Climate Change: Propaganda Vs Reality

[NRao]

These scientists think giant machines could help refreeze the Arctic

A team of scientists has a surprisingly simple solution to saving the Arctic: We need to make more ice.

A team at Arizona State University has proposed building 10 million wind-powered pumps to draw up water and spill it out onto the surface of the ice, where it will freeze faster.

Doing so would be complicated and expensive -- it's estimated to cost a cool $500 billion, and right now the proposal is only theoretical.

But the need to solve the problem is urgent, said professor of astrophysics Steven Desch. He and a team of scientists published a study about how to refreeze parts of the Arctic in the December 2016 issue of the "Earth's Future" journal.

[NRao]

Turns out wind and solar have a secret friend: Natural gas

[NRao]

New supercomputer aids climate research in Wyoming

A new supercomputer in the top coal-mining state has begun critical climate-change research with support from even some global warming doubters, but scientists worry President Donald Trump could cut funding for such programs.

[NRao]

On NPR a scientist from Wyoming, estimated an increase of 500 jobs in that state, if Trump goes for coal. And that Appalachia would actually lose 300 jobs!!

The main competitor for coal: natural gas. The two cannot survive at the same time. And the gas is getting cheaper.

So is renewable.

[NRao]

Energy and Environment One of the most troubling ideas about climate change just found new evidence in its favor

Ever since 2012, scientists have been debating a complex and frankly explosive idea about how a warming planet will alter our weather — one that, if it’s correct, would have profound implications across the Northern Hemisphere and especially in its middle latitudes, where hundreds of millions of people live.

The idea is that climate change doesn’t merely increase the overall likelihood of heat waves, say, or the volume of rainfall — it also changes the flow of weather itself. By altering massive planet-scale air patterns like the jet stream (pictured above), which flows in waves from west to east in the Northern Hemisphere, a warming planet causes our weather to become more stuck in place. This means that a given weather pattern, whatever it may be, may persist for longer, thus driving extreme droughts, heat waves, downpours and more.

Publishing in Nature Scientific Reports, Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and a group of colleagues at research institutes in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands find that at least in the spring and summer, the large scale flow of the atmosphere is indeed changing in such a way as to cause weather to get stuck more often.

The study, its authors write, “adds to the weight of evidence for a human influence on the occurrence of devastating events such as the 2003 European heat wave, the 2010 Pakistan flood and Russian heat wave, the 2011 Texas heat wave and recent floods in Europe.”

[NRao]

Miami's fight against rising seas

The first time my father’s basement flooded, it was shortly after he moved in. The building was an ocean-front high-rise in a small city north of Miami called Sunny Isles Beach. The marble lobby had a waterfall that never stopped running; crisp-shirted valets parked your car for you. For the residents who lived in the more lavish flats, these cars were often BMWs and Mercedes. But no matter their value, the cars all wound up in the same place: the basement.

When I called, I’d ask my dad how the building was doing. “The basement flooded again a couple weeks ago,” he’d sometimes say. Or: “It’s getting worse.” It’s not only his building: he’s also driven through a foot of water on a main road a couple of towns over and is used to tiptoeing around pools in the local supermarket’s car park.

Ask nearly anyone in the Miami area about flooding and they’ll have an anecdote to share. Many will also tell you that it’s happening more and more frequently. The data backs them up.

It’s easy to think that the only communities suffering from sea level rise are far-flung and remote. And while places like the Solomon Islands and Kiribati are indeed facing particularly dramatic challenges, they aren’t the only ones being forced to grapple with the issue. Sea levels are rising around the world, and in the US, south Florida is ground zero – as much for the adaptation strategies it is attempting as for the risk that it bears.

One reason is that water levels here are rising especially quickly. The most frequently-used range of estimates puts the likely range between 15-25cm (6-10in) above 1992 levels by 2030, and 79-155cm (31-61in) by 2100. With tides higher than they have been in decades – and far higher than when this swampy, tropical corner of the US began to be drained and built on a century ago – many of south Florida’s drainage systems and seawalls are no longer enough. That means not only more flooding, but challenges for the infrastructure that residents depend on every day, from septic tanks to wells. “The consequences of sea level rise are going to occur way before the high tide reaches your doorstep,” says William Sweet, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The flooding would be a challenge for any community, but it poses particular risks here. One recent report estimated that Miami has the most to lose in terms of financial assets of any coastal city in the world, just above Guangzhou, China and New York City. This 120-mile (193km) corridor running up the coast from Homestead to Jupiter – taking in major cities like Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach – is the eighth most populous metropolitan area in the US. It’s also booming. In 2015, the US Census Bureau found that the population of all three counties here was growing – along with the rest of Florida – at around 8%, roughly twice the pace of the US average. Recent studies have shown that Florida has more residents at risk from climate change than any other US state.

It has more property at risk, too. In Miami-Dade County, developers had 1.6 million sq ft (149,000 sq m) of office space and 1.8 million of retail space under construction in the second quarter of 2016 alone. Sunny Isles Beach, home to 20,300 people, has eight high-rise buildings under construction; swing a seagull in the air, and you’ll hit a crane. As you might imagine, the value of development in this sun-soaked part of the country is high, too. Property in Sunny Isles alone is now worth more than $10 billion. Many of the wealthiest people in the US reside in Florida, including 40 billionaires on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans; on a recent week, the most expensive real estate listing in the US was a $54 million mansion in Palm Beach.

Despite his history of referring to climate change as a “hoax” and his recent rollback of emissions-slashing initiatives, President Donald Trump is one of these property owners with a stake in the issue. The president frequently visits his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, 75 miles (121km) north of Miami, which is itself an area experiencing flooding from high tides. There also are six Trump-branded residential buildings in Sunny Isles, one of which still provides the president with income, and a Trump-branded condominium complex in Hollywood.

Look beyond all the glass and steel, though, and – despite the federal government’s sidelining of the issue – there’s another thrum of activity. It’s the wastewater treatment plant constructing new buildings five feet higher than the old ones. The 105 miles (169km) of roads being raised in Miami Beach. The new shopping mall built with flood gates. The 116 tidal valves installed in Fort Lauderdale. The seawalls being raised and repaired. And the worried conversations between more and more residents every year about what the sea-rise models predict – and what to do about it.
The communities aren’t short of solutions. “Nobody’s doing better adaptation work in the country than south Florida,” says Daniel Kreeger, executive director of the nonprofit Association of Climate Change Officers. But the question isn’t whether this work will save every community: it won’t. Even those tasked with making their cities resilient admit that, at some point in the future, certain areas here will no longer be “viable” places to live. Rather, the challenge is to do enough to ensure that the economy as a whole continues to thrive and that tourists still come to enjoy the sun, sand – and swelling sea.

