Double Trouble for Polar Bears

When it comes to polar bears, the Department of Interior can't seem to decide whether it wants to help or hurt the species. One day the agency takes dramatic steps to protect polar bears by proposing 200,000 square miles of critical habitat. The next, DOI is recklessly handing out oil and gas leases in prime polar bear habitat. 

A new report by the National Wildlife Federation and Northern Alaska Environmental Center details how these threats from oil and gas development, combined with near-record Arctic sea-ice loss, spell Double Trouble for Polar Bears. 

The first of two maps in the report shows the overlap of approved energy leases and proposed polar bear critical habitat.  Imagine what would happen to polar bears if a major oil spill were to occur in this area. 

The second map shows where sea ice in prime polar bear habitat areas has declined significantly over the past 30 years, especially during October and November, when polar bears return to these areas where seals are most common. This global warming spurred melting is happening faster than previously projected.

If we are to give polar bears a fighting chance, we need strict oversight as required by the Endangered Species Act of oil and gas development and other proposed disturbances in polar bear critical habitat. NWF is also advocating for DOI to expand the area proposed for polar bear critical habitat to include the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Beaufort Sea from Alaska’s Northern coast out to 200 miles.

NWF's Dr. Doug Inkley offered up this perspective: “The plight of the polar bear highlights the plight of our planet,” said Inkley. “The news coming out of the Arctic increases the urgency for world leaders gathered in Copenhagen to agree on a plan to reduce the pollution that threatens wildlife and our own future.”

Groups to Obama: Invest in a Sustainable Future

Just in from Copenhagen -- a letter from a coalition of conservation organizations to President Obama:

We write to you on behalf of the businesses and millions of Americans we represent to urge you to lead at this historic moment and secure a fair and ambitious plan for global cooperation to combat climate change. In particular, we ask that you reprioritize American policy to phase out the sizable taxpayer subsidies we provide the fossil fuel industry and instead significantly increase the U.S. investment in global efforts to protect tropical forests, provide humanitarian assistance to protect vulnerable communities from climate impacts, and speed the deployment of clean energy technologies. With strong leadership and new proposals in the coming days, the United States can and should secure additional financing commitments from other nations as part of a broader agreement from major emitters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A Copenhagen agreement should include a landmark global plan to protect tropical forests from the destruction that causes approximately 15% of the emissions that contribute to global warming. Backed by a broad coalition of businesses and conservation groups, many in Congress have already supported measures to finance global efforts to protect tropical forests in climate legislation. The House-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act includes strong financing for efforts to reduce emissions from global deforestation by 720 million tons annually by 2020 – emission reductions that are above and beyond the emission standards in the bill. Similar provisions are included in the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act that has been approved by the Senate Environment Committee. You have an opportunity to offer this as a supplemental commitment here in Copenhagen and ask other nations to match it.

The letter (PDF) was signed by National Wildlife Federation President & CEO Larry Schweiger, along with leaders of Alliance for Climate Protection, American Council On Renewable Energy, Center for International Environmental Law, Ceres/BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy), Clean Economy Network Inc., Environmental Defense Fund, Evangelical Environmental Network, Food for the Hungry, Inc., League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, The Wilderness Society, Union of Concerned Scientists, World Resources Institute, World Wildlife Fund, and 1Sky.

Photo via Flickr's SolarGeneration

COP15 Update: Limited Access, Tenuous Talks

Posted by Christine Dorsey, National Wildlife Federation Communications Director

While the world awaits the outcome of climate negotiations in Copenhagen, most of the global observers who registered to participate in COP15 have been shut out of the process. Despite issuing credentials to thousands of people from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who have come from all over the world to participate in the talks, the UN Secretariat decided this week to severely limit access to the Bella Center, forcing most to stand out in the cold.

The Climate Action Network International has a film crew following daily developments and you can watch it each day on YouTube.

We at the National Wildlife Federation were not immune to the lack of access – some in our delegation spent more than 5 hours in line for registration, only to get turned away. This morning, Friends of the Earth and other groups were blocked completely from entering – their entire delegations were rejected.

Only a few NWFers were able to get inside today. Jeremy Symons led a discussion about the status of U.S. climate and clean energy legislation. Negotiations hinge in large part on what the United States ultimately decides to do to control its global warming pollution. Meanwhile, Eric Palola attended a speech by Sen. John Kerry, who assured those inside the Bella Center that the U.S. will pass comprehensive climate legislation. And Joe Mendelson worked the U.S. delegation, President Obama’s team of negotiators.

