-cooperation-crucial-on-global-climate-change “China, US cooperation crucial on global climate change” Jessica Stone is a Washington Correspondent for CCTV America, focusing on American politics, trade, and economics coverage

The historic emissions reductions announcement in November 2014 ushered in a new era of Sino-American climate cooperation a year ahead of the Paris climate talks. Wang Pu, a climate researcher at Harvard, said China’s commitment fits into its economic goals of reducing reliance on coal-powered manufacturing and moving to a services and technology-led economy that pollutes less, and emphasizes renewables. “I would say China is definitely one of the most important actors,” Wang said. “Climate policy is viewed by the Chinese government as both environmental and economic policy. I think it’s a win-win solution for environment and for the economy.” And win-win for China’s relationship with the United States. Wang says finding common ground with Americans on climate policy is also a way to manage diplomatic differences. For the U.S., Chinese cooperation is essential to achieving a goal of President Barack Obama’s: slowing climate change, according to Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “Unless both the U.S. and China are really committed to this, it’s very hard to get other countries to come along,” Diringer said. “I think the U.S. administration certainly recognized that and has worked really hard to reach out to China.” “I think China did set an example for these other emerging economies, particularly for India,” Pu said. “I think China has had some indirect influence over India decision to make their own national contributions.” Many experts also believe nations around the world are watching to see if and how the U.S. reaches its reduction targets. The U.S. has already reduced vehicle emissions and is now focusing on cutting emissions from power production, the largest source of carbon pollution nationwide. “That is a huge example to the rest of the world, that this is a challenge that can be met without sacrificing economic growth and development,” Diringer said. Beijing doubts whether the U.S. political system will allow it to accept any binding climate agreement. And Washington has reason to doubt whether Beijing will accept emissions transparency standards or commit to set new

reduction goals every five years. But both have moved closer on other aspects of the climate negotiations. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s U.S. state visit in September, China matched the U.S. contribution of nearly $3 billion to help developing countries combat climate change. And perhaps its greatest impact, aside from reducing its own carbon footprint, will be to inspire other major economies to pledge ambitious reduction targets. Heading into the Paris climate talks, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said current commitments don’t achieve the goal of holding the increase in global temperature to two degrees Celsius. The U.S. and China in particular will need to use their influence to enlist the help of other countries during the negotiations to change that.

Solvency- ModelingUS-China cooperation on climate change will have global spillover Cooke 2013

Cooke, Merritt. (2013, September). Sustaining U.S.-China cooperation in clean energy. Woodrow Wilson Institute. 5-23-16. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/US_China%20Cooperatin%20in%20Clean%20Energy.pdf

I believe this topic is an important one. If the United States and China find a way to realistically base and sustain their cooperation in clean energy, they will be addressing directly 40 percent of the world’s total carbon emissions. And if together they manage to create a replicable model of cooperation, they can indirectly help the world address the remaining 60 percent. At its core, this topic touches everyone—those who care deeply about America’s place in the world, those who are moved by China’s epochal reemergence, those who are environmentally-engaged, and those who are Sustaining U.S.-China Clean Energy Cooperation 5 responsible global citizens. Students are a particularly important audience because the tectonic issue described in this book will ultimately be the felt experience of their generation.

Previous agreements prove spillover – pledges from the Paris Climate talks got other nations to start actionCarafa 2015

Luigi Carafa. “Is the US-China Climate Agreement a Gamechanger?” Taylor and Francis Group. The international spectator 3-11-15. Accessed 6-29-16. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03932729.2015.999419

When we take politics as a benchmark, the US-China bilateral deal constitutes a game-changer. The argument that Washington can’t act because Beijing won’t act seems to have come to an end . For the first time ever, the two titans have come to a joint agreement on climate change, creating unprecedented political momentum

for the COP21. More importantly, it is the first time that a developing country has announced a peak date for carbon emissions. This sends a strong political message to all other emerging economies, which will account for 95 percent of the global emissions increase by 2035. The bilateral deal represents a diplomatic success for the Obama administration. It also represents a success for the EU, which this time has succeeded in leading ‘by example’. Back in January 2014, the previous European Commission tabled a binding target proposal of a 40 percent emissions cut, that is the world’s most ambitious climate target for 2030. This sent a clear and firm political signal to China, the US and the other major emitters. It was immediately after this that Obama started negotiations

with Beijing. However, nothing can be taken for granted in Paris. In the run-up to the COP15, China’s pledge to reduce carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 was also considered a big step towards a global climate deal, which

however did not materialize in the end. In Copenhagen, the US pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2025 compared to 2005 levels. Paradoxically, the new pledge announced by Obama is some 2 to 4 percent less ambitious than that one. All this clearly highlights that pledges are volatile in climate politics, and that concrete policy action must follow.

