As Trump elevates coal, 2016 records warmest year yet

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Juxtaposition is a nice word. Just as the world gears up for a new oligarchy – two days before the US presidential inauguration – comes news from NASA that 2016 was the warmest year on record.

From the source:

Earth’s 2016 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern recordkeeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Globally-averaged temperatures in 2016 were 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit (0.99 degrees Celsius) warmer than the mid-20th century mean. This makes 2016 the third year in a row to set a new record for global average surface temperatures

The planet’s long-term warming trend is seen in this chart of every year’s annual temperature cycle from 1880 to the present
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The 2016 temperatures continue a long-term warming trend, according to analyses by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. NOAA scientists concur with the finding that 2016 was the warmest year on record based on separate, independent analyses of the data.

Because weather station locations and measurement practices change over time, there are uncertainties in the interpretation of specific year-to-year global mean temperature differences. However, even taking this into account, NASA estimates 2016 was the warmest year with greater than 95 percent certainty.

“2016 is remarkably the third record year in a row in this series,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “We don’t expect record years every year, but the ongoing long-term warming trend is clear.”

The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.

Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with 16 of the 17 warmest years on record occurring since 2001.

A pretty clear message that everything should be done to abate this warming – but in an opposite world where the swamp is being backfilled with climate change deniers, the world’s biggest economy is now going to do everything in its power to accelerate this warming.

First, Scott Pruitt, Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), could not be a worse pick (although his education secretary nominee is up there)

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From Bloomberg:

Pruitt has emerged as one of Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks because he has dedicated much of his career to fighting the very agency he has been tapped to lead. He has challenged more than a dozen EPA actions, including President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, limits on mercury from power plants and a regional haze regulation designed to protect the air around national parks. Democrats plan to question him about those lawsuits at his confirmation hearing Wednesday morning.

He also signed onto a failed lawsuit against the Obama administration’s 2009 conclusion that climate change poses a threat to public health and welfare. That endangerment finding provided the legal underpinning for later regulation of greenhouse gases, including efficiency standards for automobiles and caps on methane leaks. If confirmed, Pruitt will be able to rework or rescind scores of environmental regulations officially — or simply ease off on their enforcement.

“It’s almost a parody. If you just sort of put ‘not’ in front of everything in the EPA job description you’d get Scott Pruitt,” said David Goldston, government affairs director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We see Pruitt as a worst-case example of what an EPA administrator should be.”

Second, Trump is trying to reverse President Obama’s nascent climate change efforts:

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Trump has vowed to roll back environmental regulations that, along with cheap natural gas, have forced thousands of megawatts of coal-fired power generation to retire in recent years. If he makes good on his promise, coal-fired electricity use in the U.S. would increase by 61 percent, according to an estimate by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

It’s unclear exactly how Trump would make good on his promise to bring back coal mining jobs, which have dwindled amid cheaper natural gas and pollution restrictions in the electric market. He could lift a moratorium on selling new rights to mine coal on public land that Obama’s Interior Department imposed in January.

“There’s no legal or regulatory driver that forced the Obama administration to tackle coal-leasing practices in the first place,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Rob Barnett. “Trump should be able to lift the leasing pause via executive order right away.”

Trump also could stop or derail the underlying environmental review, still at least two years from completion, a move that could benefit Peabody, Arch Coal Inc. and other mining companies

Under Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department will probably use a lighter hand to enforce Obama-era rules regulating drilling on public land and limiting methane emissions from oil and gas sites

By selectively enforcing some regulations and spiking others, Trump can slow the turn of U.S. energy policy to favor renewable sources, said Kevin Book, managing director of the Washington-based research firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC.

Trump could have an opening to overhaul Obama’s signature climate change initiative, the Clean Power Plan that limits greenhouse gas emissions, in a way that benefits coal, because of an ongoing court challenge from industry groups and 27 states.

There are two views here. First, from a localised macro view of the Australian economy, the writing remains on the wall for the coal industry. Not short or medium term, but long term as it will not be viable due to lowering global demand – read China and India- and local pressure to shut coal-power stations and replace them with gas and renewables. This will take time – at least a decade or two – but it will happen, even with a Trump-lite Turnbull energy plan backed by the nation’s biggest polluters.

Thankfully, China is going its own way, having recently announced its intention to scrap over 100 coal fired power plants as its consumption of coal likely peaked in 2013 as it continues to transition its mammoth economy away from construction and manufacturing to less energy intensive services. While there’s likely to be no dramatic drawdown in coal usage by China through to about 2040, its in a clear structural decline and will only accelerate as the Middle Kingdom embraces renewables and moves toward a post-development economy:

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From a global perspective, it adds at least four years to any serious abatement plan. This may sound like a small blip on the historical record, which anyone with a rational bone in his body hopes that the Trump Presidency will end up as a footnote. But it will definitely hinder any co-operative approach with other nations and blocs, particularly Europe and China.