Outside the Bella Center, observers began protesting the unprecedented actions to block access to the talks. What began as a peaceful march to the entrance had moments of violence as police set up blockades.

The talks themselves are very tenuous at this point. Major disagreements remain between rich and poor nations regarding how to pay for what is sure to be an expensive climate tab.

As Jeremy described it for Politico, the U.S. negotiators in Copenhagen are suffering from ADD: Ambition Deficit Disorder. It seems there is a wide gulf between what we have heard from President Obama in terms of a fair and effective climate deal and the hard-lined negotiating stance from the U.S. negotiating team.

Stay tuned for more...

Lemurs in the 'REDD'

Last week, as global leaders joined together in Copenhagen to start negotiations for a landmark agreement on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), I took leave from the National Wildlife Federation to travel to a remote fragment of rainforest in northeastern Madagascar.

I embarked on this journey in search of a remarkable species of critically endangered lemur, and the team of local researchers who are striving to protect it and its forest habitat.

Hauntingly beautiful and one of the world's 25 rarest primates, the elusive silky sifaka lemur Propithecus candidus, is only found in a few remaining rainforest fragments on the island Madagascar. In this remote part of the world, forest loss for slash-and-burn agriculture threatens silky sifaka survival and jeopardizes the ecological services local forest-bordering communities depend on.

Following the period of political instability that resulted in a government coup earlier this year, Madagascar's fragile natural resources have become more threatened than ever. Recent increases in the illegal logging of hardwoods from National Parks and Protected Areas to meet international demand for rosewood and ebony, has been concentrated in the very forests that provide the last remaining habitat for the silky sifaka.

The current environmental crisis in Madagascar highlights the great tragedy today that our world’s tropical forests are, in fact, 'worth more dead than alive'.

Until international mechanisms are put into place that assign value to the ecological services tropical forests provide in safeguarding ecological services and regulating our global climate, deforestation rates will continue to increase. And our own future, and that of critically endangered species like the silky sifaka, will continue to be in the 'REDD.'

Further resources:

• Download the new Global Witness - Environmental Investigation Agency Field Investigation into Illegal Logging
• Information on Silky Sifaka research and conservation
• More on Marojejy National Park, Madagascar
• Information on local conservation and development projects in the Marojejy region of Madagascar

By Rachel Kramer, National Wildlife Federation.

 

Americans Reject Big Oil's Big Money Blitz

The following post comes from National Wildlife Federation Senior Vice President Jeremy Symons:

There’s a dirty little secret about the Big Oil-funded campaign against clean energy & climate legislation: It’s been a huge failure.

Don’t believe me? Just look at the poll numbers. According to CNN’s latest poll (PDF) taken in December -- after the Swifthack phony controversy broke – the numbers remain incredibly strong. Three in four Americans (75%) believe “The United States should reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that may contribute to global warming.” And 68% believe “global warming is a proven fact.”

There has been slight erosion in these numbers over the last year. But that’s to be expected – the erosion has come exclusively among Republicans, a result of partisan attacks on President Obama’s clean energy & climate leadership.

As with recent Washington Post poll showing strong support, CNN focused on the small decline in their reporting. The media’s horse race coverage of day-to-day shifts isn’t surprising, but for those of us focused on the marathon of getting a bill passed into law, we should take heart in the consistency over time.

Let’s put those numbers into some context:

• Polluting industries spent $118 million to lobby on climate & energy legislation this summer alone

• The oil & coal lobbies poured $115 million into a public relations campaign last year.

And now we have the Swifthack story, leaked just in time for Copenhagen. The same old polluters & science deniers are pushing Swifthack, using the same old scare tactics & misinformation in an attempt to spread doubt, backed by the same old polluters reaping billions in profits from our current energy system.

As much as the deny & delay crowd has tried to use Swifthack and other manufactured “scandals” as reason to slam on the brakes of even discussing climate action, the public once again isn’t buying what Big Oil’s allies are selling. To repeat: Two-thirds convinced global warming is a fact, three-quarters supporting carbon pollution cuts, after Swifthack broke.

So the next time you hear about public support for climate legislation “falling,” try looking at it in a different light – how many voters were bombarded by Big Oil’s lies, yet were unmoved in their support for clean energy & climate legislation?

Photo via Flickr's Blush Response

New Poll: Americans Know Clean Energy & Climate Action Create Jobs

A new Associated Press poll out this morning is giving a big boost to the prospects of a clean energy & climate bill in the Senate:

More Americans believe steps taken to reduce global warming pollution will help the U.S. economy than say such measures will hurt it. It's a sign the public is showing more faith in President Barack Obama's economic arguments for limiting heat-trapping gases than in Republican claims that the actions would kill jobs.

