Archive for category Climate Change
New C-PACE Bill Passes in New Jersey
Posted by Jonathan Cloud in Climate Change, Editorial, Energy & Environment, News, Policy, State on Tuesday, June 29, 2021
After almost ten years of concerted advocacy, New Jersey’s C-PACE law is finally being amended to make it actually usable by municipalities and commercial property owners to limit their carbon emissions, save money, and create new jobs and opportunities in local communities. While it will still be a number of months before the NJ Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) issues rules and guidelines, the passage of the new bill (A2374/S1953) is a major milestone in NJ’s commitment to meaningful climate action.
Here’s the press release posted by New Jersey PACE and its affiliated sites yesterday:
The Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy program, already approved in 37 states and D.C., with active programs in 24 states, is headed to the Governor’s desk for signature
Trenton, N.J. — On June 24 the New Jersey Legislature approved A2374/S1953 with overwhelming, bipartisan majorities in both the Assembly and Senate. The C-PACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) bill establishes the Garden State C-PACE Program, to be developed and overseen by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA).
The bill was sponsored by Assemblyman Raj Mukherji (D-Jersey City) and Senators Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) and Kip Bateman (R-Somerset). This represents the culmination of a ten-year effort by New Jersey PACE (NJPACE), a 501c3 nonprofit organization, to amend NJ’s unworkable 2011 PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) statute.
The legislation establishes a program that, through a municipal ordinance, allows commercial property owners to privately finance energy efficiency, renewables, and resiliency projects and repay them over time through a special assessment on the property tax bill, similar to a sidewalk or sewer assessment. These projects are 100% financed with private sector capital—no taxpayer or public monies are used.
Sounding the Alarm
Posted by Jonathan Cloud in Carbon Pollution, Climate Change, Economy, Editorial, Energy & Environment, Finances, Global, National, Policy, Politics, Sea Level Rise on Sunday, January 6, 2019
New observations show that climate change is already harming us in a wide variety of ways. Possible Planet is looking at what we can do about it, from rewarding carbon capture on a global scale to refreezing the Arctic.
Mounting Evidence of Harm to Humanity and the Biosphere
Climate change—or, as Dr. Janice Kirsh prefers to call it, climate disruption1—is already upon us. The effects are real, costly, and increasingly measurable. Amongst several other dire warnings issued near the end of 2018, the latest report of the Lancet Countdown notes that “Vulnerability to extremes of heat has steadily risen since 1990 in every region, with 157 million more people exposed to heatwave events in 2017, compared with 2000,” and “153 billion hours of labour were lost in 2017 because of heat, an increase of more than 62 billion hours since 2000.” Moreover,
The direct effects of climate change extend beyond heat to include extremes of weather. In 2017, a total of 712 extreme weather events resulted in US$326 billion in economic losses, almost triple the total losses of 2016.2
Add to this the “excess costs” of rising sea levels, and rising levels of ocean acidity; the agricultural impacts and the spread of vector-borne and water-borne diseases; and the broad range of public health impacts—and it’s clear that today’s costs and consequences alone are reason enough to sound the alarm.
But the planet also faces other imminent disasters:
- the loss of natural habitat and biodiversity, precipitating what is widely considered “the sixth mass extinction event”
- the widespread loss of soil fertility threatening agricultural production
- and wars, conflicts, and mass migrations that are already being precipitated by environmental changes
Though some people are still apparently unwilling to believe that climate change is real, or that humans are the major cause of it, these very real economic and biophysical costs are of increasing concern to global policymakers, public health professionals, the insurance industry, and even the military. And ironically it’s perhaps the risk to the economy, even more than to the biosphere, that will drive a meaningful response.
Fighting Climate Change in Donald Trump’s America
Posted by Jonathan Cloud in Climate Change, Editorial, Energy & Environment, National, Policy, Politics on Monday, November 14, 2016
Listening to Trump’s victory speech early Wednesday morning (and much of what he has said since then) has led many to wonder if the entire election campaign was a con, and we’re now going to see a new, more humane, Donald Trump as President. “Would the real Donald Trump stand up?” is a question several pundits have begun to ask. And in his first statement after the election, President Obama noted Trump’s “new tone,” and hoped it would continue.
Here’s a key excerpt from Trump’s speech:
I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all of Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.
Climate Change, Sea Level Rise and Retirement Risk
Posted by Jonathan Cloud in Climate Change, Economy, Energy & Environment, Finances, Sea Level Rise on Tuesday, May 3, 2016
By James Cox, Registered Representative and Financial Advisor at Park Avenue Securities
One of the oft repeated risks from climate change is the threat that comes from rising sea levels. Depending on the forecast, even in the most optimistic ones, seas are projected to rise several feet before the end of the century. With the accelerating build-up of CO2 and the rate of temperature increase (2015 being the hottest year on record), many expect dramatic sea level rise to occur much sooner than most expect. (https://www.co2.earth/ )
While people might want to buy shore property for benefits that include potential rental income, capital appreciation and personal use, they also face potential risks of hurricanes, sea level rise, etc. Some of these risks can be mitigated by purchasing flood insurance.
Last summer I explored the question, “if sea levels rise, what will be the impact on a clients’ net worth and portfolio?”
Global Climate Deal and the Missing Link
Posted by Jonathan Cloud in Carbon Pollution, Climate Change, Energy & Environment, Global, Policy on Saturday, January 24, 2015
The climate deal fleshed out in Lima, Peru, is that all countries can set their own climate goals [1,2,3]. But will this be effective in preventing dangerous greenhouse gas emissions? Very unlikely, writes Delton Chen (Geo-Hydrologist, Civil Engineer):
During the past 250 years of industrial and technological revolution, the primary catalyst for innovation and the fundamental driver of economic growth has been the availability of fossil fuels (i.e. coal, oil and gas). To avoid extremely dangerous climate change, the global economic system must be re-organised at a fundamental level, and the new order must include a social transformation that grows exponentially; otherwise the required mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will be too slow to avoid a climate catastrophe.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was put into effect in 1994, and civilisation officially acknowledged that it was ‘addicted’ to fossil fuels. The ultimate aim of the UNFCCC is to prevent “…dangerous human interference with the climate system”[4]. The recent UNFCCC’s meeting in Lima, Peru, provides the latest update on civilisation’s de-carbonisation program, but the results of the Lima meeting signify global action will be further delayed given that nations are only obliged to make voluntary commitments.
Recent Comments