US-Sino cooperation has global spillover – other countries get moving when the two largest polluters actBelis et al 2015

David Belis, Paul Kerremans and Ye Qi. “China, the United States and the European Union: Multiple Bilateralism and Prospects for a New Climate Change Diplomacy” Carbon & Climate Law Review, 3-2015. Accessed 6-29-16

The China-US accord has also changed the international dynamics. First, standing up with the United States signaled increasing Chinese willingness to play a visible international role on climate change. 34 Also, the UNFCCC chief and the French climate envoy commented that the accord contributed to progress for Paris . 35 Jairam

Ramesh, former environmental minister of India, said “Obama and Xi broke the logjam.” Noting that previously

China had argued the developed countries were mostly responsible, Ramesh said “this raises the bar for other nations.” 36What has been called a “serious diplomatic breakthrough” 37 is potentially consequential simply by the logic of international collective action.

Countries do not always like to acknowledge they are acting because of others, but when the two largest emitters of GHGs seemed adrift regarding climate action, it was easy for others to temporize . Now that they are leaning forward along with the EU and a few others, the spotlight is on the rest. In fact, in the Joint Announcement itself, the two presidents acknowledged their countries have an important role to play and hope to “inject momentum into the global climate negotiations and inspire other countries to join in coming forward with ambitious actions….” 38

Coop k2 EconUS-China cooperation on clean energy investment spurs US competitiveness by opening up new markets for access- it leads to mutual economic gainsWang Ke in 2014 assistant professor at the Renmin University School of Environment and Natural Resources and Research Fellow at the Renmin University National Academy of Development and Strategy, Center for American Progress WANG Ke, Renmin University of China Joanna Lewis, Georgetown University YU Hongyuan, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, Exploring the Frontiers of U.S.-China Strategic Cooperation: Energy and Climate Change, Center for American Progress, https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ChinaReport-Energy-FINAL.pdf

In December 2012, parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, launched a negotiation process that aims to produce a new global climate agreement by December 2015 with the goal of putting multilateral greenhouse-gas reduction targets in place for the post-2020 period. Over the past two years, China, the United States, and the other UNFCCC parties have engaged in intensive global

consultations regarding what that potential new agreement should look like. Over this same time period, China and the United States have also deepened their bilateral cooperation and dialogue regarding climate change issues . At the bilateral level, China and the United States are increasingly able to shift out of multilateral climate negotiation mode—which generally involves pointless

quarrels and finger pointing—and behave as pragmatic partners. The expansion of China-U.S. bilateral climate engagement since the end of 2012 has been breathtaking. There are new programs moving forward at multiple administrative levels that involve multiple entities from both nations. That growing pragmatism and ability to consistently roll out new cooperative programs has moved climate change to the top of the bilateral political agenda. Now, in 2014, when Chinese and U.S. leaders meet at the highest levels, it is expected that there will be at least some kind of climate announcement. That represents great progress in this dimension of the China-U.S. relationship. China and the United States share many common interests in the climate space. Both countries are

bearing the adverse effects of climate change. As the world’s two biggest energy consumers, both nations face very similar challenges on improving energy efficiency, expanding renewable energy development, and upgrading critical infrastructure to improve climate resiliency. When it comes to finding solutions to these challenges, the two nations possess complementary strengths: the United States generally excels at technological innovation, and China generally excels at

deployment of these technologies in the production process. By working together, both countries can combine strengths in order to excel across the value chain. China’s economy is shifting toward a cleaner and more efficient development model, and that is creating an enormous domestic Chinese market for clean energy technologies and products—a market that will generate large-scale