In an Associated Press-Stanford University poll, 40 percent said U.S. action to slow global warming in the future would create jobs. Slightly more, 46 percent, said it would boost the economy. [...]

The survey's results seem to boost Democratic efforts to curb global warming pollution and sign on to an international agreement to reduce heat-trapping gases, despite the concerns many Americans have about the recession and the high unemployment rate.

Voters know the benefits of clean energy & climate legislation are clear. Tell your Senators that clean energy will repower America's economy, create millions of jobs, and protect people & wildlife from the worst effects of global warming.

NWF's Jeremy Symons: Mind the Gaps

Jeremy Symons, the National Wildlife Federation's senior vice president, has a new post up over at Politico's Copenhagen Arena

I write as Energy Secretary Chu announces a new U.S. commitment on financing for helping move clean energy technologies to the poorest nations of the world. The room is overflowing. In fact, the second and decisive week in Copenhagen begins with the sprawling Bella Center – where the talks are happening -- bursting at the seams with tens of thousands of delegates, media and observers. It can take a quarter of an hour just to walk from the entrance to the far reaches of meeting rooms -- and it's swarming with people the whole way.

Those who arrived over the weekend stood shoulder to shoulder in the cold with thousands of others to get credentials, taking up to 4 hours or more. The UN is creating new systems on the fly to limit access and manage the crowds. Latest unofficial word is that only 1,000 of the tens of thousands of observers will be allowed in on Thursday, and 90 on Friday, when President Obama and other heads of states are here.

When 120 foreign leaders converge on Copenhagen later this week, they will need to watch their step for other reasons – minding the two “gaps” that have turned these negotiations into a minefield.

To read about those two "gaps," read the full post at Politico's Copenhagen Arena.

Did You Get That Handbag From...The Amazon Rainforest?

Here in Copenhagen, while negotiators hash out the details of an international climate agreement, thousands of organizations and businesses from all over the globe are monitoring the talks and bringing to the table ideas for how to solve the climate crisis.

National Wildlife Federation is working to solve a big problem: uncontrolled cattle ranching, which is right now the single biggest cause of rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon, and subsequently, a major source of global warming pollution.

When millions of acres of rainforest are wiped out to make room for cattle or the crops that feed them, it removes a significant CO2 sponge that had been holding carbon in the ground. When the trees are cut or burned, massive amounts of CO2 are released into the atmosphere. Right now, tropical deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of the world’s global warming pollution (PDF) - an amount equivalent to the total emissions of China or the United States, or more than that produced by every car, truck, plane, ship and train on Earth.

A recent article in the newsletter of the Yale School of Forestry tells a stark story.

I interviewed NWF's international policy expert Barbara Bramble today about an event she hosted at COP15 about what's being done to address this problem:

I had no idea that the leather boots I’m wearing could very well have come from the hides of cattle being raised on clear-cut land that was once Brazilian rainforest, and may actually have contributed to global warming.

Barbara explained it to me like this:

What can be done? An effort led by NWF and local organizations in the Amazon is underway to improve local law enforcement and develop incentives for ranchers to use sustainable ranching practices that avoid massive deforestation. At the same time, we’re working to educate big retailers who buy huge amounts of leather to make shoes, belts, purses and other popular leather products about the source of their material. If big retailers insist that their leather come from sustainable ranches, and reward responsible ranchers with more business, these products become more valuable, which becomes a win-win for the ranchers and the rainforest.

In August, NWF hosted a roundtable in Brazil that brought together major retailers, leather manufacturers and large ranching operations to discuss the potential for creating a tracking system not unlike the Forest Stewardship Council’s timber tracking system. By tracing leather products back to the actual ranch on which a calf was raised, retailers - and we the customers - can be assured our leather products are not contributing to global warming. Barbara and her colleagues are going back to Brazil in January to continue this important work.

To learn more about about protecting rainforests, go to www.forestjustice.org.

Launching America’s Great Waters Coalition

The National Wildlife Federation joined more than 30 other organizations and 9 -- count 'em, nine -- members of Congress from across the country yesterday to launch America's Great Waters Coalition, representing 9 large U.S. water ecosystems--the Gulf of Maine, Long Island Sound, Chesapeake Bay, Everglades, Coastal Louisiana, Mississippi River, San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound, and the Great Lakes.