It’s a challenge that many officials and experts are determined to meet. Getting there, though, requires a shift in how everyone from mayors to taxpayers, insurers to engineers, property developers to urban planners thinks about their communities – and the everyday decisions that shape them. The eyes of the world are on them: if one of the richest communities on the planet can’t step up, what hope is there for everyone else?
“If the science is correct on this – which it is going to be – the question is, ‘How extreme are the implications?’” says Kreeger. “We are literally going to have to rewrite how businesses function, and how cities are designed. Everything’s going to change. And that’s particularly going to be exacerbated in coastal communities.

“This would be no different than if I came to you and said ‘Hey, in 40 years, gravity’s going to change. I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to be. But let’s assume roughly between 50% and 80% stronger or weaker than it is now.’ You’d look around and say ‘Shoot, what’s that going to affect?’
"And the answer is: it affects everything.”
*

Sea level rise is global. But due to a variety of factors – including, for this part of the Atlantic coast, a likely weakening of the Gulf Stream, itself potentially a result of the melting of Greenland’s ice caps – south Floridians are feeling the effects more than many others. While there has been a mean rise of a little more than 3mm per year worldwide since the 1990s, in the last decade, the NOAA Virginia Key tide gauge just south of Miami Beach has measured a 9mm rise annually.

That may not sound like much. But as an average, it doesn’t tell the whole story of what residents see – including more extreme events like king tides (extremely high tides), which have been getting dramatically higher. What’s more, when you’re talking about places like Miami Beach – where, as chief resiliency officer Susanne Torriente jokes, the elevation ranges between “flat and flatter” – every millimetre counts. Most of Miami Beach’s built environment sits at an elevation of 60-120cm (2-6ft). And across the region, underground infrastructure – like aquifers or septic tanks – lies even closer to the water table.

On a nearly two-hour tour of Fort Lauderdale’s adaptation strategies, the city’s head of sustainability, Nancy Gassman, points out incremental differences in elevation: slight rolls in the sidewalk or paving that usually go unnoticed. “That might seem weird that I’m pointing out a couple of feet difference,” she says. “But a couple feet in south Florida – it’s time. Elevation is time for us.”

Not only are sea levels rising, but the pace seems to be accelerating. That’s been noted before – but what it means for south Florida was only recently brought home in a University of Miami study. “After 2006, sea level rose faster than before – and much faster than the global rate,” says the lead author Shimon Wdowinski, who is now with Miami’s Florida International University. From 3mm per year from 1998 to 2005, the rise off Miami Beach tripled to that 9mm rate from 2006.

An uptick also happened between the 1930s and 1950s, says Wdowinski, making some question whether this is a similar oscillation. But that’s probably wishful thinking. “It’s not necessarily what we see now. This warming of the planet has been growing for a while,” he says. “It’s probably a different process than what happened 60 years ago.”

“Can we definitely say it’s the ocean warming?” says Sweet, who has authored several sea-level rise studies. “No. But is it indicative of what we’d expect to see? Yes.”

......................................

Very long, but a nice article.

[NRao]

Worth the watch. March 27, 2017:

[NRao]

The Asian Country that is Drowning

'Nam

[NRao]

When Rising Seas Transform Rsk into Certainity


Larchmont-Edgewater, a Norfolk, Va., neighborhood frequently plagued by floods. The house in the center has been raised above flood levels

Today the neighborhood is known for the venerable crepe myrtles that line its streets, for its fine houses and schools and water views and for the frequency with which it is not just edged by, but inundated with, water. Melting ice and warming water are raising sea levels everywhere. But because the land in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia (which includes Norfolk) is also sinking, relative sea levels there are rising faster than anywhere on the Atlantic coast. Water levels are already as much as 18 inches higher than they were when the developers created Larchmont-Edgewater a century ago, and they are still rising. As a result, it’s much easier for winds, storms and tides to push flood water into streets, yards and homes that once stood high and dry.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="707" data-total-count="1934">When Elisa Staton found a small house a block from the water in Larchmont-Edgewater in 2005, she was thinking of the neighborhood’s grand trees and Tudor-style houses, of the elementary school she hoped to send her kids to, once she had them. She wasn’t thinking much about flooding, though she knew the house was in a hundred-year flood zone, which meant that to get a federally backed mortgage, she was required to pay for flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program (N.F.I.P.), a government-subsidized system overseen by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The insurance was reasonable, and there was no record of the house ever being flooded before. She bought it for $320,000.

A “hundred-year flood” sounds like a factor of time, as if the land were expected to flood only once every 100 years, but what it’s really meant to express is risk — the land has a 1 percent chance of flooding each year. As waters rise, though, flooding in low-lying places without sea walls, like Larchmont-Edgewater, will become more and more common until the presence of water is less about chance and more about certainty. And few insurers are willing to bet against a certainty.

[A_Gupta]

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... ssic-2017/
Nenana Ice Classic 2017

[NRao]

Fun times.


Fighting Trump on Climate, California Becomes a Global Force

LOS ANGELES — The environmental ministers of Canada and Mexico went to San Francisco last month to sign a global pact — drafted largely by California — to lower planet-warming greenhouse pollution. Gov. Jerry Brown flies to China next month to meet with climate leaders there on a campaign to curb global warming. And a battery of state lawyers is preparing to battle any attempt by Washington to weaken California’s automobile pollution emission standards.

As President Trump moves to reverse the Obama administration’s policies on climate change, California is emerging as the nation’s de facto negotiator with the world on the environment. The state is pushing back on everything from White House efforts to roll back pollution rules on tailpipes and smokestacks, to plans to withdraw or weaken the United States’ commitments under the Paris climate change accord.

In the process, California is not only fighting to protect its legacy of sweeping environmental protection, but also holding itself out as a model to other states — and to nations — on how to fight climate change.

“I want to do everything we can to keep America on track, keep the world on track, and lead in all the ways California has,” said Mr. Brown, who has embraced this fight as he enters what is likely to be the final stretch of a 40-year career in California government. “We’re looking to do everything we can to advance our program, regardless of whatever happens in Washington.”

Since the election, California has stood as the leading edge of the Democratic resistance to the Trump administration, on a range of issues including immigration and health care. Mr. Trump lost to Hillary Clinton here by nearly four million votes. Every statewide elected official is a Democrat, and the party controls both houses of the Legislature by a two-thirds margin. Soon after Mr. Trump was elected, Democratic legislative leaders hired Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general, to represent California in legal fights with the administration.

But of all the battles it is waging with Washington, none have the global implications of the one over climate change.

The aggressive posture on the environment has set the stage for a confrontation between the Trump administration and the largest state in the nation. California has 39 million people, making it more populous than Canada and many other countries. And with an annual economic output of $2.4 trillion, the state is an economic powerhouse and has the sixth-largest economy in the world.