demand for advanced U.S. systems, technologies, standards, and management expertise. China-U.S. collaboration on low-carbon technology brings together U.S. research, development, and business models with China’s worldleading manufacturing strength and enormous market size. When both nations combine forces, it allows U.S. businesses to shape the global supply chain and global division of labor, to drive down the cost of low-carbon technology more quickly, and to expand the global market of low-carbon technology and products. In turn, these market developments will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote economic prosperity, and create jobs. Low-carbon solutions will also help the United States upgrade its infrastructure at home and make its own low-carbon economic transition easier . As illustrated in a Pew report, the United States and China have already become very complementary in terms of renewable energy production.1 For example, in the solar sector, China is the main supplier of solar panels to the United States, and in turn, the United States is one of China’s largest suppliers of high-value components such as polycrystalline silicon, chemicals, and manufacturing equipment. In the wind sector, Chinese manufacturers supply turbine brackets to the United States, while American businesses provide glass fiber and electronic control devices to China. China-U.S. cooperation in these sectors serves as a demonstration lab and driver for the global shift to lowcarbon technologies.

US leadership in clean technology is key to economic competitiveness – innovation.Hendricks et al 2011, Bracken, and Sean Pool, Lisbeth Kaufman (is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Sean Pool is an Assistant Editor with the Center’s Science Progress project. Lisbeth Kaufman is a Special Assistant at the Center.) “Low-carbon innovation.” Center for American Progress. May 31, 2011. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/05/low_carbon_innovation.html/print.html

With this firmly in mind, any American strategies for competitiveness and growth must be innovation-driven. With our high standards of living and laws that enforce fair wages, the United States cannot compete on low wages alone—nor

should we want to. Instead, we should focus on America’s strengths as an innovative high-tech leader. The United States became a global economic leader by building a diverse economy driven by a continuous innovation business model—one that values inventing, manufacturing, and continually reengineering value-added products and sophisticated technologies. Innovation is our area of expertise

and it should be at the center of our low-carbon industrial strategy. With increasing climate pressures, clean technology today is at the leading edge of innovation. Massive waves of new global investment have begun to flow toward remaking the world’s energy systems and increasing the efficiency of energy use across the real economy by engaging advanced

technology and skilled labor to reduce demand for material inputs. Even in 2009, deep within the global recession, world investment in clean technology totaled $162 billion, according to the Pew Charitable Trust. Most of these investments went toward wind and solar technologies that American companies have developed and perfected.

This is exactly the context where U.S. companies are best poised to compete with global industries. For the U nited States to remain competitive in this rapidly changing economic climate, however, policies that foster domestic innovation in low-carbon industries will be essential. Clean technologies offer an ideal business challenge for U.S. industry to excel—one that requires creativity, experience, and innovative entrepreneurship—qualities that

the United States has demonstrated for centuries. Key to taking the lead in clean technology will be advancing a uniquely American economic growth strategy that builds on our existing regional ecosystem of economic development policies. Such a strategy should align policies that exist across different branches of government and utilize smart incentives to engage private capital markets in deploying essential low-carbon technologies and reinvigorating investment in cutting-edge infrastructure.

US clean tech key to econ competitiveness and hegemony – jobs and oil dependency.Boxer 2010, Barbara (D-Calif). “Clean technology investments vital to US leadership.” The Hill. 2/22/10. http://thehill.com/special-reports/energy-a-environment-february-2010/82985-clean-technology-investments-vital-to-us-leadership

Our No. 1 priority in Congress right now must be creating jobs for American workers. And the more we focus on creating jobs, the more we see that our economy needs a new launching pad. That launching pad is clean energy.

The world is “going green” and to be the economic leader in a global marketplace we must seize this opportunity to build a new clean energy economy in the United States. This will lead to exports and a reduction in the $1 billion a day we spend on imported oil. A Bloomberg News report released in December found that clean energy is already expected to draw $200 billion in job-producing investments worldwide in 2010. Just a few weeks ago, The New York Times

reported that China is now the world’s leading producer of solar panels and wind turbines. Germany, India and other nations are moving quickly to grab leadership in the clean energy economy as well. As President Barack Obama pointed out in his State of the Union address, “These nations aren’t playing for second place … They’re making

serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.” The bottom line is that to ensure American leadership in the clean energy economy, we don’t have time to waste. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) included over $58 billion in funding for important clean energy priorities, and those funds are already creating clean energy jobs and helping to build the foundation for America’s clean energy future. For example, Solyndra, a solar manufacturer in my home state of California, is putting a $535 million Department of Energy loan guarantee to work building a new facility in Fremont. Construction is expected to put 3,000 people to work, and once it’s completed, it will provide jobs for 1,000 workers. I am pleased that the president has committed to making the federal government a model of energy efficiency by aiming to cut the government’s emissions 28 percent by 2020. Agencies from the Treasury Department to the General Services Administration are implementing plans to cut their energy consumption by improving the efficiency of their facilities, installing solar panels and buying hybrid vehicles. These improvements are expected to save taxpayers between $8 billion and $11 billion over the next decade, based on current energy prices, while helping spur