These habitats and others face sewage contamination, invasive species, habitat destruction, climate change effects and critical ignorance. Luckily, we still have a shot at restoring them and, in doing so, restoring ecosystems that sustain people, wildlife and the economy.

Guest lawmakers included Senator Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Representatives Norm Dicks (WA), Elijah Cummings (MD), Tim Bishop (NY), Jay Inslee (WA), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX), Mike Quigley (IL), John Sarbanes (MD), and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)). They made it clear that, economic and ecological benefits aside, the fight to restore these ecosystems is deeply personal.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN) spoke out on behalf of native Minnesotans and visitors who boat, swim, and fish on the Great Lakes (Some $50 million a year spent on bait and tackle!)

Rep. Jay Inslee (WA) -- son of Jimi Hendrix's biology teacher, apparently --came across as Experienced —not to mention 'Bold as Love'—in his appeal for water resource protection. It was as if he said, ' Hey Joe—You Got Me Floating'. My One Rainy Wish is that we not Wait Until Tomorrow to preserve America's great water ecosystems. Crosstown Traffic. (Seriously, though, Inslee talked about Puget Sound, its threatened ecosystem, and his love of the Northwest's waters.)

Rep. Elijah Cummings (MD) decried the lax environmental standards that have led to dirty drinking water and mutated aquatic wildlife in the Chesapeake and elsewhere, while Rep. John Sarbanes (MD) recalled crabbing with his grandparents in the same waters, before neglect severely damaged the largest estuary in the U.S.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL) invoked Marjory Stoneman Douglas, an Everglades conservation pioneer, and the need to carry on her fight wherever water habitats are imperiled.

By the end of the event, it was clear that America's waterways touch us--restore us--at least as much as we touch them. From Washington to New York, everyone had a story about the Great Waters, and nobody left the launch unaware of the stakes.

Me? Throughout early childhood, all I wanted to do was visit the Everglades. When I finally got the chance, at about age 10 or 12, I thrilled to the bugs and muck and left with approximately 4,000 blurry photos--There! It's a snake! I think! Maybe a vine…?--and a passion for protecting our nation's wild, wet things. It was great to see leaders and decision-makers sharing our concern.

...

America's Great Waters Coalition includes the following organizations: Alliance for the Great Lakes, American Rivers, Audubon New York, Biodiversity Project, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment, Committee on Middle Fork Vermilion River, Corsica River Conservancy, Environment America, Environmental Defense Fund, Everglades Law Center, Florida Wildlife Federation, Freshwater Future, Friends of the Chemung River Watershed, Gulf of Maine Restoration and Conservation Initiative, Gulf Restoration Network, Illinois Council of Trout Unlimited, Indiana Wildlife Federation, Izaak Walton League of America, Lake Erie Region Conservancy, League of Conservation Voters, Michigan United Conservation Clubs, Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, National Audubon Society, National Parks Conservation Association, National Wildlife Federation, People for Puget Sound, Planning and Conservation League, Restore America’s Estuaries, Save The Bay – San Francisco, Save the Dunes Conservation Fund, Sierra Club, The Watershed Center - Grand Traverse Bay, The Wetlands Initiative, Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, Trout Unlimited, Washington Wildlife Federation, Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Association.

Promising News from Arkansas for Senate Climate Bill

As Senators Kerry, Graham & Lieberman unveiled their Senate clean energy & climate framework yesterday, prospects for progress got a boost from Arkansas:

Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said today he may rethink his position on a proposed cap-and-trade program in light of the recent Environmental Protection Agency ruling that greenhouse gas emissions are a threat to the public health.

Also today, the chairman and CEO of Entergy Corp. told an audience in Little Rock the EPA has sent a signal to Congress to act on climate change, and U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln said she has concerns about the agency’s ruling.

“I’ve always been reluctant on cap and trade, but it (the EPA ruling) might put that in a different light,” Pryor said in a conference call with reporters. “I’ll just have to look at that and really spend some time reflecting on that and talking to not just colleagues but talking to people who really understand this and see if that does change my view on cap-and-trade.” [...]

“I strongly urge EPA to wait for Congress to find a solution that creates jobs, grows our economy, and increases our energy independence, all while having the impact of reducing greenhouse gases,” Lincoln said.

Considering Arkansas' risks of climate change & opportunities from clean energy, it's critical that Senators Lincoln & Pryor play key roles in shaping & passing clean energy & climate legislation.

Before the weekend, please take a moment to tell your senators we need clean energy & climate action now.