California’s efforts cross party lines. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who served as governor from 2003 to 2011, and led the state in developing the most aggressive pollution-control programs in the nation, has emerged as one of Mr. Trump’s biggest Republican critics.

Mr. Trump and his advisers appear ready for the fight.

Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency chief, whom Mr. Trump has charged with rolling back Obama-era environmental policies, speaks often of his belief in the importance of federalism and states’ rights, describing Mr. Trump’s proposals as a way to lift the oppressive yoke of federal regulations and return authority to the states. But of Mr. Brown’s push to expand California’s environmental policies to the country and the world, Mr. Pruitt said, “That’s not federalism — that’s a political agenda hiding behind federalism.”

“Is it federalism to impose your policy on other states?” Mr. Pruitt asked in a recent interview in his office. “It seems to me that Mr. Brown is being the aggressor here,” he said. “But we expect the law will show this.”

In one of his earliest strikes, Mr. Trump signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the Clean Power Plan, President Barack Obama’s signature climate policy change. Much of the plan, which Mr. Trump denounced as a “job killer,” was drawn from environmental policies pioneered in California.

Mr. Brown has long been an environmental advocate, including when he first served as governor in the 1970s. He has made this a central focus as he enters his final 18 months in office. In an interview, he said the president’s action was “a colossal mistake and defies science.”

“Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump’s mind, but nowhere else,” Mr. Brown said.

The leadership role embraced by California goes to the heart of what has long been a central part of its identity. For more than three decades, California has been at the vanguard of environmental policy, passing ambitious, first-in-the-nation measures on pollution control and conservation that have often served as models for national and even international environmental law.

“With Trump indicating that he will withdraw from climate change leadership, the rest of the global community is looking to California, as one of the world’s largest economies, to take the lead,” said Mario Molina, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist from Mexico who advises nations on climate change policy. “California demonstrates to the world that you can have a strong climate policy without hurting your economy.”

The Senate leader, Kevin de Leon, introduced legislation this month that would accelerate, rather than retrench, California’s drive to reduce emissions, requiring that 100 percent of retail electricity in the state come from renewable sources by 2045. Mr. de Leon said it was “important that we send a signal to the rest of the world” at a time of what he described as “blowback” from Washington.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, who tangled with Mr. Trump after the president mocked him for receiving low ratings as his replacement on “The Apprentice,” described Mr. Trump’s environmental policies as a threat to the planet.

“Saying you’ll bring coal plants back is the past,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said. “It’s like saying you’ll bring Blockbuster back, which is the past. Horses and buggies, which is the past. Pagers back, which is the past.”

He said California had shown it could adopt aggressive environmental policies without hurting the economy. “We’re outdoing the rest of the country on G.D.P.,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said.

Even before Mr. Trump took office, California’s tough regulatory rules had stirred concern among business leaders, who said it had increased their costs. They warned that the situation would become worse if California stood by its regulatory rules while Washington moved in the other direction.

“We’re very concerned about that,” said Robert C. Lapsley, the president of the California Business Roundtable. “If we are 1 percent of the problem, and we have the most far-reaching climate policies on the planet while all the other states are slowing down because Washington is slowing down, that is going to create an absolute imbalance.”

“Washington will create a less competitive environment for California businesses here because businesses in other states will not have to meet the same mandates,” he added. “There is no question that businesses are going to move out.”

The precise contours of this battle will become clear in the months ahead, as Mr. Trump’s environmental policies take shape. For now, the critical questions are whether the United States will withdraw from the Paris agreement, an international compact to reduce greenhouse pollution, and whether the Environmental Protection Agency will revoke a waiver issued by President Richard M. Nixon that permits California to set fuel economy standards exceeding federal requirements.

Revoking the waiver, which was central to a policy that has resulted in noticeably cleaner air in places like Los Angeles, would force the state to lower its tough fuel economy standards, which are also intended to promote the rapid spread of electric cars. As they stand, the rules would force automakers to build fleets of cars that would reach 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

California is preparing for a legal challenge. “You have to be concerned when anybody talks about going backward,” said Xavier Becerra, the state attorney general. “In this case we think we have a strong case to be made based on the facts and the history.”

Mr. Trump is already moving to weaken federal auto emission standards that were influenced by California’s tougher standards. Automakers, who met with the president in the Oval Office days after he assumed the presidency, have long complained that the standards forced them to build expensive electric vehicles that consumers may not want.

And the companies have lobbied for years to stop the federal government from allowing California to set cleaner tailpipe regulations than the rest of the nation, arguing that the double standard necessitates building two types of cars. In Detroit, those companies see President Trump as their best chance for finally ending onerous California car requirements. But in the meantime, over a dozen other states have adopted California’s auto emissions standards — and Mr. Brown is betting that the sheer size of that market will be enough to make the Trump administration reconsider any effort to roll back the California waiver.

“Because we’re such a big part of the car market, and places like New York and Massachusetts are tied in with the U.S., our standard will prevail,” he said.

Beyond pushing to maintain its state climate laws, California has tried to forge international climate pacts. In particular, Mr. Brown’s government helped draft and gather signatures for a memorandum of understanding whose signers, including heads of state and mayors from around the world, pledged to take actions to lower emissions enough to keep global temperatures from rising over two degrees Celsius. That is the point at which scientists say the planet will tip into a future of irreversible rising seas and melting ice sheets.

That pact is voluntary, but California, Canada and Mexico are starting to carry out a joint policy with some teeth.

California’s signature climate change law is the cap-and-trade program. It places a statewide cap on planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions, and then allows companies to buy and sell pollution credits. The California measure was the model for a national climate law that Mr. Obama tried unsuccessfully to have passed in 2010.

Given the setbacks in Washington, California environmental officials are working with Mexico and Canada to create what is informally called the “Nafta” of climate change — a carbon-cutting program that spans the region.

“Canada’s all in when it comes to climate action, and we’ll partner with anyone who wants to move forward,” said Catherine McKenna, Canada’s environment minister.

Already, California’s cap-and-trade market is connected to a similar one in Quebec, now valued at about $8 billion, and the Province of Ontario is linking with the joint California-Quebec market this year. Climate policy experts in Sacramento and Mexico City are in the early stages of drafting a plan to link Mexico with that joint market.

In April, a delegation from California traveled to Beijing to meet with Chinese counterparts to help them craft a cap-and-trade plan. “We have people working in China, in their regulatory agencies, consulting with them, speaking fluent Mandarin, working with the Chinese government — giving them advice on cap and trade,” Mr. Brown said.