private-sector investments and create good clean energy jobs. But I agree with the president that tapping into America’s full potential for clean energy job creation means passing clean energy and climate legislation. Legislation that puts a market-based cap on carbon pollution and moves us away from our dependence on foreign oil will

also unleash billions in privateinvestment. John Doerr — one of the nation’s leading venture capitalists, who helped launch Google and Amazon.com — has predicted that the investment capital that will flow into clean energy will dwarf the amount invested in high-tech and biotech combined. California has been a leader in the development of clean energy jobs. The Pew Charitable Trust reports that 10,000 new clean energy businesses were launched in California from 1998 to 2007. During that period, clean energy investments created more

than 125,000 jobs and generated jobs 15 percent faster than the California economy as a whole. Taking steps to invest in clean energy is crucial for creating jobs here at home and speeding economic recovery — but it’s also vital to America’s health and security. Scientists in the Obama and Bush administrations and our own National Academy of

Sciences tell us that we have a narrow window of time in which to avert the worst ravages of climate change. National security leaders tell us that conflicts over food and water resources related to climate are a huge threat to world

stability. The message is clear — acting now to make America the clean energy leader is not only the right thing to do for the environment, but it is the best choice to create jobs, ensure America’s economic leadership, and safeguard our security in the 21st century.

Strong economic competitiveness is uniquely key to US leadership in a globalized system of power-renewable tech solvesJentleson 2007 Bruce W. | Monday, August 06,; Globalist Paper > Global Economy Inner Strength: U.S. Economic Competitiveness and the Lessons of Tonya Harding

There are plenty of analyses that focus on threats to the U.S. position from the outside — but threats from within are equally

important. As Bruce Jentleson argues in his three-part series, the domestic foundations of the United States' global role have eroded in the Bush years, undermining the inner strength on which U.S. global leadership must rest. They must be revitalized if the United States is to reclaim and sustain its global role raditionally, America’s global role has rested on three principal domestic foundations: First, an economy secure and competitive enough to provide both global economic leadership and domestic prosperity. Second, a political system widely seen as the model democracy. And third, a society blending individual opportunity and a shared sense of community . Economic lessons There is no more globally competitive arena than the Olympics. Back in the 1994 Winter Olympics, the figure skater Tonya Harding tried one strategy for winning: Make your opponent less competitive — even if it means breaking her kneecaps. There is not much we Americans can do about other nations' focus on strengthening themselves. But there's a lot we need to do about self-weakening. That didn’t work out very well. It’s much better, in the Olympics and most other competitions, to work hard to make oneself as competitive as possible. The United States needs to take the lessons of Tonya Harding to heart in facing up to the economic challenges of this global era. Sure, China and India and other rising economic competitors need to play by the rules. But for all the focus on what they are doing to become more competitive, the fundamental problems have more to do with what we Americans are doing to

ourselves — and not doing for ourselves. Our domestic economic vulnerability is increasing. Our international economic competitiveness is decreasing. Biotechnology Technological innovativeness has served us Americans well in the past and

can do so again — if supported The Manhattan and Apollo projects demonstrated what the United States can do to meet major scientific-technological-economic-political challenges and facilitated by policies such as those in the bipartisan America Competes Act currently being considered in Congress. This legislation would substantially increase research and education funding in the public, private and non-profit sectors, emphasizing both basic research and applied, as well as developing

a more strategically organized governmental “innovation infrastructure.” Biotechnology is a good example where U.S. competitiveness has been sustained by business, finance, universities and government working together . In this case, states such as California which have fought back against the religious-political “war on science” sufficiently that the University of California is the second-largest biotech patent holder in the world. New technologies Green technologies are another area of unfulfilled, yet enormous potential. The Manhattan and Apollo projects demonstrated what the

United States can do to meet major scientific-technological-economic-political challenges. Were a new administration to

launch a national “Project Earth” with comparable priority, the results could be equally successful. With environmental protection increasingly seen as a growth industry, at least some of the private sector is being incentivized.