The Clean Power Plan was central to the United States’ pledge under the 2015 Paris agreement, which commits the nation to cut its emissions about 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. Now that Mr. Trump has moved to roll back the plan, it will be almost impossible for the United States to meet its Paris commitments.

That has resonated powerfully in China. The heart of the Paris agreement was a 2014 deal forged by Mr. Obama and President Xi Jinping of China in which the world’s two largest economies and largest greenhouse polluters agreed to act jointly to reduce their emissions.

“China is committed to establishing a cap-and-trade this year, and we are looking for expertise across the world as we design our program — and we are looking closely at the California experience,” said Dongquan He, a vice president of Energy Foundation China, an organization that works with the Chinese government on climate change issues.

Mr. Brown recently met with the prime minister of Fiji, who will serve as chairman of this fall’s United Nations climate change meeting in Bonn, Germany, which aims to put the Paris agreement in force, with or without the United States. The governor said he planned to attend as a representative of his state.

“We may not represent Washington, but we will represent the wide swath of American people who will keep the faith on this,” he said.

[NRao]

1 in 50 jobs, in the US in 2016, were in solar.

There are twice the number employed in solar as in coal.

The proverbial dagger?

Top Trump aide: Coal doesn't make 'much sense anymore'

"Coal doesn't even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock," Gary Cohn said, aboard Air Force One on Thursday, referring to raw materials that get converted into a fuel.
Cohn, who serves as director of the White House National Economic Council, instead praised natural gas as "such a cleaner fuel" -- and one that America has become an "abundant producer of."

[NRao]

Hmmm.............


Financial firms lead shareholder rebellion against ExxonMobil climate change policies

ExxonMobil management was defeated Wednesday by a shareholder rebellion over climate change, as investors with 62.3 percent of shares voted to instruct the oil giant to report on the impact of global measures designed to keep climate change to 2 degrees centigrade.

The shareholder rebellion at the ExxonMobil annual meeting in Dallas was led by major financial advisory firms and fund managers who traditionally have played passive roles. Although the identity of voters wasn’t disclosed, a source familiar with the vote said that major financial advisory firm BlackRock had cast its shares in opposition to Exxon management and that Vanguard and State Street had likely done the same. All three financial giants have been openly considering casting their votes against management on this key proxy resolution.

The shareholder vote on climate change came on a day when President Trump appeared to be nearing a decision on whether to exit the Paris climate agreement, underlining the deep political and economic divisions over how to deal with the global challenge. Even as the Trump administration’s commitment to the climate accord wavered, the Exxon vote showed that climate concerns were gaining ground in the business world.

....................

[Amber G.]

Trump Gratuitously Rejects the Paris Climate Accord

[NRao]

Other countries before:

We don't want other countries and other leaders to laugh at us anymore.

Other countries after:

[NRao]

Trump has handed over the leadership, at least on climate change. The new leaders just happen to be cheaters too.

[Pathik]

Good decision by Trump not to lead a gang of thieves. Might as well form own gang

[Amber G.]

This decision like virtually everything this POTUS has done is motivated by spite and powered by stupidity. The op-ed by Paul Krugman (link above) is very well written.

[Kashi]

A sense of deja vu this, much like when Bush pulled out from Kyoto protocol.

Why should the world repose any faith in such treaties in the future, if the POTUS of the day will pull out eventually.

[NRao]

The sad part is that this Accord was not even the main one. That has still to be discussed and agreed to - to get to keep under the 2 degree increase.


Moments after trump said he is willing to sit with anyone to renogoti............ France, Germany and Italy said No!!

Trump is making the WH and the rest of this country into a Trump Tower, in which he used to spend most of his time. Bet he will propose to change the name of the nation to Mar-a-lago.

[Amber G.]

Fact-checking Donald Trump's statement withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement

Technical checking of some of the claims...
I was sort of amused at the "final note"

A final note:
Trump opened his speech saying his team was tracking the terrorist attack in Manila. The most recent reports say that the gun fire that took place at a resort came from a lone man aiming to rob gamblers.

[vina]

Trump Gratuitously Rejects the Paris Climate Accord

Truly a sad day for the world. But hey, like Edward Teller , who was slammed for his Hydrogen Bomb responded in his Eastern European accented English "Progress Cannot be stopped" , it indeed cannot be stopped. The clean technologies are racing ahead an the fossil fuel based economy is in serious trouble.

After all, coal prices collapsed because of shale gas and cheap natural gas. In India today, it is cheaper to build a solar power plant than a coal power plant (and you don't have fuel costs in solar!) . So guess which way the rational decision making based on technology choices is headed .

If the Russians and Saudis collude to get oil prices up, they will cede MORE market share on a permanent basis to shale and renewables and basically shooting themselves in the feet.

The Russian and Saudi oil ministers and heads of Rosneft an Aramco met for the firs time EVER to "cooperate" in Asian markets (read India and Indonesia). India of course is the fastest growing oil market (sort of like what China was for the past 2 decades). Well, I do hope that Modi & Co come good on their plan of have an all electric car and 2 wheeler fleet in India in 2 decades.

THAT will truly FIX the global climate. One country does it successfully, everyone else will follow. Sort of like the leader and the flock of geese behind.
And also with that , I hope it is the END and ruin of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil sheikhdoms and the barbarity the accidental oil wealth in their hands brought forth in terms of religious fundamentalism and terrorism in the past 60 odd years.

[Amber G.]

]Meanwhile.. Indians are not amused...

Trump rant against India casts shadow on PM Modi visit to US

Trump rant against India casts shadow on PM Modi visit to US


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WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump unloaded on India among other countries during an epic rant on Thursday while announcing American withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord+ .
The shrill speech, replete with claims of American victimhood at the hands of the rest of the world, casts a chill on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's expected visit to the White House later this month.

Phone and cables lines between Washington and New Delhi were buzzing on Thursday evening (Friday am in India) as Indian officials and diplomats took stock of Trump's direct, no-holds-barred attack in which he accused New Delhi of trying to extract "billions and billions and billions" of dollars in foreign aid from the developed world to sign up for the climate accord+ .

Although dates for the Prime Minister's trip have not been formally or officially announced, the White House has penciled in June 26-27 for the first face-to-face meeting between Trump and Modi+ . That expected meeting, if it comes through, will now take place under a cloud of misgivings, including the Trump administration's crackdown of guest worker visas that is adversely affecting Indian businesses, its squeeze on US manufacturing abroad that is forcing a scaling down of US investment in India, and now its withdrawal from the climate change accord after previous administrations dragged New Delhi kicking and screaming into it.

Although no one is talking of canceling the visit yet, Trump's harsh critiques have cooled the expected ardor between Washington and New Delhi that a small constituency of Trump bhakts+ in both countries had anticipated and forecast.

Trump repeatedly raged against India, China, and rest of the world on Thursday, casting the US as a victim of global machinations. "India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries," he fumed in a 27-minute, 3000-word tirade in the White House Rose Garden while declaring that the "bottom line is that the Paris Accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States." No other developed country has made that allegation, and in fact, the US stands isolated even in the developed world following its withdrawal. The US President then went on to claim that India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020 and China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants, but the US can't under the Paris agreement. "Think of it: India can double their coal production. We're supposed to get rid of ours," the US President fumed, arguing that "compliance with the terms of the Paris Accord and the onerous energy restrictions it has placed on the US could cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025" - figures that are contested even within the US. "In short, the agreement doesn't eliminate coal jobs, it just transfers those jobs out of America and ships them to foreign countries," Trump maintained in remarks that did not once refer to the fact that the United States has historically been the world's biggest polluter with the largest carbon footprint in the global community, and the rest of the world, and the US itself, has had to pay for American profligacy and addiction to hydro-carbons.
Trump's claim that India was seeking "billions and billions and billions" was also typical of the hyperbolic falsehoods he is often indulges in. Total foreign aid to India in 2015 was only $3.1 billion, with US aid to India only around $100 million. This is being whittled down to $34 million in 2018, pocket change for one of India's unicorns.



Compared to the peanuts in US aid (which New Delhi prefers is completely stopped), India buys $100 million worth of California almonds alone every year, besides billions in armaments. India also receives many times more in foreign investment and remittances than foreign aid.

But expanding on the victimhood thesis, Trump argued that the Paris Accord "is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States."

"A cynic would say the obvious reason for economic competitors and their wish to see us remain in the agreement is so that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted major economic wound," the US President said, claiming the Paris deal "hamstrings the United States, while empowering some of the world's top polluting countries," and it should "dispel any doubt as to the real reason why foreign lobbyists wish to keep our magnificent country tied up and bound down by this agreement: It's to give their country an economic edge over the United States."
"That's not going to happen while I'm President. I'm sorry," he added.

[Theo_Fidel]

After all, coal prices collapsed because of shale gas and cheap natural gas. In India today, it is cheaper to build a solar power plant than a coal power plant (and you don't have fuel costs in solar!) . So guess which way the rational decision making based on technology choices is headed

Hah! Vina Saar, Good to see you finally come over to the sunny side and after all those stinging broadsides against solar energy over the years.
----------------------

Trump is not talking to anyone but his base. You are never going to convince his base to do anything as the potential impacts on them are relatively limited. I was talking to one of these folks who has a beach home in Tampa area and her point of view is that is cheaper for her to move or raise her home on stilts. That way she doesn't have to give money to the govmint.

In someways this is better. The whole world on one side and a section of the USA on the other. We might actually get something done here....

[NRao]

Trump seems to have sprouted a parallel government of sorts.

Coalition of U.S. cities, states to negotiate with U.N. on climate

June 2 (UPI) -- A group of leaders from U.S. cities, states and corporations are working to negotiate with the United Nations to combat climate change in the United States after the federal government began the process of withdrawing from the Paris agreement.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is leading the effort to bring together companies, universities and local and state government to submit a plan to the United Nations pledging to meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets outlined in the Paris agreement.

"We're going to do everything America would have done if it had stayed committed," Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg is a special U.N. envoy for mayors and local leaders seeking to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. Cities that have signed onto the effort led by Bloomberg include Los Angeles, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City.

"Americans are not walking away from the Paris Climate Agreement," Bloomberg added. "Just the opposite -- we are forging ahead. Mayors, governors, and business leaders from both political parties are signing on to to a statement of support that we will submit to the U.N. -- and together, we will reach the emission reduction goals the United States made in Paris in 2015."

Bloomberg and other groups also pledged to donate at least $15 million to the U.N. climate secretariat, which could lose funding if the United States withdraws.

The coalition is one of at least two efforts launched to counter President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the agreement, which seeks to reduce carbon emissions by 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

The states of California, New York and Washington also established an alliance -- called the U.S. Climate Alliance -- to uphold the commitments mandated in the accord, as well as those in former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which could be eliminated under the Trump administration after he ordered for a review of the plan through an executive order.

"New York, California, and Washington, representing over one-fifth of U.S. gross domestic product, are committed to achieving the U.S. goal of reducing emissions 26-28 percent from 2005 levels and meeting or exceeding the targets of the federal Clean Power Plan," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office said in a statement. "Together, New York, California, and Washington represent approximately 68 million people -- nearly one-in-five Americans -- and the states account for at least 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States"

Trump announced his decision to leave the accord Thursday. He has previously called climate change a "hoax" and indicated he was leaving the agreement, saying it's a "bad deal" for the U.S. economy.

"We're getting out, but we will start to negotiate and see if we can make a deal that's fair," Trump said. "If we can, great -- if we can't, that's fine."

Trump cited a study by the National Economic Research Associates -- funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Council for Capital Formation -- which said the accord would cost 2.7 million jobs and a loss of nearly $3 trillion in gross domestic product. That study was based on a scenario in which the United States would cut 26 percent to 28 percent of emissions by 2025, and did not factor in the possible benefits of battling climate change.

Key points in the agreement include peaking greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieving a balance between sources of energy in the second half of this century.

"New York State is committed to meeting the standards set forth in the Paris Accord regardless of Washington's irresponsible actions," Cuomo said in a statement. "We will not ignore the science and reality of climate change which is why I am also signing an Executive Order confirming New York's leadership role in protecting our citizens, our environment, and our planet."

Within the Trump administration, though, there was praise for Trump's decision. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt thanked Trump for his "courage and commitment" after the announcement.

"Our efforts should be on exporting our technology and innovation to nations who seek to reduce their CO2 footprint -- to learn from us. That should be our focus versus agreeing to unachievable targets that harm our economy and the American people," Pruitt said.

Other supporters of Trump's decision include Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

"I commend President Donald J. Trump for putting American jobs first. This is great news for the Texas economy and for hardworking Americans all across our country," Cruz said in a statement. "I look forward continuing to work closely with the administration throughout the withdrawal process, and my number-one priority will continue to be fighting for Texans to advance policies that create jobs, grow the economy, and protect family budgets."

The U.S. Climate Alliance said it would work to persuade other state governments to join the effort.

"The president has already said climate change is a hoax, which is the exact opposite of virtually all scientific and worldwide opinion," California Gov. Jerry Brown said in a statement. "I don't believe fighting reality is a good strategy -- not for America, not for anybody. If the president is going to be AWOL in this profoundly important human endeavor, then California and other states will step up."