Companies can benefit from working with China and US on climate change- helping economy Zhang 15

Xiaochen Zhang ( Former Associate Director, Climate Change, BSR), 9-25-2015, " U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Creates Business Opportunities on Both Sides of the Pacific", BSR (Business for Social Resoponsibility), http://www.bsr.org/en/our-insights/blog-view/u.s.-china-cooperation-on-climate-creates-business-opportunities-on-both-si

Today, U.S. President Obama and Chinese President Xi issued a joint statement on climate change that sets out a common vision for the Paris climate agreement to be concluded this December, and which strengthens their respective national climate policies. China announced that it would launch a national emissions-trading system in 2017 and develop a “green dispatch” system that

prioritizes power generation from renewable sources. This follows the recent finalization of the U.S. Clean Power Plan. China also agreed to contribute US$3.1 billion to a bilateral fund to help developing countries fight climate change, consistent with the United States’ previously pledged US$3 billion for the Green Climate Fund. The two countries also committed to synchronize the introduction of new heavy-duty vehicle fuel-efficiency standards in 2016, with plans to implement them in 2019. And they will scale up efforts to control emissions of super-warming hydrofluorocarbons. To strengthen climate action, global

corporations depend on strong, harmonized policy signals in the countries where they have operations and supply chains, and this joint announcement by the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies sends precisely the signals business needs to act on climate. This announcement is the latest example of strong cooperation between the United States and China on climate change. Last November, the two presidents announced new climate targets for both countries, which have since been submitted for inclusion in the Paris climate agreement. China committed to peaking its carbon-dioxide emissions around 2030 and to increasing the share of energy produced from non-fossil fuels to around 20 percent by 2030. To achieve this, China will need to install as much renewable energy capacity as the entire U.S. electricity system currently offers. For its part, the United States committed to reducing emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, doubling the pace of reductions currently underway. The launch of the U.S.-China Climate Change Working Group in April 2013 has led to bilateral cooperation in eight areas, including vehicle-emissions standards, smart grids, energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage, and more. Ten days ago, the two countries held the first U.S.-China Climate-Smart Cities Summit in Los Angeles, where Chinese cities pledged to peak their carbon emissions faster than the national target. Beijing, Guangzhou, and Zhejiang committed to do this by 2020, and Shanghai and Shenzhen pledged to do so by 2022. On the other side of the Pacific, American cities and states—including Atlanta, Boston, California, Connecticut, Houston, New York City, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.—committed to reducing emissions by 80 or more by 2050. With clear cooperation among national, regional, and local governments in the United States and China, now is the time for business to ramp up its climate partnerships. This week, President Xi’s meetings with Amazon, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Boeing, Cisco, Disney, Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Motors, IBM, Microsoft, Pepsi, and Starbucks emphasizes the

importance of U.S.-China trade and investment. China’s development aspirations rely on innovation, and this is where businesses shine. By working together with government, companies operating in China can green their operations, build climate-resilient supply chains, and scale-up low-carbon technologies . Many companies are already pursuing opportunities to partner with government and with other like-minded businesses. As a signatory to President Obama’s American Business Act on Climate Pledge, Apple has pledged to power its global corporate facilities with 100 percent renewable energy. In China, Apple has partnered with SunPower, Tianjin Zhonghuan Semiconductor, and other companies to develop a solar-energy project in Sichuan Province. The project will generate up to 80 million kilowatt-hours of electricity—more than enough to power all of its offices and retail stores in China. By demonstrating the viability of renewable energy in China, Apple will encourage its suppliers to do the same. H&M is also investing in renewable energy projects in China. Through its partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Clean By Design program, as well as through H&M’s work with RE100, the company is developing innovative solutions to reduce the environmental and climate impacts of its stores and the factors in its supply chain. Meanwhile, IBM is supporting China’s drive to reduce fossil fuels with weather-forecasting technologies and big-data analytics that predict the availability of renewable energy. This will help utility companies minimize energy waste and improve grid stability. IBM’s solution has been used in renewable energy projects throughout the country, including in

China’s largest renewable-energy initiative, the Zhangbei Demonstration Project. These are but a few examples demonstrating that low-carbon collaboration is big business on both sides of the Pacific. BSR will be working closely with the We Mean

Business coalition and others in the business community from both the United States and China to capitalize on the positive momentum policymakers have achieved yet again.