[NRao]

Germany, France, Italy tell Trump Paris agreement is not renegotiable

Trump cited a study by the National Economic Research Associates -- funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Council for Capital Formation -- which said the accord would cost 2.7 million jobs and a loss of nearly $3 trillion in gross domestic product. That study was based on a scenario in which the United States would cut 26 percent to 28 percent of emissions by 2025, and did not factor in the possible benefits of battling climate change.

But three world leaders -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni -- released a joint statement rejecting Trump's claim that the deal can be renegotiated.

[Singha]

States talking to international bodies bypassing gotus will widen social and political fractures.

On other hand it will give new ideas to bif ....

[Amber G.]

Now, the "scientific study" POTUS quoted to "justify" bluntly tells ..
MIT Researchers Say Trump Misunderstood the (MIT's) Research He Used to Justify His Paris Agreement Exit

..Monier said MIT's scientists "certainly do not support the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris agreement," Reuters reported.John Reilly, the co-director of the MIT program, said the institute's scientists had not been contacted by the White House or given an opportunity to discuss their work.

Also from MIT review: Trump Misused MIT Research in Reasons for Ditching Climate Dea

[NRao]

States talking to international bodies bypassing gotus will widen social and political fractures.

On other hand it will give new ideas to bif ....

Well you missed (easy to do so) the funnest part:

The states of California, New York and Washington also established an alliance -- called the U.S. Climate Alliance

I happen to think it would have had a better impact if they named it "Mar-a-Lago Climate Alliance".

[Amber G.]

India’s prime minister says “Paris or no Paris” his country will be a responsible nation with regard to climate.

Modi said he was asked a similar question during his visit to Germany earlier this week, before the US decision was announced.

At the time, Modi said, he had replied

Paris or no Paris, it is our conviction that we have no right to snatch from our future generation their right to have a clean and beautiful earth.

[vina]

India, Once a coal goliath, is fast turning green .

ASIA PACIFIC
India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is FastTurning Green
By GEETA ANAND JUNE 2, 2017
MUMBAI, India — Just a few years ago, the world watched nervously as India went on a building spree of coal-fired power plants, more than doubling its capacity and claiming that more were needed. Coal output, officials said, would almost triple, to 1.5 billion tons, by 2020.
India’s plans were cited by American critics of the Paris climate accord as proof of the futility of advanced nations trying to limit their carbon output. But now, even as President Trump pulls the United States out of the pact, India has undergone an astonishing turnaround, driven in great part by a steep fall in the cost of solar power.
Experts now say that India not only has no need of any new coal-fired plants for at least a decade, given that existing plants are running below 60 percent of capacity, but that after that it could rely on renewable sources for all its additional power needs.
Rather than building coal-fired plants, it is now canceling many in the early planning stages. And this month, the government lowered its annual production target for coal to 600 million tons from 660 million.
The sharp reversal, welcome news to world leaders trying to avert the potentially deadly effects of global warming, is a reflection both of the changing economics of renewable energy and a growing environmental consciousness in a country with some of the worst air pollution in the world.
What India does matters, because it is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China and the United States. And its energy needs are staggering — nearly one-quarter of its population has no electricity and many others get it only intermittently.
With India’s power needs expected to grow substantially as its economy continues to expand, its energy use will heavily influence the world’s chances of containing the greenhouse gases that scientists believe are driving global warming.
Much attention at the time of the signing of the Paris agreement was focused on the role President Barack Obama played in pushing India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, to sign. In doing so, Mr. Modi committed India to achieving 40 percent of its electricity capacity from nonfossil-fuel sources by 2030.
Less understood was Mr. Modi’s longstanding personal commitment to taking India in a greener direction. That has been strengthened in recent years by growing evidence that a greener path makes political and economic sense as well, says Harsh Pant, a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based research organization.
“Modi’s constituency is the middle class, and the middle class in Indian cities is choking on pollution,” Mr. Pant said. “Modi knows climate change is good politics. Climate change makes sense to Modi because he believes it as it is good economics and politics.”
Two major economic factors lie at the heart of India’s move away from coal. The first is that the country’s growth rate, while faster than that of most major economies, slipped to 6.1 percent for the most recent quarter, down from 7 percent in the previous quarter. And much of that growth has come in service industries rather than in power-hungry manufacturing.
Equally important is the startling drop in the price of renewable energy sources. Many energy experts say renewables are poised to become a less expensive alternative to coal within the next decade.
“The train has left the station. Mr. Trump has come too late” to slow the transition to renewable energy, said Ajay Mathur, director general of the Energy Resources Institute, a New Delhi policy center closely associated with the government. “By the time the coal-fired plants come up to full capacity because ofincreasing demand, the price of renewables will be lower than the price of coal.”
Based on December data from the Central Electric Authority, Mr. Mathur’s institute reported in March that India might be able to meet its additional power needs in the future with renewable energy.
It based that prediction on the remarkable drop in the cost of solar power. In approving proposals for new solar power plants, the Indian government seeks bids from prospective builders who compete to pledge the lowest price at which they anticipate selling power.
Five years ago, the lowest bid came in at 7 rupees, or 11 cents, per kilowatt-hour. In early May, the lowest bidder came in at less than half of that price, or 2.44 rupees per kilowatt-hour, a little under 4 cents, experts here say.
The latest bid makes solar power less expensive than coal, which sells for about 3 rupees per kilowatt-hour.
Storage costs, a critical component of renewable energy systems, have also fallen. “The crucial question has been, ‘Yes, but what do you do when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine?’” said Adair Turner, the chairman of the Energy Transitions Commission, which studies climate issues.
The cost of lithium ion batteries, the gold standard in solar power storage, has fallen significantly, Mr. Turner said, largely because of economies of scale. Where the price was about $1,000 per kilowatt-hour more than five years ago, it is now $273 and dropping, Mr. Mathur said.
The price needs to fall to $100 per kilowatt-hour for renewable energy to be comparable in price to coal, Mr. Mathur says. Mr. Turner thinks that will happen far sooner than the year 2030, which his group had been predicting.
“To be blunt, the success of this has been bigger than I certainly realized,” Mr. Turner said. “There were people who were optimists, and it’s the optimists who have won out.”
New Delhi had long argued that it was hypocritical of Western nations that have burned fossil fuels for centuries to ask Indians to sacrifice their growth to cope with the effects. But the Modi administration has set ambitious targets for a greener Indian future.The government pledged in 2015, when the country’s electricity capacity from renewables was 36 gigawatts, to increase it to 175 gigawatts by 2022.