At: It’s too Late

Climate Change can be stopped but we must act now to prevent the worst impacts.Jenkins 13, Amber, a climate change communicator at JPL, Ask the Expert - Is It too Late to Reduce Climate Change?, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/blog/2013/2/ask-the-expert-is-it-too-late-to-reduce-climate-change, Accessed 7-7-16

In this new series on "Big Fat Planet," we will answer selected questions about Earth's climate submitted by readers. Recently, a reader asked: "Is there still time to reduce climate change, or is it too late?" The following answer is from Dr. Chip Miller, a researcher specializing in remote sensing of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is principal investigator of the Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) and was deputy principal investigator for NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite mission, which was designed to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide from space. This is a question that has

been asked many times and many studies have investigated similar questions: What level of climate change is "acceptable"? What constitutes "dangerous interference" in the climate system? The short answer is that it's not too late to act, but our past actions may have already locked in certain outcomes and action is needed to avoid more substantial impacts in the future. In the 1990s and early 2000s it was generally felt that a doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere compared to pre-industrial levels -- that is, CO2 concentrations increasing to about 500 parts per million (ppm)

- was "acceptable." However, the series of studies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has found that as climate models improve, average worldwide surface temperature is projected to increase well beyond the "acceptable" level of 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 .

(See the IPCC website for the reports and most recent information.) Jim Hansen (head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies) has been one of the more outspoken advocates of curtailing CO2 emissions immediately to return atmospheric CO2 levels to about 350 ppm (the level of carbon dioxide that was in the air in the late 1980s). The challenge here is that even if human emissions of CO2 were cut to zero today, there is an inertia in the climate system that would continue for hundreds to thousands of years as the system attempts to re-equilibrate. (See Hansen's Royal Society paper, "Climate change and trace gases," for more details.) Michael Oppenheimer [Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University] and colleagues have taken a different approach to assessing climate change risk - they define the likelihood of certain environmental outcomes for different levels of atmospheric CO2 accumulation. (See their 2002 Science paper, "Dangerous climate impacts and the Kyoto Protocol," for a look at three potential outcomes at different CO2 levels.)

Its not too late to stop global climate change- but we are on the tipping point Johnston, 2015

"Have We Passed The Point Of No Return On Climate Change?". Scientific American. N. p., 2016. Web. 8 July 2016.

While we may not yet have reached the “point of no return”—when no amount of cutbacks on greenhouse gas emissions

will save us from potentially catastrophic global warming—climate scientists warn we may be getting awfully close. Since

the dawn of the Industrial Revolution a century ago, the average global temperature has risen some 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Most climatologists agree that, while the warming to date is already causing environmental

problems, another 0.4 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature, representing a global average atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) of 450 parts per million (ppm), could set in motion unprecedented changes in global climate and a significant increase in the severity of natural disasters—and as such could represent the dreaded point of no return. Currently the atmospheric concentration of CO2 (the leading

greenhouse gas) is approximately 398.55 parts per million (ppm). According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

(NOAA), the federal scientific agency tasked with monitoring the health of our oceans and atmosphere, the current average annual rate of increase of 1.92 ppm means we could reach the point of no return by 2042. Environmental leaders point out that this doesn’t give us much time to turn the tide. Greenpeace, a leading environmental

advocacy group, says we have until around 2020 to significantly cut back on greenhouse gas output around the world—to the tune of a five percent annual reduction in emissions overall—if we are to avoid so-called “runaway” climate change. “The world is fast approaching a 'point of no return' beyond which extremely dangerous climate change impacts can become unavoidable,” reports the group. “Within this time period, we will have to radically change our approach to energy production and consumption.” In a recent lecture at Georgetown University, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim reported that whether we are able to cut emissions enough to prevent catastrophe likely depends on the policies of the world’s largest economies and the widespread adoption of so-called carbon pricing systems (such as emissions trading plans and carbon taxes). International negotiators meeting in Paris next December are already working to hammer out an agreement mandating that governments adopt these types of systems to facilitate emissions reductions. “A price on carbon is the single most important thing we have to get out of a Paris agreement,” Kim stated. “It will unleash market forces.” While carbon pricing will be key to mitigating global warming, Greenpeace adds that stemming the tide of deforestation in the world’s tropical rainforests and beyond and adapting our food systems to changing climatic conditions and increasingly limited resources will also be

crucial to the health of the planet. “Without additional mitigation, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally,” reports the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international group of leading climate experts convened by the United Nations to review and assess the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information on global warming. Indeed, there’s no time like the present to start changing our ways.