Piyush Goyal, India’s power minister, announced in a speech in late April that the country would take steps to assure that by 2030 only electric cars would be sold.
“That’s rather ambitious,” Rahul Tongia, a fellow at Brookings India, said. “The targets are there. The vision is there. The question is: ‘Is it going to happen? How?’”
The Indian government’s policy research arm, the National Institution for Transforming India, or NITI Aayog, recently released a report in collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Institute in Boulder, Colo., that calculated India could save $60 billion and reduce its projected carbon emissions by 37 percent by 2030 if it adopted widespread use of electric vehicles and more public transportation.
Mr. Mathur says that even if India falls short of those ambitious goals, just coming close will have a huge impact on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the world and pollution within the country.
“Even a year and a half ago, I didn’t expect we would go out on a limb and say electric vehicles are a public policy goal for us. It is truly exciting,” he said in an interview.
Besides reducing the choking pollution in India’s cities, moving to electric vehicles also makes sense because the country has excess generation capacity in the underused coal-fired plants and is too heavily reliant on petroleum imports, which present a geopolitical risk.
“There has for a very long time been a push to reduce the growth in imports,” Mr. Mathur said. “This is one of those perfect policy opportunities, with short-term and long-term benefits.”
Navroz Dubash, a fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, cautions that even though India is likely to meet its additional energy needs in the future from renewable sources, that does not mean India is about to stop burning coal tomorrow.
“It is important not to draw from this that India’s tryst with coal isnecessarily done,” Mr. Dubash said, “just that there are signs it will end sooner and at a lower level than expected.”

India canceled 13.7 gigawatts of proposed coal-fired power plants last month alone, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said. The government has admitted that an additional 8.6 gigawatts of coal-fired generation capacity built at a cost of $9 billion is potentially no longer financially viable because of competition from renewable sources, the institute said.
This is hopeful news for the world, said Mr. Tongia, because the only way for the world not to grow too warm is for “developing countries, especially India, to do more, to come in lower than budget, to do their unfair share.”
And, Mr. Tongia said, “the good news” is that India has decided that it is in its interest to do its “unfair share.”
Ayesha Venkataraman contributed reporting.
© 2017 The New York Times Company

[NRao]

From the Indo-US thread:

India gets about 60% power from coal, so the ratio is 3/5 than 2/3. At one time it used to nearly 70%, so over the years this number has gone down albeit at a slow rate. Given the current trajectory and India's commitment to paris treaty it will keep going down.

Anyway OT for this thread so I will stop.

While the stat that coal has declined from 70% to 60% is true, what is even more interesting is that the decline was never projected to be so sudden. expect this decline (of coal usage in India) to accelerate. A year ago, GoI while canceling coal projects, stated that they were betting that renewables would be assisted by techs that coal can never match. There are three major areas that have already impacted:

1) More efficient forms of generating renewable energies
2) Storage techs. This is one hell of an area to be in. There is one prof, a met sc guy, who has "invented" a solid electrolyte. So, you can puncture it and it still works and does not catch fire. And,
3) Products that use energy have become very, very efficient, led by the LED

Reliance on coal will decline and that will be good for climate change too, since they are directly related.

[Amber G.]

^^^Quite true. BTW I knew (my son had him as a prof- He used to teach a very popular course at MIT for years) MIT's Sadoway..(famous battery guy) ... unfortunately he has serious health issues now.

(Few years ago, there was quite promising research in IIT Kanpur too)


There is recent MIT item may be of interest to people here.
Toward all-solid lithium batteries

(Interestingly about 10 years ago some of us used to have strong debate about the storage issues -- I was pessimistic and was of the view that it is going to take a very long time unless there is a big break through -- my son was optimistic... results here are closer to my son's prediction.Prof Sadoway of course was quite optimistic. we still have a long way to go but have come a long way)

[NRao]

I will try and recover the YT vid, but they HAVE made quantum leap.

One utility in CA uses the turbines in a dam to gen elec during the day - when the cost is highest/most - storing the water in s reservoir at the foot of the dam - and, during the night pumps that water up, using elec that is cheaper. The delta between selling (high) and buying (low) elec is the "profit". Cheaper than coal for that utility!!!!! . Who can argue against it?


They also have new techs where huge, room size containers, contain some liquids, which when they pass each other separated by a membrane, generate electricity. There are a couple of cities - as tests - using this tech in specific situations.

Tesla is starting a new standard for batteries!!!! An optimal solution between physics and eco he claims.

Even if one of them takes off .................... Trump may need to resign. Trump will have nothing to do.

[SwamyG]

[Theo_Fidel]

Reliance on coal will decline and that will be good for climate change too, since they are directly related.

Not trying to spoil the party but we are long ways off from getting beyond 40% renewable in India. Esp. dealing with the seasonal variance. A few years back I did a back of napkin calculation on BRF that showed that coal will have to get to 700,000 MW capacity. About double today's coal installed base. This would allow the per capita electricity use to get to 50% of a first world type level.

And while new tech. is nice to see, they are unlikely to be able to match CSi and LIion performance and cost characteristics. It is tough to challenge the first mover with marginal improvements.

If you are going to deal with the amount of CO2 getting pumped out, we need to start now in the 100,000 mw type capacity numbers. Only CSi and Wind can do this today. LIion is making the investments necessary for maybe a 2025 roll out. But even LIion is not quite ready for prime time.

Now if you really want to know how countries are getting beyond 40% renewable, see how Germany is doing it - Hint - Trans National Regional Grid.

[nandakumar]

That is the bane of India. Here in TN the local politicians are loath to let go of control. As a result long after the transmission infrastructure for Southern regional grid was put in place the TNEB refused to connect with the southern grid. By islanding the windmills they were able to generate kickbacks from producers under the threat of not lifting supplies when mills were in a position to produce power.

[NRao]

Another angle:

Small Businesses Cheer ‘New Sheriff in Town’ After Climate Pact Exit

Louis M. Soltis, the owner of a company that manufactures control panels in Toledo, Ohio, said he was frustrated that President Trump’s policies have faced so much opposition. Credit Brittany Greeson for The New York Times
As news that President Trump was pulling out of the Paris climate accord hit at a luncheon for small-business owners in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday, an already happy crowd suddenly turned euphoric.

“It was like a major win at a football game,” said Rick Longenecker, a management consultant who had been among the 50 or so attendees who gathered to trade thoughts amid a rapidly improving local economy.

While multinational corporations such as Disney, Goldman Sachs and IBM have opposed the president’s decision to walk away from the international climate agreement, many small companies around the country were cheering him on, embracing the choice as a tough-minded business move that made good on Mr. Trump’s commitment to put America’s commercial interests first.

This full-throated support from the small-business community comes even as the Trump administration struggles to advance health care legislation and tax reform plans through Congress — and despite the swelling controversy over Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.

“We’ve had customers who actually brought business back from Mexico that we haven’t done in seven years,” said Bill Polacek, president of JWF Industries, a manufacturer in Johnstown, Pa.

While local business leaders acknowledge that little has been done by the administration so far in terms of turning promises into law, especially with regard to health care and taxes, most are not yet ready to blame the president.

“There is a new sheriff in town,” said Louis M. Soltis, the owner of a company in Toledo that manufactures control panels for large factories. “But the biggest frustration that I have is that there is so much resistance that is keeping him from moving forward.”

In the months following Mr. Trump’s election victory, as stock markets hit historical highs and companies kept adding jobs, the business community as a whole seemed willing to give the president a chance to follow through on his bold promises to revitalize the economy by cutting taxes and rolling back regulations.

But the move to pull the United States out of an agreement it had previously signed with 195 countries has opened up a fissure between smaller companies and some of the biggest names in business. In the hours after the president’s announcement, dozens of companies including General Electric, Facebook and Microsoft voiced their opposition to the decision, and two prominent chief executives resigned from the president’s business advisory council.

Many small-business leaders in the Midwest, on the other hand, were largely unfazed.

For those more concerned with their local economies than global greenhouse gas emissions, walking away from the Paris agreement was just another example of a bottom-line business decision made by a president who knows a good deal from a bad one.

“This just heightens the divide between big business and small business,” said Jeffrey Korzenik, an investment strategist for Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati who spends much of his time talking to small businesses in the Midwest. “They really have different worldviews.”

At the root of this disconnect is a sense that companies that employ up to a few hundred workers — such companies make up 99 percent of businesses in the United States and account for half of its private sector employment — are held to a more onerous standard than their larger peers when it comes to complying with regulations.

At the Toledo luncheon, for example, much of the discussion centered on the fact that the climate treaty is nonbinding. To businessmen who have spent the past 10 years complaining of ceaseless rules and regulations, the very idea that the climate pact lacked teeth was galling.

“When companies here do business with a Ford or a G.M., they sign a contract that is not only binding — in many cases it is pretty harsh,” Mr. Longenecker said. “Now we have this deal to prevent a global catastrophe, and it’s nonbinding? That is ridiculous. And it makes us think that there is a hidden agenda, that we are just transferring trillions of dollars to China.”

To some small business executives, seeing the president talk tough to the Europeans and the Chinese was a reminder of why they voted for him in the first place.

“I think that we’re making a very big deal over a molehill,” said Dave Griggs, owner of Dave Griggs Flooring America in Columbia, Mo. which employs 16 people. “I think the president is exactly right, we need to certainly renegotiate.”

DealBook delivers the news driving the markets and the conversation. Delivered weekday mornings and afternoons.

But local business leaders are not without their worries.

Mr. Griggs said that he was concerned about health care, particularly since Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City announced last month that it would pull out of the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act, potentially affecting many Missouri residents. However, he said he still believed the administration would come through on its promise to replace the Affordable Care Act with something better.

“We’ve got a Republican Congress, a Republican president; hopefully we can get some initiatives passed,” Mr. Griggs said. “I am highly optimistic.”

But by and large, local business leaders said they remained supportive of the president and believed the attention on his campaign’s ties to Russia was overblown.

John Bagge, 64, who runs a catering company in Kirkland, Wash., with his wife and two daughters, said his business was booming — so much so that this was the first summer he has had to turn away customers in 40 years.

“Until we have the evidence, let’s just keep busy making America a better country, growing the economy and putting people back to work, rather than spending so much time arguing back and forth about who’s guilty and who’s not,” he said.

The chief executives of big American companies were less sanguine, and many distanced themselves from Mr. Trump.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, and Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of Disney, both resigned from the president’s economic advisory council on Thursday.

“Climate change is real,” Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”

Other big company executives — including the chief executives Douglas McMillon of Walmart and Virginia M. Rometty of IBM — voiced their opposition to the president’s decision but said they would remain on the council.

“Disappointed in today’s news about the Paris Agreement,” Mr. McMillon said in a Facebook post on Thursday. “We think it’s important for countries to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Despite remaining broadly supportive of the president, some businessmen said that the whirlwind of controversies was beginning to raise questions about just how effective this administration could be.

[Mort Walker]

^^^Quite true. BTW I knew (my son had him as a prof- He used to teach a very popular course at MIT for years) MIT's Sadoway..(famous battery guy) ... unfortunately he has serious health issues now.

(Few years ago, there was quite promising research in IIT Kanpur too)


There is recent MIT item may be of interest to people here.
Toward all-solid lithium batteries

(Interestingly about 10 years ago some of us used to have strong debate about the storage issues -- I was pessimistic and was of the view that it is going to take a very long time unless there is a big break through -- my son was optimistic... results here are closer to my son's prediction.Prof Sadoway of course was quite optimistic. we still have a long way to go but have come a long way)

Amber-ji,

I"m surprised that people are still thinking of Lithium or metal batteries. The future of the automobile is electric, but not battery powered yet by fuel cells. About 100 years ago, the External Combustion Engine (ECE) gave way to the Internal Combustion Enigine (ICE). Similarly, we are 30 years away from fuel cells replacing metal battery chemistries. We all know that the energy to weight density just isnt' there in metal batteries. Fuel cells and the process of breaking long chain molecules to attain electric current is the way forward. Think of the way photosynthesis works or the way ATP works in our body for energy transfer. These are highly efficient systems.

[sudarshan]

....

Welcome back saaru. You haven't been around in a long while. Time of disappearance was around the time of the Chennai floods, so certain theories were floating around. Not explicitly, but still.

NRao, in addition to what you said about pumping water uphill and using it during periods of higher cost of power, another storage option that is already in use in several places is compressed air. They basically identify huge underground caverns, reinforce them with concrete, seal off all leaks (again with concrete), and make the place air-tight. Then - similar to the water pump thing - during periods of low power usage, they compress air and pump it into the cavern. When usage is high, additional power can be generated from turbines employing the compressed air. Ingenious.

SriJoy, NRao saar will tell you otherwise, but I have a big disagreement with him about this sea-level rise thingy. I don't dispute that there is rise, all of the data I've looked at (available online) shows the rise, there is no doubt about that. BUT - there is no evidence that this rise has accelerated in the recent past. The rate of rise has been linear, and steady for 50/ 60/ 100/ 150/ (even 200 in some cases) years. In many cases, there has been a steady linear drop in sea level for equally long intervals - 50 to 200 years. So the rise/ fall of ocean levels is there, but there's no call to link it to CO2 emissions in recent years. I don't want to start the whole debate again, the reason I mention it is because I've looked at more data since the last time we had the debate, and I still don't see any recent accelerated sea rise. I'm in the process of automating the whole process of skimming through all the data and estimating any change from the linear trend of rise/ fall in recent times. Will get back on this.